I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi all,

Just took the exam today and scored 750.
My initial goal was to score above 700, but during my prep, I rose the bar to 730, as I did pretty well on the GMATprep tests I took. I beat these 2 goals and I'm more than satisfied.

Prep techniques are discussed at length in this forum, but I still would like to share a few notes.

1. Background: French, 32, Master's degree in Industrial Engineering. Work in Marketing, forgot about Maths a long time ago (esp. Geometry or Number properties)

2. Prep material:
- Manhattan GMAT 8 guides
- The 3 OG Guides (even though I mainly used the 12th edition)
- Nothing else (don't spend too much time browsing forums and don't try to resolve the trickiest questions that can be found on forums, they won't appear on test day, unless maybe for the very strongest candidates. Focus on OG questions.

3. How did I prepare?
- Prep length: 6 weeks. Worked 30 minutes to 1 hour per day for the first two weeks; 2 hours daily during week 3 and 4, and 3-4 hours daily during week 5.
I spent more than 8 hours daily preparing for the test during week 6.
I had taken a week off from work and I must say it surely was a good decision.
I was able to work extremely hard, while also getting some rest (except in the last 2 days, as I just couldn't sleep...)

- Prep plan - week 1 to 5:
First I went through all 8 Manhattan GMAT guides (I read every single letter of each book) and did the exercises at the end of each section.
The guides will point you to the relevant practice questions in the OG, so I basically just read the different chapters and did the recommended exercices that appeared in the books.
I finished my reading 5 days before the test, which means it took me 5 weeks (while working) to go through the whole GMAT material I had.
I did no CAT prep test before week 6 as I assumed the score would not provide an accurate estimate of my performance on test day (I did not master most of the concepts before reading the guides, so I did not see the point in taking the tests before finsihing getting the basics)

- Week 6:
Monday: took my first GMATPrep test: 750 (I skipped the essay section). I was full of joy
Tuesday: worked though my mistakes (GMAT prep does not provide explanations to the questions you answer incorrectly, so you need to search google and browse forums to get details and resolution steps)
Wednesday: MGMAT PRep: 710 (only drafted the essays). This test was way more difficult than the first one, and it turns out that the MGMAT prep test is actually considered harder than GMAT prep (the quant part at least).
GMATPrep: 740 (full test, GDay-1).
Then 750 on test day.

- Success factors:
1. Based on earlier forum comments, I decided not to neglect the verbal part. I worked very hard on RC and CR, as they are way tougher than they may seem at first.
Without a lot of practicing, it is difficult to master these questions, at least for a non-native speaker (it takes a lot of practice to understand what may or may not be a proper answer to the the differetn question types).
Remember that you can only achieve a high score by doing well in both sections.
However, I did not follow MGMAT's advice regarding note taking. It just made me waste time during prep tests and I found out that it was easier and faster for me to simply read the text and answer the questions. Still, take the habit of noting down the five possible answer choices (A,B, C..) and cross the ones that are obviously incorrrect.

2. SC: studied the MGMAT guide carefully. Honestly it helped on a few questions on test day (parallelism, use of possessive forms) but I'd say that it is probably the most challenging part to improve.
My opinion is that it takes years to master SC, not months.
Still, you can probably grab a few points with solid prep as some errors are easy to spot once you know the basic rules.

3. During my last prep week I also did something that I believe was vital for my success: I re-read the Number Properties, Word translation and Equations/VIC guides from page 1 to the last and re-did all related exercises.
It was very useful, as I found that the most difficult Quant concepts/questions, were in these areas.
I was able to do this only because I finished studying all 8 guides 1 week before the test and thus was able to allocate additional time to deep dive on my weaknesses.

4. Even though not fully representative of what you'll see on test day, the MGMAT CAT prep test is interesting to take. Indeed, as it pushes you to your limits, it allows you to identify weaknesses. This allowed me to put a special emphasis on probabilities and combinatorics in the last few days, which helped on test day.

Finally, I'd like to say that GMAT prep is very similar to the actual test.
In my case, I scored 740 and 750, and got a 750 on test day. Questions were of similar difficutly.

Also, although the first 10 questions are certainly important, you may answer incorrectly to SEVERAL of them and still score high. I did 1 or 2 mistakes in both GMATprep tests I took and still got a high score.
I screwed it on the MGMAT test (4 or 5 incorrect answers in the first series of 10) and still got a 43 in Quant.
On test day, I guessed (incorrectly) on the second question and still managed to bounce back.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE RUNNING AFTER TIME. I spent 6 minutes on 1 question (MGMAT prep test) and could not finish the test. The penalty is stiff for this.
Instead of struggling desperately to answer a question that seems easy (and ultimately answering it wrong), just let it go. It will take you just 2 or 3 questions to bounce back (and there are 37 questions in total).
Be ready to CUT YOUR LOSSES as mentioned by many people. It can save your score.

Please also note that the last 10 to 15 questions on test day seemed extremely easy. It does not mean I did poorly though. A friend of mine experienced the same.
So don't panic if you see easy questions on test day, you might still be doing well

Last but not least: AWA is tough for non native speakers. Prepare for it. I did so only in the last few days and it revealed quite challenging to finish each essay in 30 minutes.
Forums are filled with good templates, use them !

Let me know if any question, I'll be glad to answer if I can.

Vincent

PS: I want to thank Brian, Daniel and Inkybinky for their help in the last few days.

Congratulations. I'm always amazed when someone who's native tongue is not English is able to score so well on the verbal section. I couldn't imagine being able to score anything near that in another language, and I was raised bilingual!

such a great score! congrats! i had a question about the combination/permutation questions you encountered on the actual gmat, was it more like those in the OG or more like the ones in the manhattan study guide?

Thanks

tohin wrote: Based on earlier forum comments, I decided not to neglect the verbal part. I worked very hard on RC and CR, as they are way tougher than they may seem at first.
Without a lot of practicing, it is difficult to master these questions, at least for a non-native speaker (it takes a lot of practice to understand what may or may not be a proper answer to the the differetn question types).
Remember that you can only achieve a high score by doing well in both sections.

congrats......
did you use OG+Manhattan only for this too or some other material also ?

Hi,

First of all, thanks for reading my post; i did not realize It was so long...

Regarding probabilities/combinatorics, the questions I saw during the actual test were extremely simple.
I think there were two and one was sthg like: "15 people must board a plane. A security guy Will inspect the luggage of 3 passengers. Whats the probability that bill, mark and joe (who travel with the group) will go through inspection together".
So way easier than mgmat.

Regarding rc and cr I indeed used mgmat and og as well. I went through every single exercise in the og books for these 2 topics and read explanations for all questions, even if I had the correct answer.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

nice score! how did you prepare for Quant and Verbal?

Hi skins81,

I tried to explain it all in my initial post.

In short:
1. Prepared during 6 weeks.
2. I used the MGMAT guides (there are 8). I read every single page of these guides. They cover most (if not all) GMAT topics. They're easy to read and very well done. I used them to prepare for both Verbal and Quant.
I actually did read 3 of these guides twice: Number properties, Equations/VICS and Word translations.
3. I also used the Official Guides (12th edition + Verbal and Quant Review 2nd editions). I did all questions that were recommended in the MGMAT books + the full CR and RC sections.
4. Took 3 CAT Prep (GMATPrep 1 & 2 and MGMAT CAT1). Analyzed explanation to every single question of thiese tests.

A few tips:
- Get used to DS questions, remember to consider each statement individually
- Focus on Verbal if you're already good at quant. Verbal is the toughest part for non native speakers.
- Do not hesitate to guess, even if the question is one of the firsts in the test.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

Vincent

thanks!

so for CR and SC do you think it is enough to do all the problems from OG? is this part similar to the actual test from the OG?

Hi,

As mentioned, I used mgmat for the theoretical part first (how to approach such problems). Then I did all exercises I could find in the OG.
I would also recommend reading books/newspapers in English on a daily basis if you can.

Vincent

Great score! Congrats.

I am using the MGMAT guides for verbal section and I also feel that taking notes before answering questions on CR and RC is very time consuming...

Thanks!

Hello Vincent. Congratulations on such a brilliant score. I have a question to you regarding OG practice questions and original GMAT questions. Do you think the difficulty level of the real GMAT questions and OG practice questions are similar?? And what was your success rate while you were practicing the OG questions for individual segments such as PS, DS, SC, CR, RC.

Hi newmoon,

It's a tough question to answer...
In short, questions in the og are past gmat questions, so this is what you can expect to see in the test.
However, difficulty varies: some questions are easier than others in the guide.
And remember that gmat is a CAT: difficulty will adjust to your level.

I did lots of mistakes answering verbal questions initially and improved over time.
Same with ds questions: you need to get used to them (e.g. stop assuming you know statement 1 when considering statement 2..) before hitting high scores.

In my case, mgmat and the og guides were sufficient to prepare the exam.
Once you're good with theory, do a few practice CATs to get a feel of what the exam will look like.

Vincent

Congratulations for your score and best of luck for your applications.. Any idea if the difficulty level of verbal questions in GMAT was comparable to later questions of OG ( Verbal sections ) as I have heard last few questions of OG are the harder ones. Also , did you see any idiom usage questions in GMAT exam.

I'd say easier.
But again, I scored 42. The questions you'll see will depend on your level.

v