Monday, June 26, 2006

Practice makes perfect, right?

This weekend I did a lot of practice problems. Well "a lot" is relative I suppose. I did roughly 10 s.c., 35 C.R., 22 D.S., and 30 P.S. I made 1 mistake on the SC, 4 mistakes on the C.R., 1 on the D.S. and 2 on the P.S. What irritates me about my mistakes is that once I review the problem without knowing the correct answer I can find the correct answer immediately. The mistake I've made is either reading the question wrong or when I narrow my answer choice down to two choices, I pick the incorrect one. Doing each section separately I didn't make any errors until at least 10 to 15 prolems in (accept for the S.C., I made that error on the second question!).

I keep reading about how the Princeton Review is too easy and I'm starting to worrry. Although the practice problems they have me doing are from the O.G. 11, I still worry that I should be doing worse than I am? Or maybe I should just have a little more confidence and assume that my practicing is making me almost perfect ;-) ? I am going to take my second Princeton practice exam tomorrow. My first one didn't go so well (640) but that was done before I did any studying. So I'm hoping this time I'll get at least a 720. Then by my next practice exam I can reach my official target score of 750 and keep that consistent for the following practice exams.

I can't help but wonder if I should be taking more practice exams? At the moment I am only doing what is assigned by the Princeton Review course. Maybe I should start taking 1 practice exam per week? Maybe buy the Kaplan book with the CD of pracitce exams? I can build up my stamina for the real thing? One of my major problems with the GMAT is sitting still for that long. I think I have adult on-set ADD! Even at work I have to get up every 15 to 20 minutes. I just can't sit still for that long.

I'm also starting to worry about applications. I've done nothing in terms of figuring out goals, leadership examples, why now, etc., ...I just can't multitask. I am not the typical woman. I can't balance work, studying, and applications all on top of my regular day to day life. I have my properties to manage, tenants to pacify, a dog that must go on a 5 mile run every day, salsa dancing to do, etc. etc. etc. I guess I could change my priorities around a little bit like all of those other bloggers out there that are complaining of no life but the GMAT, but I just can't do it. I like my life too much. I just need to get teh GMAT out of the way first and then I can focus on apps. I just hope I am not leaving myself too little time for the apps considering I'm not taking the GMAT until the beginning of August? I suppose only time will tell!

1 comment:

Inblue said...

Hey dont go a lot by princeton scores. They mislead at times.It happened to me. A good approach will be to minimise the number of incorrect questions on the GMAT than breaking the score barrier. And yeah do try Kaplan tests, I have not tried it ( am going to do one this weekend ) but i hear that they are a lot more difficult.


For your apps, keep the apps aside for now. Do some soul searching once in a while and note it somewhere.