Out of business and back…

November 21, 2005
These last days I’ve been out of business… the thing is that this month it’s been a really hard, tons of work to do, and I’ve been really tired.

I made one little progress… Finally I finished the Multiples, divisors and stuff like that chapter… In total I did 18 exercises and 3 were wrong with a hit rate of 82%, which is not bad, taking into account that I wasn’t really into that subject. Now, I will start the fractions chapter.

Another reason why I was so out of everything is that I’ve been traveling a lot this last month, since there’s been a lot of holidays… and one really strong is that I’ve been questioning a lot my math strategy, since so far, I haven’t progressed as much as I wanted.. I was thinking about changing books, since I realized that the idea of going through all the books from Mr. Baldor was really ambicious… In Colombia we spend 4 years through both books, with teachers, and time to study and do homework, and now I wanted to finish them in 4 months, studying by myself? So I started to search for books to finish my arithmetic’s study, but after searching I realized that there is not such book like the Baldor one, so I decided to try as hard as I can and finish this book… the good part is that after going through all the book I realized that the only long chapter that I have left is the fractions one… the rest are really important things that I need to learn in order to get a good result in the GMAT… The good thing is that I have different books for geometry and algebra, they are in English, and away from the Baldor series.

But making a good analysis with Andres we realized that the big problem is that I didn’t had a place where to study, so went shopping this weekend I we bought a desk and since then I been feeling great, I went back to study, finished one listening session for the TOEFL and also a little bit of other stuff, so now I feel like a new start =)

I am really sorry for being out so many days!
 
posted by Catalina at 11/21/2005, | 0 comments

TOEFL STRATEGY / ESTRATEGIA PARA EL TOEFL

November 01, 2005
On Saturday, I had my TOEFL simulation and on Sunday took the Grammar in Use evaluation, to see which units I should study, and to see which are my weak grammar points.

In 142 questions, I had 28 questions wrong and 114 questions right for a hit rate of 80% this is a good number, since I haven’t touched a grammar book in quite a long time. After the TOEFL simulation and the Grammar in Use test, I was able to prepare my strategy for this test.

First I will go through the Kaplan TOEFL workbook, they have something called powerlessons they have some for listening, structure and reading comprehension… they seem good and not too long, so I already classified them and if nothing weird goes on, I will be able to complete all of them in14 days.

After working on the kaplan’s workbook, I will go through my grammar in use lessons, the good thing is that they tell specifically the things that you have to work on, so there is no need to go through all of the book. Parallel to the grammar part, I will also work on the GMAT Reading Comprehension, so I can work on this verbal point for both tests.

On the listening section, my biggest concern is the concentration part, for this problem, I already got a good strategy… close my eyes. I also need to get my ear a little bit more used to English, but I think that I am o.k. in that department.

In top of all that I will be also working my vocabulary skills, for this a I have a very big set of words that are contained on my GRE book, I know that I won’t be able to finish this whole set, but it’s good to start building a stronger vocabulary. And for the Essay part, I will build a Template and then I will start to write some essays based on it.

My whole idea for the TOEFL is to get this test as an opportunity to build good basis for my GMAT test which is my final and biggest challenge.


El sábado tuve mi simulación del TOEFL y el domingo tome el examen de auto evaluación del libro de Gramática en Uso, para ver que unidades debo estudiar y ver mis puntos gramaticales débiles.

De 142 preguntas, tuve 28 preguntas equivocadas y 114 buenas, para una tasa del 80%, este es un buen numero, ya que no he tocado un libro de gramática en mucho tiempo. Después de la simulación del TOEFL y del libro de Gramática en Uso, pude preparar mi estrategia para este examen.

Primero, voy a trabajar en libro de ejercicios de Kaplan. Ellos tienen algo llamado Lecciones poderosas, para cada sección del examen, ellas parecen buenas y no son tan largas, ya las clasifique y si nada raro pasa, las podré completar en 14 días.

Después de esto, voy a trabajar a en mi libro de Gramática en uso, lo bueno es que ellos en la evaluación muestran cuales son las unidades con problemas y no hay que mirar todo el libro. Paralela a la parte gramatical, también voy a trabajar en la parte de comprensión de lectura para el GMAT y así estudiar esta parte verbal para ambos exámenes.

Para la parte de escucha, mi gran preocupación es la parte de concentración, ya para esto tengo una Buena estrategia, la cual es cerrar mis ojos, lo que necesito es también acostumbrar un poco mas mi oído al ingles, pero creo que estoy bien en ese departamento.


Además de todo esto, también estaré trabajando en mis habilidades de vocabulario, para esto tengo mi libro de GRE, el cual tiene una gran lista de palabras, las cuales no creo que vaya a poder terminar para el examen, pero si me va a ayudar a mejorar mi vocabulario. Para el ensayo, voy a construir un modelo y luego voy a empezar a trabajar en algunos ensayos basándome en el.

Mi idea con el TOEFL, es el poder tomar este examen como una oportunidad de construir buenas bases para el GMAT el cual es mi final y más grande reto.
 
posted by Catalina at 11/01/2005, | 86 comments