Beat The GMAT a GMAT & MBA community

Hi Brandon,

Thank you for sharing your story and congratulations on getting a 760 on your first try!!

I have a simiar situations as yours. I graudated 3 years ago and have worked at a Big 4 accounting firm ever since. However, I got laid off last December (unfortunately I didn't get hired back right away!!)So I had to go back to my home country (as I was on H-1B working visa!!) to figure out what I should do next. I knew I wanted to go back to US as soon as possible, so I was thinking I should take the GMAT in February so that I could meet the third rounds of deadlines for a couple of schools. I studied GMAT for just roughly a month and took the test in February and ended in disaster! I scored a 320 as I totally underestimated the test!! At that time, I thought may be I wasn't ready for MBA, so I put GMAT aside and went traveling with my family!! And figured may be I should apply for a Master's in Asia Pacific Studies which doesn't require any tests. So I spent a couple of months writing essays and getting my apps ready for this program and at the same time, I was talking to some people that the MA wouldn't get me anywhere in terms of my career. A MBA is definitely more useful. So I switched back to applying for my MBA and started taking the VeritasPrep course in late June. I didn't study that much in July as I was on a cruise in Europe but I managed to do all the verbal books from Veritas. But at that time I didn't realize the importance of analyzing the mistakes and the explanations. I just merely read the explanations without really understanding what went wrong. I spent a month and a half studying diligently for about 6-8 hours a day every single day at the library for the test until the test date on 9/11. However, I only scored a 550 with a splite of 36Q and 28V. I was really disappointed as I spent so much time studying every day in August and September and I still didn't score more than 600. During that time when I was studying for the test, I did all the problems in the Veritas materials, did the SC, CR and PS problems on the OG at least once and the last 100 questions twice. I didn't have time to do DS and RC though. I also did 4 800score.com tests which are good for pacing, 3 veritasprep tests and several GMATPrep tests (lowest 490 and highest 640) up until the test date on 9/11.
I have scheduled my third try on Oct 15, but the thing is I went to London for 10 days right to visit some friends after my test in September. Although I still managed to get some studying done (I did one GMATPrep test and some SC problems) but I'm definitely not as productive as I was at home studying in the library!! So I felt like I have wasted two weeks already!! And the thing is I felt like I have lost the motivation already!! Because I felt like even with so much effort I put into studying in August, I still scored low.. I'm not sure if I should postpone my test date even more as I'm trying to apply to some top 30 MBA programs in the US and in London and most of their deadlines are in November (some are actually in October, so I already have to apply for the second round for those schools!!) I bought the Manhattan Review Turbocharge your GMAT series verbal, the Math and Verbal Review from GMAC, verbal book from Kaplan. I'm gonna do the problems on the OG 11th and 12th edition as well (hopefully if i have enough time!!) as well as doing the GMATPrep tests twice week till Oct 15. I know my weakness is mainly on SC and CR. Especially with SC, as I thought I got the right answer but it ended up being wrong!!

I really need to get a score higher than 700 this time. BTW I told a lot of my friends that my goal was to score 700+ last time and I ended up giving myself a lot of pressure, which kinda hindered my performance even doing the practice tests. But now, I feel like I'm really tired of studying and afraid to fail my third time.

Do you think scoring above 700 is doable with 2 and a half weeks left?? I'm really desparate in scoring high this time!!!

Thank you very much!!
Chrissy

Chrissy:

Sympathizing with your concerns, I can relate to the hardship experienced by the visa issues. I was an international student myself, having lived three years in China, three years in Japan, nine years in Canada and nine years in the United States. It is a tough story - what doesn't kill us makes us strong eh? Despite my diverse background, I think the MBA is an invaluable option that amalgamates my various skillsets and backgrounds into a focused and cohesive story. With a MBA, I see an endless panaroma of future options somewhere over that rainbow

You have a breadth and depth of options in the US so I can see why you want to come here for school. But realize also that you have some outstanding options in Asia too so don't be too worried.

With respect to the GMATs, I honestly don't think you can improve by a few hundred points in less than two and half weeks. Although anything can happen on any given Sunday, I would study more.

This is my suggestion:
Since you're applying to Round 2 anyways, why not delay your GMAT so you can maximize your score? I would take it on Dec 10th. By taking in around then, you're still giving yourself enough time for the Jan 1st - Jan 8th Round 2 deadlines. If you start doing the necessary introspection and thinking about your application essays, you'd be working towards that too. Let it marinate. Study in the meantime and just take your test when you are ready. That way, you're getting a few months of extra study time for some extra wind in the back of your sails. By the time you finish in Dec 10th, you'd have thought enough about your essay topics that you'd be hitting the ground running once you start writing. With 20 to 25 days, you'd have enough time to pump out 6-8 quality applications.

Just my two cents. Given your situation, this sounds like what I would do. However, the proposed strategy would handcuff you in that you'd have one shot at the GMAT with no chances of retaking it. Just consider your confidence level and what you truly expect to get on gameday.

With best wishes,

-Brandon

Congratulations!! Great score.

You mentioned that some CRs had premises and arguments that took up an entire half page with possible choices each a mini-paragraph long. I was checking some of the LSAT CRs which are similar I guess. Do you agree that the CRs in the real test are harder than those in OGs?

Honestly, the verbal was a lot easier than the practice I encountered. The sentence corrections were pretty straightforward. The CR's were also pretty clean with a few long ones. I think I have ADD because I struggle to keep my concentration up when I read extendedly-long phrases. Some CR were just phrased in long and complicated ways so it challenged me to re-read them... Time seemed to be an accentuated issue because I lost a few minutes due to my bathroom break and my testing center in Brooklyn wasn't very good (bathroom was far away, test admin took literally a min and a half to sign me in and out of my break, etc...). The RC were really really easy with exception for one ridiculous passage about ants. Three out of the four ant questions didn't make any sense and really stretched me to my abilities... I forgot what the gist was but a passage would talk about ants the whole way and suddenly a question about dung beetles popped up? Or it would say ants do A, B and C. Question would be like, what does ants do? Choose between A, B, C, D or E... Crazy stuff like that. Otherwise, the verbal section was pretty clean.

Looks like the material you practiced from helped you cruise through verbal easiy. Can you let me know which materials did you use?

CracktheGmat:

Honestly, I felt my materials were quiet suspect. I was fortunate enough to speak to someone at the Manhattan Review who knows how the test is structured and what it tests for so I approached each question with a degree of logic. What are they trying to test? What is the flow of the question? What should answer look like?

Other than the Official Guide questions (they are as good as gold), all my other materials were sketchy. I used a lot of Manhattan Review books, a Kaplan book and some stuff on the internet. Also a library book that focused on only difficult questions.

I would say about 20% of the questions, with exception of the OG questions, were terrible. Answers didn't match the correct scope of the question or the question itself would be structured poorly. Another 10-20% would be somewhat questionable with at least two possible choices. The real GMAT questions were very clean. Not much hair on them - very straightforward.

So when you practice with Non-OG questions, take them with a grain of salt. I sped through them to pick up grammar rules or a nice trick here or there. Some of the questions were so incomprehensible that I literally got fed up and stopped even considering the answers. For example, I was running out of time and also got fed up with the ridiculous practice Reading Comprehension questions that I would just read the passages (to practice my comprehension and reading abilities) but simply not look at a single practice question.

Thanks for your guidelines .They are really helpful.

Winning AWA Six-Paragraph Formula:

So many people don't see the value of the AWA essays. To some extent, this is true since most schools don't care since they don't contribute to the rankings... Nevertheless, doing well on the AWAs provide confidence and momentum so it is an ally as opposed to an obstacle. The AWAs is a great tool for anyone to leverage 60 mins of warm-up time to "get in the zone."

Below is a time-tested formula I synthesized from other contributors here and elsewhere. As a writer, I am pretty critical to Paragraph #5 on the two structures below. If I were grading AWA essays, no one deserves a 6.0 without considering paragraph #5. It is key to being an open and mature thinker. People who don't emphasize that enough can come off as being (at least to me), egocentric and close-minded. It is a key feature that distinguishes my formula from other structures. Both the structures below describe paragraph #5 and the rest of my logic.


Analysis of an Issue
-----------------------
1.) State your Position
-Sound confident
-Begin with a quote or controversial saying to lead off with interest / charisma
-Define your position by clarifying what you mean
-2nd or last sentence should be a clear thesis

2.) Example 1 supporting your thesis
-Use a historical story (or allegory) to serve as a metaphor that is analogous to your argument

3.) Example 2 supporting your thesis
-I usually describe a life experience (or make one up)

4.) Example 3 supporting your thesis
-Use a financial / business example of a fortunate 500 company

5.) Explain why the other position makes sense. Talk about the weaknesses in your argument and describe the strengths in the other argument. This is very important since 90+% of the AWA writers don't do this. A good writer always does it or else they lack credibility and the openness to consider the other argument. But always end off by poking a major flaw in the other argument and ending up on the positiveness of your own

6.) Conclusion
-Synthesize the whole argument
-End off on a sentimental remark (be tacky if you have to and say stuff like "posterity" or "global social change," etc...).



Analysis on an Argument
-------------------------
1.) Be strong. Be arrogant. Use powerful words to show the ridiculousness of the argument. Use words like illogical, presumptuous, flawed and incomprehensible... Learn phrases like "lack of causation" or "insufficient sample size" to really highlight weaknesses.

2.) Powerful example #1

3.) Power example #2

4.) Power example #3

5.) This is a critical paragraph 80%+ of the GMAT takes don't elaborate on. Lend credence to the author by complimenting his/her intentions and appreciating the work being done. Discuss how the argument can be improved. Discuss which holes to plug to make the argument more robust. Sweettalk the author and say how great of a job he/she did. Nonetheless, the argument needs work...

6.) Conclusion


The goal of the AWAs is to give you a gust in wind in the back of your sails. It is supposed to give you confidence and allow you to hit your stride. I definitely did not practice my AWAs enough but the work I put in definitely paid off. I think the average test-taker should write at least 10 to get truly comfortable. Once your comfortable, you can literally go into the test-room and write for 60 mins without really thinking and finish with confidence. Once you're in the zone, the confidence will be essential in setting yourself up for a quality quant / verbal performance.

Great work! I think that your beer/study increased gravity techniques were key. I'm going to try that for the essays!

Thanks.

Thanks man! The beer definitely helped me push through some long nights and unpleasant studying cycles. I love switching things up and honestly the beer really helped me. For example, I used to approach some of the verbal questions with a certain rigidity and a process. Once I was drunk and practiced verbal questions, it changed my perspective as I was focusing on different aspects of the questions. It is hard to explain... Obviously, you need to have enough confidence in yourself to still be able to practice while drunk... I really think it is a good idea.

I am doing my essays for schools now and one of the virtues I am describing is diversity. Diversity in though through multiple perspectives is pivotal to develop a true and holistic understanding. Approaching the GMAT while slightly drunk is a way to develop a multi-faceted perspective since you're looking at the questions through the lens of a peculiar logic.

But yeah man! You gotta try it. It really helps you think and develop the thought-process in a way that you never before realized.

Dude, congrats man... and thanks for the tips, I too want to destroy the GMAT!

_________________
Ashish
Share not just why the right answer is right, but also why the wrong ones are not.

I just have to say your writing skills are exquisite! You kept me glued all the way from the beginning to the end! Surprised your AWA wasn't super high. Keep it up. You've inspired me

This was awesome. I bookmarked it and will be using it on those tough study days. Thank you for sharing!

this is awesome. thanks so much for sharing!!!

Great contribution! I wish you good luck for the applications.