Study Timings

I'm definitely not a morning person, and early morning means something around 8:00 am for me. I've scheduled my study time from 11:00 pm to 1:00 am or 2:00 am every day and also, the time I get after work (which varies, depending on the meetings scheduled for the late evenings. I don't want to comment on this, I guess it is pretty much understandable). I usually reach home around 9:30 to 10:00 pm and then laze around for a bit, catching up on the news and then deciding what to do for dinner. By the time I've settled down to study it's 11:00 pm! I must also try and get some time during the lunch breaks. In the mornings, I usually work on verbal, because there are a lot of distractions around me and I can do CR and SC with distractions around, but not RC. Speaking of  RC, I haven't touched RC in a long while now.

Progress in week 18

I have the preparatory course material and I managed to cover the Time, Speed and Distance, Races, Pipes and Cisterns and Work and Time problems this week. My plan for today is to do the AP, GP chapter. I have this weekend for Geometry. I need to complete the review of all the chapters in the preparatory material by the 13th of May. I have to give a practice test that day and two more on the weekend and then continue with 3 practice tests a week, till the exam. Also, it's time for me to start taking notes. Whatever I study seems to evaporate into thin air!

Week 18

God, how time flies! I have 18 weeks left and I'm not even confident with the fundamentals. I went through the ARCO guide and it looks like there is NO other way to do quant effortlessly than bury myself in books on the basics. I have given myself 4 more weeks for the basics, which would include the 4GMAT books and a revision of the Manhattan Guides (including the advanced chapters). So I should be ready to go with the ARCO, Kaplan and OG by the start of week 14.

On to Peterson's ARCO

Well, I've decided to move on to ARCO and focus on the Quant there. I read in the gmatclub forum that focusing on OG at an early point in preparation is a waste of Official questions. Might as well listen to those who have experience. My focus will be to work on ARCO, Kaplan for Quant and then work on ARCO and Kaplan again for Verbal and then finally move on to OG and the Manhattan Advanced topics (plus revise the chapters already done in the Manhattan guides). In addition, I also have the 4GMAT material to go through when I have extra time.

The first 100 questions in OG-12

My scores for the first hundred questions:

SC: 19/20
CR:18/20
RC:17/20
PS:15/20
DS:14/20

I did this over a couple of days. Doing 20 questions at a time on verbal tires me out. Maybe I should try doing 10 of each?

Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan

Here, at last, some refreshing books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Sick of all the know it alls whom I've met, I'm really glad to be reading someone who is cautious and is not ashamed to say "I don't know". This man's writing style s simply awesome. Read it to believe it. 

I got this book (the combined volume of both books) at a bookshop near work today. I was rationalizing with myself not to buy it, since I had already read the pdf versions of the book, and I didn't understand why I had to have the book (Taleb has an explanation why), but I simply couldn't resist buying it. One thing, it is not light reading. It is the kind of book that has to be digested. I'm reading it in bits and pieces and feeling rather amused at Taleb's observations. Someone who knows what he's talking about. I feel nothing less than affection for him and I'm an enthusiastic promoter of his books now. I've already convinced a couple of my friends to buy the books and I can be quite convincing when I try :-)

Progress on OG-12

There are roughly about 800 questions on OG-12, which means if I need to complete OG-12 in 10 day's time, I need to be doing at least 80 questions a day. I would alternate between DS and PS, since DS is a primitive form of PS. I'm planning to do 20 questions of DS/PS, 20 SC, 20 CR and 20 RC per day.

Feeling low today...

Due to various happenings in my personal life, I'm at an all time low today. I did login to gmatclub and try to answer some of the questions, but I simply don't have the energy to think up explanations. Sometimes, I just don't know what to do with myself. I'm just exasperated that something external could cause such internal turmoil and ruin the day for me. Anyway, is that just me or does everyone else feel the same?

Started with OG-12

Done with the arithmetic, algebra, geometry and word translations on OG-12. Is this all there is to it? I feel like I'm missing something.

Verbal Diagnostic on OG 12

Well, I don't have good news here either. I only managed to score 13/17 on RC and 10/17 on SC. I'm off to do CR and then DS. This plainly puts me in the average range. My inspirational quote of the day is "I can and I will, watch me".

My CR score is 11/17. This falls in the above average category. I've put off taking the DS test till my day's study is done, because I end up feeling worthless and depressed after a low score. If I do it at the end of the day, usually I'm happy to go to sleep and forget about all this and have pleasant dreams.

Quant Diagnostic on OG-12

I took the quant diagnostic on OG-12 and found that I got only 10 out of 24 right. Am I nuts? The rest of the answers, I wasn't sure, were plain wrong or I was clueless about them. My weak areas according to the diagnostic were Permutations and Combinations, Probability (no surprises there), Geometry, Rate problems and Set Theory. Note to myself: I better put in some hard work on these areas to avoid any more surprises in the future.

I was so dumbfounded that I didn't progress to data sufficiency and the rest of the verbal. I'll take those today.

Progress so far...

I'm almost done with all the MGMAT guides upto the data sufficiency chapters. I have about 4 chapters to go in MGMAT Word Translations guide and am midway through the Reading Comprehension guide. Reading comprehension is something I'll have to work on. I saw that from my TOEFL score. Reading comprehension was my lowest (24/30). Working on Reading Comprehension just before bed is one sure way to fall asleep. After this, my plan is to start with the Official Guide 12 and then come back to the Advanced Topics in the MGMAT guides, since a lot of MGMAT guides refer back to OG 12. I was sad after my last test performance. Though it was not a full length test, I saw how badly I performed and how much work was needed on concepts. After completing MGMAT Word Translations and MGMAT RC, I'll give a shot at the GMAT Prep this week.