![\"Manhattan](\"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/03\/3-7-17-social-1.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Guess what?\u00a0You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free\u2014we\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n When you first start studying, you\u2019re going to do GMAT problems one at a time and then check your work and analyze the problem. But, eventually, you\u2019re going to need to graduate to <\/span>sets<\/span><\/i> of GMAT problems that allow you to practice your executive decision-making\u2014as on the real test.<\/span><\/p>\n So how do you do that? How many should you do at once? Where should you get those problems? How should you choose which ones to do?<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re going to talk about right now.<\/span><\/p>\n Because the real test will never give you just one problem!<\/span><\/p>\n The GMAT is a mental marathon with a serious time constraint. You can\u2019t do everything in the time given, so you\u2019re going to have to make some smart choices about what to do and how to do it, as well as what <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> to do.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s crucial, then, to practice under testing conditions\u2014you actually have to practice all of that <\/span>Executive Decision-making<\/span><\/a>, too, not just how to solve an equation or deal with some modifier rule.<\/span><\/p>\n You want to practice two things that mimic the real test:<\/span><\/p>\n (1) Jumping around among question types and topics<\/span><\/p>\n (2) Managing your timing and mental energy among a group of questions<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019re going to use problem sets to test your skills, so you\u2019ve got to develop some of those skills first. If you\u2019re using MPrep\u2019s Strategy Guides to study, then at the end of one chapter, you\u2019ll start with just a few Official Guide* (OG) problems to test your understanding of the material in the chapter and to learn to apply it to official-format problems.<\/span><\/p>\n Also, in the first few weeks, you\u2019re going to do \u201cone-off\u201d problems: try it, then review it, then try another and review it.<\/span><\/p>\n A week or two in, as you build your skills, start doing small timed sets: 2, 3, 4 problems. Give yourself an appropriate block of time and make yourself finish in that time, even if that means guessing to finish (just like the real test!).<\/span><\/p>\n At this point in your studies, you\u2019re going to create the sets yourself because you want some control over the type of material that shows up in the set. (Later on, we\u2019ll talk about some resources that can create random question sets for you.)<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019ll need to balance three things when you create a problem set:<\/span><\/p>\n (1) <\/span>Number of problems.<\/span><\/i> Initially, start out with 2 to 4 problems. As you gain experience and add topics, you\u2019ll increase the size of the sets\u2014we\u2019ll talk more about this a little later.<\/span><\/p>\n (2) <\/span>Type of problem and content.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n (a) For Quant, always do a mix of Problem Solving (PS) and Data Sufficiency (DS). For Verbal, mix SC and CR or do RC by itself; you can mix all three types in larger sets later on. <\/span> (3) <\/span>Difficulty level.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n (a) For all types except Reading Comprehension, the OG places problems in roughly increasing order of difficulty. Problem 3 is easier than problem 50, which is easier than problem 102. Include a mix of difficulty levels in your set.<\/span> If you are using MPrep\u2019s Strategy Guides, then you also have access to our OG Problem Sets document. This PDF lists every OG problem by MPrep Strategy Guide and chapter. For instance, for our Algebra Strategy Guide, you\u2019ll see a list of OG problems that fall under the categories Exponents, Roots, Linear Equations, Quadratic Equations, and so on. All you need to do is look up the chapters you\u2019ve been studying and grab a problem from each.<\/span><\/p>\n As you start to get more than halfway through your study materials for any particular question type (e.g., SC) or area (e.g., algebra), you can start to try some larger sets of 6 or 8 questions.<\/span><\/p>\n These sets of GMAT problems should mix topics (and question types!) across most or all of an entire book (or even across books\u2014maybe it includes algebra and word problems). Make sure you can distinguish between the similar-but-not-quite-the-same topics in any one book or topic area and also practice your skills on, for example, both Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency. As you keep working and finish subsequent chapters or guides, your sets can include problems from everything you\u2019ve done so far. Keep mixing it up!<\/span><\/p>\n You do! Join us next time, when we\u2019ll talk about when and how to expand your sets and make them even more GMAT-like as you get further along in your studies.\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n Can\u2019t get enough of Stacey\u2019s GMAT mastery? Attend the first session of one of her upcoming GMAT courses<\/a> absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Guess what?\u00a0You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free\u2014we\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. When you first start studying, you\u2019re going to do GMAT problems one at a time and then check your work and analyze the problem. But, eventually, you\u2019re going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,52871,930,1],"tags":[315,52993],"yst_prominent_words":[53868,53635,53781,53706,55075,55072,54615,53704,55047,53787,53866,55069,55043,55073,55071,55068,54537,53867,55074,55070],"class_list":["post-13238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-uncategorized","tag-gmat-problem-sets","tag-mimic-the-gmat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13238"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13475,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13238\/revisions\/13475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13238"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhy should I do sets of GMAT problems?<\/b><\/h4>\n
When do I start doing problem sets?<\/b><\/h4>\n
How do I put these sets together?<\/b><\/h4>\n
\n<\/span>(b) Do <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> do a set of 3 or more questions all from the same chapter or sub-content area\u2014for example, don\u2019t put 3 exponents questions in a set. The real test makes you jump around, so practice that.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>(b) Note: your personal strengths and weaknesses will affect how you perceive the problems\u2014you might think a lower-numbered problem is hard or a higher-numbered problem is easy. They are\u2026for you! Expect that kind of outcome sometimes.<\/span><\/p>\nHow do I know which OG problems test which topics?<\/b><\/h4>\n
When will I be ready to do more than 4 questions in a set?<\/b><\/h4>\n
Got it\u2014up to 8 questions in a set. Do I ever do more?<\/b><\/h4>\n
*<\/span>The Official Guide for GMAT\u00ae Review<\/span><\/i> is an official publication from the makers of the GMAT. It contains about 900 real, past GMAT questions. It\u2019s a great resource\u2014if you don\u2019t have it, you should definitely get it.<\/span><\/h6>\n
Read on for Part 2 of this series!<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n
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\n![\"stacey-koprince\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/stacey-koprince-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California.<\/strong> Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT \u00a0for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"