GMATFix Self-Study Guide www.GMATFix.

com Patrick Siewe

GMATFix Self-Study Guide

Introduction
In my experience, good tutoring or small group classes (5 or 6 students at most) yield the best
results, but to those for whom these are not realistic options, I have decided to write up this
self-study guide. Preparation can be divided into three overlapping processes:

1. Learn and Drill

2. Practice Testing
3. The Home Stretch

A thorough prep will take about 3 months to complete. If you have a lot less time, you can still
follow the steps, focusing on those areas where you are weakest while de-emphasizing areas
that are rarely tested.

Materials
Below are the materials you will need:

1. GMATFix App (https://gmatfix.com/app)

2. ManhattanPrep GMAT guides (https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/)
3. GMATPrep Software (requires an account at www.mba.com)

Learn and Drill

Divide each week into two halves: spend the first half going through lessons and the second
half running drills.

The Manhattan GMAT guides are divided into topics. Each week, go through a guide to learn
the topic; be sure to do end of chapter exercises to reinforce the newly acquired knowledge.
Once youve completed the guide, move on to drills.

Use the GMATFix App to setup and take timed drills on the topic you have learned. The App
has a drill engine which allows you to filter questions by topic and by difficulty. The drills
should be 10 questions in length. For the first two drills on a topic, do not worry about timing;
just focus on understanding. From then on, use the Auto-Time function in the drill setup wizard
to make the App automatically set your time limit based on the type and difficulty of the
questions selected.
GMATFix Self-Study Guide www.GMATFix.com Patrick Siewe

After each drill, review your work carefully. Within the App, you can watch me solve each
question. Some questions have multiple solutions; when that is the case, watch every solution
available. Basically, make the conscious decision to learn as much as you can from each
question.

After the review, take a break and then do another 10-question drill. If time allows, do a third
always reviewing after each drill. As the week progresses, gradually increase the difficulty level
of your drills. Questions in the first drill should be limited to difficulty levels [200-400], [400-
500] and [500-600]. The last day or two, run drills with harder questions [600-700] and [700+].
If your target score is under 700, you need not worry about the highest difficulty level. If
possible, do enough drills that complete 50% of the questions available in the App under that
weeks topic (The App will show you the completion level every time you filter the database for
specific criteria)

Practice Testing
Starting 8 weeks before your exam, you should take a practice test every two weeks. Use the
GMATPrep test software for this purpose. Although the software officially includes only 2
GMATFix Self-Study Guide www.GMATFix.com Patrick Siewe

practice tests for free, 2 more are available for sale. If you used the GMATFix App for your
drilling (as opposed to a book), you should already have a good sense of what is appropriate
pacing. The practice tests will reinforce this.

After each test, take time to review the questions as you would do after a drill. Learn as much
as you can from each question. This will take a lot of time, but its time well spent if you give
the task your full attention.

If youve exhausted all the practice tests available in GMATPrep, you can find pretty good tests
offered by 3rd parties such as ManhattanPrep, Veritas, or the Princeton Review

The Home Stretch

With 4 weeks to go, you should be done or almost done going through the lessons. This is the
time to refine areas that have given you trouble in the past; areas where you still lag behind
your goal.

This step requires a good understanding of the Report Card tool (within the GMATFix App). The
Report Card analyses the performance of all users of the App to assess how well each individual
is doing. It assigns an Accuracy grade and a Pacing grade to each topic. Grades range from F to
A+ where C corresponds to a user of average ability. You can use these grades to quickly figure
out where you stand relative to other users.

In addition, the Report Card lets you know what grade you should aim for based on the target
score you set when you first open the application. It also reports the completion level you have
achieved for every topic, so you can ensure that no stone remains unturned.
GMATFix Self-Study Guide www.GMATFix.com Patrick Siewe

Focus on areas where you are weakest. Continue to setup and take drills, then to review them.
If your target score is 700+, you can safely ignore the easiest difficulty level ([200-400]), and if
your target score is 640 or below, dont worry much about the highest difficulty level ([700+]).

This is also the time to re-study questions that have given you trouble in the past; in the
GMATFix App, filter by Status in order to find these questions, or filter by flag to find questions
youve flagged. Go over these again to learn as much as you can from them.

A Note about Reading Comprehension

As of this writing, the GMATFix App does not contain reading comprehension (RC) questions.
Practice RC directly out of the Official Guide books. Do one passage at a time then review the
questions. Set the timer by multiplying the number of questions by 2 (if the passage has 5
questions, give yourself 10 minutes to complete it).
GMATFix Self-Study Guide www.GMATFix.com Patrick Siewe

How to Review a Question

The GMATFix App has 1000s of videos of me solving every question in its database. Often I offer
several approaches to solving a question; to learn as much as you can from a question, try to
figure out why you missed it, and for verbal questions take the time to understand why each
wrong answer is incorrect. In addition, address the following:

Problem Solving
Study the different ways the question can be solved. Which strategy would be fastest, and
what could have tipped you off that the strategy could be used.

Data Sufficiency
Did you rephrase the question accurately? Did you take into account all the information given
in the prompt? Did you consider whether logical reasoning alone could solve the question or at
least rephrase or did you jump straight into building equations? Did you remember to ask
simply yourself whether the statements answer your rephrase instead of going back to the
original question all the time?

Critical Reasoning
Did you properly identify the conclusion? Did you come up with good predictions for what the
right answer might say? Did your predictions take into account the premises while remaining
relevant to the conclusion?

Sentence Correction
Was your approach efficient? Did you use splits to get rid of multiple choices at once? Did you
simply rely on what sounded right? Did you stop to think about the story behind the
sentence (the meaning behind the words)?

Reading Comprehension
Does your passage map reflect the big ideas without going into details? Is it well structured?
Did you make good predictions about what the right answer should say before reading the
answer choices?

After Reviewing the Question

In the App, mark each question as Got It! (green), Maybe (yellow) or Need Help (red)
depending on how likely you are to get a similar question correct on the exam. If the question is
a Maybe or Need Help, come back in about a week and attempt it again; see whether you
can better understand what makes the right answer right and the others wrong. You can also
flag questions that you want to find easily later.