Beaten with a 750 (89 Q, 95 V)

Forum Index I just Beat The GMAT!
Free GMAT Tutoring Sessions - Practice GMAT questions with a Grockit GMAT instructor. One week only - Feb 3 to 9. Sign up now!

Free $100 MBA Admissions Starter Kit - For February, purchase a GMAT course using a Beat The GMAT discount code and receive a free $100 MBA Admissions Starter Kit. Click here to learn more.
Post New Topic   Post Reply

dkrich
Just gettin' started!

Default Avatar

Joined: 18 Jun 2008
Posts: 7

Thanks given: 1
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

Test Date: 06/25/2008
Target GMAT Score: 720
Topic: Beaten with a 750 (89 Q, 95 V)
PostThu Jun 26, 2008 7:45 am
I sat for the GMAT yesterday, and scored a 750. In an effort to help some folks who are preparing to sit for it in the coming months, I figured I would give some pointers that helped me in my progress.

I knew I had far more ground to gain in quant than in verbal, so I purchased "Cracking the GMAT" by the Princeton Review, and the GMAC's Official Guide. Early on I became very wary of the Princeton Review methodology because their quantitative strategies leaned heavily on cutesy tricks and concepts. For example, they advise that you rule out answer choices based on which ones are "too obvious." Given the strict time constraints and highly stressful environment of the GMAT, it just isn't feasible to try to climb inside the GMAC's head. It is far more fruitful to get the underlying concepts down pat. If you do that, there is no need to mess around with tricks. As everybody points out, the OG is a must purchase, but their explanations for most of the questions offer little help that is practical for the actual GMAT. (As an aside, I actually did find the Princeton Review's section on sentence correction to be pretty good).

I also found Jeff Sackmann's blog, gmathacks.com to be very important to my preparation. I purchased his GMAT Math Bible, printed it out, took it over to Kinko's, and had it bound. Then I worked through every chapter, and I revisited some several times because I just didn't have the concepts nailed down. I highly recommend making his materials an integral part of your preparation if you are rusty in math, and I assure you that I am receiving no monetary incentives for that endorsement!

Through studying, I found that the real key is to always read the question stems carefully, and know what the question is angling at. There are many questions that will just "click," and you will know that even though the question seems to suggest a lot of tough calculation is needed, they really are honing in on a specific math skill. If you know it, then getting the solution in under a minute is generally doable. Otherwise you have to guess and move on, or spend too much time trying to figure out the solution, leaving too little time for others.

With regard to verbal- if you struggle with CR, I suggest getting your hands on some LSAT prep books. I have quite a bit of experience in LSAT CR questions, and I can say that if you can do those, the GMAT's are a breeze. I struggled quite a bit with SC, and the way I overcame that was to work through the Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT sentence correction section, and then just about every SC question in the Official Guide. For RC, I just went through several of the passages in the Official Guide. For SC and RC, there is a definite pattern to what makes a question right or wrong (even those that are very subtle), and practice is the key to figuring that pattern out.

So after a few months of tough prep, I scheduled the date. In the final week, I just reviewed some of the concepts that I had struggled with, not trying to cover an enormous amount of material. In the days leading up to the test I took it easy, and only worked through a small handful of questions to keep myself fresh. One lingering suspicion I had was that the questions that are published in the OG are easier than the real thing to make you overconfident and underestimate the difficulty of the test. I know it's pretty silly, but I thought that many of the questions in the OG were just too simple to be expected on the real thing. After having sat for the test, I do not believe that to be the case. I would say the difficulty level is pretty much in line with the practice tests published by the GMAC. I achieved a better score than on any of my practice tests, so there must be at least some legitimacy to that.

That brings me to my final point. If I can pass on one word of advice that I picked up from Jeff's blog, it is to NOT concentrate on taking a practice test every weekend. I took a total of four (two of which I took well before I was seriously preparing). The Princeton Review practice tests feel very little like the real thing, and my practice scores were well below either of my practice scores on the GMAC's practice tests, so don't feel badly if you didn't get a high score on an imitation test. There is no way it is an accurate indication of your real scoring ability, and the only real benefit lies in honing your timing.

Best of luck to those who are still preparing!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
vaivish
GMAT Destroyer!

Default Avatar

Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 341

Thanks given: 0
Thanked 6 times in 6 posts
PostSat Jun 28, 2008 8:06 am
hey dude...congrats for the great score....can we have the copy of the math bible....which is now not of any use to me...if yes ..please write to me on vishal1910@gmail.com...all the best for the application...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dkrich
Just gettin' started!

Default Avatar

Joined: 18 Jun 2008
Posts: 7

Thanks given: 1
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

Test Date: 06/25/2008
Target GMAT Score: 720
PostSat Jun 28, 2008 3:45 pm
vaivish wrote:
hey dude...congrats for the great score....can we have the copy of the math bible....which is now not of any use to me...if yes ..please write to me on vishal1910@gmail.com...all the best for the application...
Sorry, I can't do that. The GMAT prep community is a relatively small world, and Jeff won't be able to continue to post the information that helped me and will help many other people excel on this test if these communities become flooded with free copies of his materials. I mentioned his blog and materials because I sincerely believe they are a great supplement to anyone's GMAT preparation, and because I want to help him in some small way because his blog has helped me immensely.

If you want the book, I suggest that you just pony up the fifty bucks. In the grand scheme of things and the cost of applications, that should not stand between you and prep materials if you are serious about your preparation.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   

Post New Topic   Post Reply All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Page 1 of 1
 
Forum Index I just Beat The GMAT!
Most Active Members in Last 30 Days
1. osirus0830 558 posts
2. bhumika.k.shah 523 posts
3. money9111 470 posts
4. ajith 442 posts
5. thephoenix 337 posts
See More Top Beat The GMAT Members
Most Active Experts in Last 30 Days
1. Testluv
Kaplan GMAT Teacher 		80 posts
2. Stuart Kovinsky
Kaplan GMAT Teacher 		80 posts
3. Brent Hanneson
Leap Education Teacher 		68 posts
4. bryantmichaels
Veritas GMAT Teacher 		61 posts
5. Lisa Anderson
Stacy Blackman Consulting 		50 posts
See More Top Beat The GMAT Experts