690 to 710 and I am done!

Just got back from my second GMAT attempt. I got a 710 and got the 80/80 split that I wanted!! I am officially done with the GMAT!

Q48 83%
V39 87%
Overall 92%

Ok here goes my debrief:

Background
I am not a big fan of standardized testing, but I will say I was quite obsessed with the GMAT. I started to really prep for the GMAT in October of 2008. I decided to buy a few books because I knew little about the GMAT. Without doing any research I walked into Barnes and Noble and bought Princeton’s Cracking the GMAT, GMAT for Dummies, and the OG guide 11. I went through the GMAT for Dummies book and the Cracking the GMAT book. They both gave a good overview of the GMAT, but didn’t get into the detail I needed for my prep. It was about this time that I found beathegmat and GMAT Club. These two forums changed my whole perspective of the GMAT. After doing some thorough research, I decided to purchase all of the Manhattan GMAT books except for the critical reasoning and reading comprehension books. Also, I decided to get the PowerScore critical reasoning bible. After reading all of the success stories on the forums, I set a target score of 700 for myself.

Early Prep (Quant)
I went through all of the Manhattan GMAT books. These books are very thorough and I felt they helped significantly. However, I didn’t go through these books like I should of. I didn’t take my time with them and didn’t do all of the problems from the OG after finishing a section. If you are using these books for your prep, I recommend you take your time going through them and ensure you understand all of the concepts. So after my first run through of the MGMAT books I decided to take my first practice test to see where I stood. The results were:
Q 42
V 30
590

I was really disappointed after this test. I felt like I put in a lot of time studying quant and still wasn’t close to my target score. However, I soon realized that I wasn’t studying the right way. My pace was too fast to retain all of the concepts. Also, my early prep was too focused on quant (I literally did no verbal prior to the practice test).

Mid Prep (Quant/Verbal)
At this point, I decided I would start to do quant one day and verbal the next. This is probably the best way to prep because you give yourself a little break from a subject but keep topics fresh in your mind. The first book I focused on for verbal was the MGMAT sentence correction book. As I read this the first time, I was COMPLETELY overwhelmed. I felt there were just too many topics to grasp each concept. If you feel like this after reading the book the first time, I recommend reading it a second time. The second time I read it, I tried to apply all of the concepts I was learning to questions in the OG. This really helped me grasp the concepts. Next, I started to go through the CR bible. The book breaks every question type down and tells you how to attack each question. This book was essential to improving my verbal. If you are studying from this book, I recommend reading the strengthening, weakening, and assumption chapters twice. These are the question types that I saw most frequently on the actual GMAT. Using my every other day strategy I went through some of the MGMAT quant books again. At this point, I decided to take another practice test.

Q 44
V 36
660

This really improved my confidence and I thought I was almost ready for the GMAT. (this was in April)

Late Prep
So for the last 2 months prior to taking the GMAT, I went through the entire OG 11. Along with this, I spent a lot of time on the forums practicing questions. I also took the GMAT Prep tests. My scores were as follows:

GMAT Prep 1
Q47
V40
700

GMAT Prep 2
Q48
V40
700

GMAT Prep 1 (Repeat)
Q50
V41
740

After these tests, I felt like I was ready for the actual test. I set the date for June 26th.

Test Day (First attempt)
I didn’t sleep well the night before. I was too nervous to get a good night sleep. I woke up around 5 AM and my test wasn’t scheduled till 12. This killed me that I had to sit around all morning thinking about the test. I was very anxious to get to the testing center and try to get this test out of the way. I arrived at the testing center around 11 and they let me take the test right away. I didn’t spend too much time studying for essays, but they weren’t too bad and I felt good after finishing them. However, once the quant section started I was very nervous/anxious and made a lot of silly mistakes that I realized after submitting my answer. Which leads me to my next point, DON’T THINK ABOUT A QUESTION AFTER YOU SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER. I think this really hurt me because I kept thinking about the question before and didn’t focus enough on the question at hand. By the end of the section I calmed down and felt like I still would score in the 46 to 48 range. I took my break and went and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then made my way back into the testing room. I was very relaxed for the verbal section. I felt very good about this section. The reading comprehension passages weren’t bad and I felt like I got all of those questions correct. CR was pretty easy for me as well. Sentence correction was kind of tough. I am sure that I missed the majority of my questions in this section. In the end though, I was pretty confident with my performance. In the end my score ended up being:

Q 44
V 41
690

I was VERY disappointed with my quant score. I really wanted to be at a 47 or higher. At first, I thought I was done with the test, but ultimately I couldn’t settle with a 690 when I was SO close to my target score.

Prep for 2nd Test
At this point, I decided to take the GMAT for a second time. I didn’t pick an exact date, but I was going to take it as soon as the 30 days elapsed. I put together a study plan for 30 days. Basically what I was trying to do was go through each of the MGMAT Quant books and then do problem sets in the OG12. Also, I would do problem sets in verbal each day just to keep it fresh in my head. Along with this, I took a full length MGMAT test each weekend. EVERY single score was a 690 on these tests which frustrated me immensely!! I kept to my study plan for the first 15 days or so and then things got pretty crazy at work and I got behind. Along with this, I was getting frustrated that I just wasn’t done with this test and basically stopped studying for a few days. I really think I over studied up to this point and was just fed up. However, after taking a few days off I got back to my studying and felt a bit refreshed. So one thing I would like to stress to people is if you feel like you are over studying and are getting frustrated, give yourself a break for a few days and do something you enjoy!

Test Day (Second attempt)
The day of the second test, I was very relaxed. I got a lot of sleep the night before the test this time! This was great because I felt like I had more energy. I wasn’t taking my test until noon , so I went out and had a good breakfast. Once I got back home, I did a few quant problems just to get my mind moving. Then I had some fruit and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to eat at the test center. I got to the test center about an hour early and they signed me right in and let me start the test. Again, at this point I was very relaxed because I was familiar with the testing center and the process. The essays weren’t too bad. I know I did very well on the argument essay but just ok on the issue essay. Ultimately, I ended up with a 5 on the AWA.

After I finished the essays, I took the break and had half of my sandwich. I got back and was ready to tackle the quant section. I felt REALLY good about the quant section after the first 10 questions or so. I was way ahead of the pace I needed to be on and felt very comfortable. At this point, the questions started to get more difficult. I probably took more time than I should have on some questions, but I had plenty of time. In the end, I finished with about 2 minutes left and felt very good about the section. In my head I was thinking PLEASE let this be the last time I look at GMAT inequalities! Haha

I took a break again after the quant section and had the other half of my sandwich. I got back into the testing room and was ready to be finished with the GMAT. I started off with 3 SC questions and 2 CR question. I felt good about all of these. Then came a RC passage. This passage was MUCH more difficult than any I had on the previous test. This pattern continued throughout the test. I felt pretty good about the SC. The CR wasn’t too bad either, but there were a few questions that I narrowed down to two and just couldn’t decide. All four RC passages were more difficult that on my first test. I was VERY worried at the end of the exam that I might have slipped up in verbal.

I rushed through all of the screens to get to the report score screen. As it was calculating my score I was VERY nervous because I just wanted to be done with this test! When the score popped up I was SOO happy!

Q48 83%
V 39 87%
710 92%

I saw the 710 and knew that I was DONE with this test. My verbal score did fall to a 39 and I probably could have done better, but I had my 80/80 split and knew I was done!!!

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