Beat The GMAT

ksmrahc · Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:43 am

My scores were surprising to say the least. I scored higher than any of the practice exams even higher than the times when I reset GMATPREP and actually encountered repeated questions. My only study materials were Manhattan Gmat books 1-8 and the Official Guides. I studied hard for 2 months prior to the exam. About 4-6 hours everyday. Prior to that I studied on and off for another 2 months. When I first started I got about 30% of the questions in the OG guide correctly. So quite a leap really in the past 4 months. I am a graphic designer desiring a career change to marketing. Here are my practice test scores.

GMATPREP 1 - 650
CAT 1 - 620
CAT 2 - 640
CAT 3 - 650
CAT 4 - 670
GMATPREP 2 - 680
CAT 5 - 690
CAT 6 - 640
GMATPREP 2 (reset) - 690
GMATPREP 1 (reset) - 710

I did nothing special really just went through the books mentioned above, took notes and practice, practice, practice. I had terrible sleep the night before the exam because of nerves. On the day of my adrenaline was pumping and while taking the exam I breezed through the quantitative section. This is highly unusual since I never finished the quant section in any of my practice exam. I guess all that adrenaline helped me do well.

The AWA was unexpected because I actually didn't know that the sample questions on the Official Guide was what they used in the exam. So that was a pleasant surprise. The Quantitative section I found easier than in any of the practice exams even the Gmatprep, and definitely easier than Manhattan CAT tests. Verbal was also pretty straightforward. It was pretty easy to spot the flaws in Sentence Correction. Again I think that the adrenaline made me really alert.

That's it! I just feel so lucky and blessed.