Again

Since I wasn't happy with my results yesterday I decided to go over those chapters once more to reinforce my knowledge, here is how I did this time:

1. Divisibility & Primes (13/15) 87%
2. Odds & Evens (14/15) 93%

I know that I've already done these practice exercises once so it's not completely accurate but I just felt I needed to repeat what I had learned and practice is the best way to learn.

I had a long way at work today, only managed to squeeze in less than two hours of study time in the evening. I am a little worried how this is going to work out now that I'm back at work, I'll never reach 700 in a month if I study two hours a day. Maybe I can take some more time off work next week although I doubt it.

Number Properties

I got started on the MGMAT books, first being Number Properties, I'm going to go through all the chapters and note down how much I score in the problem sets for each chapter so I will later know what I need to review.

1. Divisibility & Primes (10/15) 67%
2. Odds & Evens (11/15) 73%
3. Positives & Negatives (13/15) 87%
4. Consecutive Integers (12/15) 80%
5. Exponents (11/15) 73%
6. Roots (8/15) 53%
7. PEMDAS (6/10) 60%

Reading comprehension

Finished the reading comprehension chapter in the Kaplan 2010 book, got 42 of the 50 practice questions right, that's 84%. Not bad, I think. I had almost a week long pause due to a work related training event, glad to see that I haven't forgotten what I had learned previously.

This morning I got some Manhattan books in the mail, both quantitative and verbal, eight books altogether, I think I will move to those now. I have finished the verbal part in the Kaplan 2010 book, the quantitative part doesn't seem that good in this book since it's not that detailed, I'm hoping the Manhattan books will bring me up to speed better than the Kaplan would.

Overall progress as of today:

Verbal

• Critical Reasoning strategies and practice questions in Kaplan 2010 (86%)
  
• Sentence Correction strategies and practice questions in Kaplan 2010 (76%)
  
• Reading Comprehension strategies and practice questions in Kaplan 2010 (84%)

Practice tests

• Kaplan diagnostic test 66%
  

Sentence Correction

Finished the sentence correction chapter in the Kaplan book. I got 38 out of the 50 practice questions right, that's 76% correct. I feel I need to work more on this section. It's not awful, but I can do better. I don't really know any of the rules of English grammar, I write and speak based purely on what feels right to me. I got some good pointers from the chapter. I think the Kaplan Verbal Workbook, which I'm going to order, will be more detailed. I think I'm also going to order the book called one thousand and something GMAT questions because practice makes perfect. I feel that the Kaplan book doesn't really have enough practice questions, I think they should at least double the number of questions to a hundred. At least.

Next is Reading Comprehension.

Critical Reasoning

Just finished the critical reasoning strategy chapter in the Kaplan book. I think it was quite useful and the strategy introduced will help.

I also took the practice quiz at the end of the chapter and I got 43 out of 50 right, that's 86%. Not bad. I feel that I'd like a bit more practice before the test though so I'm probably going to order the Kaplan Verbal Workbook as well.

Onwards to Sentence Correction!

Kaplan diagnostic test

I just finished the Kaplan diagnostic test, got 66%. Not awful but I'm not exactly where I want to be either. I still got a lot of work ahead of me.

Yesterday I got started on the Kaplan book, read the chapter on critical reasoning strategies and did some practice exercises. I think I did pretty well, although, according to the OG diagnostic test, I was most skilled at critical reasoning.

I'm not studying as much as I'd like to. I have to somehow find a way to motivate myself better. Soon I won't have much time to study and I need to take the test in a couple of months.

Review later

Here is a list of questions I need to review later (when I know more than I know now):
OG12 Diagnostic test
Quantitative:
5 (Geometry Volume)
10 (Geometry Angles and their measure)
13 (Arithmetic Operations on rational numbers)
14 (Arithmetic Operations on rational numbers) - I solved it differently and got the right answer
20 (Geometry Volume)
22 (Geometry Volume)
28 (Geometry Triangles)
36 (Geometry Circles)
39 (Geometry Coordinate geometry)
41 (Algebra Inequalities)
44 (Arithmetic Properties of numbers)
48 (Geometry Rectangle; Perimeter; Area)

Diagnostic test

So last night I got started on the diagnostic test in OG12. I probably wasn't in the best shape to be taking a test but didn't want to waste any time, I finished the verbal part this morning.

Here is how I scored:
Problem Solving - Average
Data Sufficiency - Below Average
Reading Comprehension - Average
Critical Reasoning - Above Average
Sentence Correction - Average

So, not that great really. Means I've got a lot of work to do. I expected to score higher on the verbal part, but as I said earlier, I wasn't in the best shape to be taking a test. Anyway, the only way is up. I better get cracking.

First day!

Today I got the GMAT textbooks I had ordered:
12th Edition Review
Quantitative Review
Verbal Review
Kaplan Premier 2010 Edition
Manhattan Review Math
Manhattan Review Verbal

So far I've only read the introductory chapter in the OG12 and Kaplan books, just had lunch a bit too much wine so probably not the best time to study. I plan to take the diagnostic test in the OG12 soon.