Motivational Monday-I'm back

Yes I'm back. I hit a bit of a roadblock and everything came to a stop. Staying focused on the GMAT is hard. A full time job and a family cuts into your study time a lot. So I had to back to the drawing board and figure out a schedule of how to fit it all in.

Eric is right. Exercising consistently is key. The GMAT is a long test and I have yet to discipline myself to take practice tests under simulated testing conditions.

While I have not really been taking the practice tests as I should I have been making progress. I have been making my very own flashcards. This has meant going back to review what I had already read before but hey, I'm sure I will be glad I did in the end. My plan, as most people usually do, is to review these flashcards every day...really get those concepts into my head. They will specifically be for those times when I do not have big stretched of time available to study. Anyway-we'll see how it goes.

Motivational Monday-It's all about preparation

How prepared are you to take the GMAT? Are you confident that the strategies you have learned and your knowledge will earn you the desired score?

If you are not sure yet...you might need a little more preparation. Happy Monday everyone. I am off to study, and work.

Caught up in Work

I have not been blogging lately, and to my detriment I also have not been studying. A major project came up at work that took up most of my time. It is done now and I should be able to go back to uninterrupted studying this Monday. I don't know how working people squeeze study time in. I'd appreciate the tips.

Motivational Monday-(WWJBD)What would Joe Bloggs Do?

Some of us need a little nudge to get going on Mondays (ie Me!) So in order to stay focused and motivated I have decided Monday's will be motivational day. Sayings, quotes, thoughts, etc. that will inspire me to keep going on this GMAT journey I've embarked.

Princeton Review first introduced me to Joe Bloggs, the average GMAT tester who scores in the average range.

I took a GMAT diagnostic test and found out I am Joe Bloggs! Above average in verbal but not so much in quant :(

I shouldn't be surprised, I knew quant was going to be my weak spot. What was surprising though was finding out I scored better on data sufficiency than in Problem Solving...(weird, but I'll take it.) So I have decided to go back to basics. Like Mark Zuckerberg says...do the easier stuff first, or in this case the medium level questions...once those come naturally, breaking down the tough ones should not be so hard.

Looking back my mistakes were careless. I didn't think about all possibilities and instead made assumptions about a problem. For instance I came across a problem yesterday about the probability about being picked for secretary or treasurer but before that a president had to be picked. I completely ignored to take into account the odds of not being picked for president and focused only on secretary and treasurer because that is what the problem asked for...see-careless!

That being said I think I can work on it. I just have to get used to thinking about the whole picture. So what would Joe Bloggs do? Probably quit cause its hard, or look for the easiest response which means I have to keep going and leave Joe Bloggs behind.

Study Day 4-Angles, Angles Angles

I finished the review on permutations, combinations and probability yesterday and after I gave my brain a chance to breathe it actually did not seem so daunting. I am well on my way to geometry now. From what I can tell geometry is a very small portion of the test but I am going to have to memorize the formulas needed to solve certain geometry problems because Alas-I didn't bother to do so in high school. Back then I figured I would never ever use geometry again.

I'm almost done with the Math Portion of the Princeton review.  I do feel like I have a better understanding of the concepts but I don't feel ready to tackle the toughest problems yet. I think I still need more (lots more) practice. This Sunday I plan on taking my first practice test to see where I'm at and I have also signed up for Beat The GMAT's 60-Day GMAT Study Guide! 60 days of emails with specific GMAT prep activities. I just feel like it will give me a little structure and keep me on the correct path. Today was day 0 which was just an introduction of whats to come but tomorrow I get my first official email-exciting!!

Study Day 3-Probability, Permutations and Combinations-->Lack of Concentration

ARRGGG!!! I am having the worst time concentrating on this. What do you do when you just can't focus? Go for a walk? clear your head? Or should I switch gears and give math a break and work on some verbal? I guess I'll take a break. Get some mental sanity. I'll be back to update later.

-----------------------------------------LATER-----------------------------------------------------------
Okay, mini melt down over. I took a breather and cleared my head. I didn't go back to permutations instead I  reviewed what I had read so far. Repeated the drill exercises and actually understood why the correct answer was correct--so that is progress right there. Don't you just hate it when you read a math problem and  you have no idea how to begin solving it and then to make matters worse you learn how to solve it and you think, "well, that wasn't complicated at all!" That's kind of what was going on today.

I have a good two hours before I go to bed and I figure I might as well read up on where I left off. After all, I am feeling motivated from being able to understand the problems I reviewed so I'll sail on that. Back to the Books I go. 

Study Day 2-Princeton Review Arithmetic and Algebra

I finally finished the arithmetic section of the Princeton review. I am now starting to review the algebra portion of the book.The concepts are coming back to me but data sufficiency is still giving me a little bit of a hard time. Still Princeton Review does a good job of breaking them down I think. Their flow chart for tackling data sufficiency was particularly handy, at least for me. As a computer science engineer flowcharts became like a second language to me.

So basically the way to work them is:

I'm a very visual person, so being able to see path to take when facing data sufficiency questions helps. I stop worrying about all the answer choices and focus on the ones that it could be. I still have a long way to go with data sufficiency but I think practice will be the key.

I feel like I am moving at such a slow pace. I love reading, and I can usually read a good book in one sitting, but this book. It is around 300 pages and I just reached the 100s yesterday. In high school and in college I had a completely different mindset when it came to studying. I relied on my natural smarts, what I listened to in class and a cram session. That is all it took and I made really good grades so in studying for this test I have to fight the urge to skim through the chapters and jump to the exercises. I am reading, taking notes, doing the exercises, checking them and if there is a mistake I don't move on until I understand why I made the mistake and how to arrive at the correct answer. I hope to take a practice test by the end of this week to see where I'm at .

Slow and steady wins the race; after all, the tortoise did beat the hare. I just have to remember that. Back to the books.