Sunday, January 23, 2011

Veritas Prep Classes 3 and 4

Sitting through class vs. On Demand videos

This past week I sat through Classes 3 (Critical Reasoning) and 4 (Algebra) of Veritas Prep without having first gone through the lessons using the On Demand recorded videos. Now that I have gone through the On Demand videos for both classes (after the physical classes), I feel much more comfortable about the content. It took about 6 hours to sit through both classes and 5 hours to go through both On Demand videos.

This is in contrast to my experience with Classes 1 (Arguments) and 2 (Arithmetic) where I went through the On Demand videos BEFORE attending the classes. In those instances, I tended to switch off during various parts of the class, in part because I had already heard the lesson.

Going forward, I will attend the class first and then go through the On Demand video for reinforcement.

By the way, I think the On Demand videos are fantastic in that they allow you to go entirely at your own pace. A 3 hour class after a day at work is very difficult to get through and I am often more focused on when the lesson will end because I am both tired and hungry between 7pm - 10pm.

One disappointing thing that happened this week was that, after I switched from the Essentials package (which comprises 2 full weekend days of instruction) to the full Veritas Prep course (which comprises 14 classes over 7 weeks, each lasting 3 hours), something went wrong with my On Demand account and it said that I had to renew my subscription for $99 (as it had apparently expired). This is now fixed up, and in any case turned out to be a blessing in disguise because, as mentioned above, I am finding it much more helpful to sit the class before turning to the On Demand video.

Problem Questions

I found the problem questions in Class 3 (Critical Reasoning) reasonably challenging but, thankfully, got most of them correct. There are a couple of questions I'd like to run through in class next week (the first half-hour of every class is dedicated to going through homework questions from the week before). It took about 1 hour to go through the problem questions.

I have found that the "SWIMMER" technique, which is a proprietary Veritas Prep technique to attack Critical Reasoning questions, is only mildly useful. Probably the most useful aspect of it is that, in "Inference" questions, it teaches you to select the answer which "MUST BE TRUE" from the inferences drawn in the body of the question.

As for the problem questions in Class 4 (Algebra), I'll do these tomorrow (and will also try to fit in a practice CAT) and update the blog in due course.

Running tally to date:

  • 37 hours of prep work (including going through materials, doing practice questions, attending class, and checking answers and mistakes; does NOT include taking practice CAT exams) since 3 January 2011.
  • 2 CAT exams.
    • 620/40Q/35V, 05.01.11 [GMATSim1]
    • 610/33Q/41V, 12.01.11 [800Score1].

1 comment:

  1. Nice to hear of your progress :)
    I was waiting for your posts - just some motivation for me!!

    Keep the posts coming

    ReplyDelete