Beat The GMAT

chmny3 · Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:31 am

I just took my GMAT on Monday morning and got a 700 (quant 46, verbal 40).

Quick background: I have always hated and feared math. I hated every single math class I took in high school and suffered through calculus my senior year. I went to a liberal arts college and ended up in marketing. I have always felt that although I have been able to excel in other areas, my math abilities were constantly way under par with what what I expected of myself. That being said, I knew going into it, quant was my greatest enemy. Regardless of my actual ability level in math, I had spent so much of my life assuming I was terrible at math, that I think the hurdle was as equally psychological as it was cerebral.

My very first practice test without studying (MGMAT CAT) 5/30/2009: 600 (Q39, V34)

I ended up taking a Manhattan GMAT course and it was the best decision I could have made. As I was weak in quant, the strategy guides and courses were exactly what I needed. The topics were broken down into digestible bits and pieces and the curriculum had a lot of practice built into it. And since the strategy guides were separated by "basic" and "advanced," I stuck to basic in the beginning. The courses were also a big confidence boost; made me feel like the quant section wasn't nearly as evil & diabolical as I had originally thought.

Since I knew my verbal only needed a bit of work, I honestly never picked up any of the verbal guides, nor did I do any of the verbal assignments. I focused on doing all of the quant work diligently, though. My practice scores were:

6/21: MGMAT 2: 650 (quant 42, verbal 36)-->at this point I got very excited by my 3 point increase in quant in a little under a month
7/19: MGMAT 3: (quant 40, verbal 35) --> frustrated by my decrease in quant
8/2: MGMAT 4: 640 (quant 43, verbal 34) --> feeling better.. highest quant score to date

At this point, my Manhattan GMAT course ended, and I focused solely on reviewing my flash cards and re-doing problems that I got wrong. Throughout my time in the course, I would make flash cards for any problems I got wrong or problems that I felt I would forget how to solve if I didn't go back to it later. As you can imagine, by the end of the course I had a large stack to go through. I also ended up taking 2 mba.com tests (I forget the dates) within 2 weeks of my actual exam:

Test 1: 700 (Q 47, V 38) --> almost the happiest day of my life
Test 2: 690 (Q 46, V 37) --> a bit disappointed

ACTUAL TEST: 8/19- 650 (Q40, V40)-- I completely choked on the actual exam and I knew it before I even finished. I spent too much time on a few problems and realized I had about 10-12 questions left with 15 minutes! It was terribly disappointing to see that my actual quant score on test day was basically the same score I got before I even studied!! Surprisingly, though, my verbal score was the highest I ever got, which is unusual since I hadn't studied verbal aside from doing the practice tests.

I realized after, though, that I had reached the point where my quant was getting good enough to start getting higher-600 level and 700-level questions. As a result, I would freak out and spend too much time on these hard problems, and then not have enough time to correctly solve the low and mid 600 level questions that I otherwise could solve. Also, I found the mba.com tests to somehow be a lot easier than what was on the actual exam.

I spent the next month and a half studying ONLY the 600-700 level questions I had gotten incorrect on my practice tests, and did the last 20-40 set of questions toward the end of the OG books. I knew that, practically speaking, my math ability really didn't allow for me to understand and solve a good portion of the very difficult 700-800 level questions, but RECOGNIZING the ones I DID know how to solve, and learning how to quickly make educated guesses on the harder ones- that was really invaluable. This was a key learning for me.

I ended up purchasing the GMAT Focus bundle- I know there are mixed reviews on this, but I found the problems to be a lot more challenging than alot of problems I hadseem before. There were also a lot of newer question types (like remainder questions) that I hadn't really seen much elsewhere.

GMAT focus 1: score range 39 - 44
GMAT focus 2: score range 41-49
GMAT focus 3: score range 44-48

REAL TEST: Monday, 10/19: 700 (Q 46, V 40). Although I was aiming for a 47 or a 48 in quant, I was ultimately just relieved that it was OVER. I had dedicated over 4 months of my life for this test, and it was just a relief. I had to stare at the screen multiple times before I let myself believe it.

Although a 46 doesn't seem like an excellent quant score to a lot of people (and, truthfully, I would have liked it a bit higher), I am nevertheless proud of myself that I was able to overcome this life-long fear of math and improve 7 points in quant throughout the course of my study.

Best of luck to everyone!

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uymba · Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:40 pm

600 -> 650 -> 700 -> ???

dude, take it again and you will socre 750!!! hehe just joking Smile

Sincerely, congratulations on the great score and thanks for sharing!!

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blackrobin06 · Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:34 pm

You are giving me some faith!!! Congrats on your score!!!

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beatthegmat · Fri Oct 23, 2009 3:36 pm

Congrats on your score! What an inspiring story--your persistence really paid off.

Good luck with your business school apps, I look forward to reading your progress there in the MBA discussion areas.

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Beat The GMAT

600(initial)--> 650 --> 700! (q46, v40)

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