I just Beat The GMAT!

I just finished a 2-year affair with the GMAT. Though I didn't break the 700 barrier, I think I did pretty well (85th percentile). Here's what I wish I knew at the onset of my prep, culled from experience with 2 prep classes and many, many books. Here goes...

"¢ Took a Kaplan class. I did not have a good experience. I went from a 550 diagnostic to a 590 on the real GMAT. My first indication should have been my incompetent teacher - he never even took a real GMAT! He qualified to teach because he scored in the 90th percentile on a Kaplan exam. I find it completely inexcusable for such a big-name test prep company to offer up teachers who have never taken the actual test. I asked a specific question about the test setting and he readily admitted he had never taken it. Along with that, Kaplan's material is markedly different from GMAT material. Their quantitative questions are quite difficult and do not resemble OG questions. The verbal is just plain nonsensical. I would have lodged a complaint with the company, but I won the course as part of a silent auction so it didn't come with their guarantee, so figured they wouldn't help much anyway. They also have a ton of online lessons to accompany the classes, and I found it stressful to try and keep up with it all, even though I was devoting hours each day to it.

"¢ Took a Knewton class. This experience was much better than Kaplan. The teachers are highly qualified, intelligent, and offer up the lessons with a bit of humor to keep things interesting. The material is pretty close to real GMAT material. The 50-point guarantee is the best in the business. They offer great support via email for any problem in the OG or GMATPrep exams that don't make sense. The lessons are covered extremely quickly and I think they cram too much into a class. After a class my head was seriously spinning, and I felt like saying, 'um, let's start again.' This complaint is mitigated by the fact that every lesson is archived, so you can go back and watch it at your own pace. But I'm a busy person and I work full-time, so I wasn't thrilled about repeating the lessons. The online syllabus and technology works great. It tracks your strengths and weaknesses well. Lastly, the quantitative prep is insufficient on its own. I ended up using most the Manhattan GMAT guides to fill in the gaps. Overall, however, I would recommend Knewton.

"¢ Bought Jeff Sackmann's Total GMAT Math book (www.gmathacks.com). This is great because it has nearly every topic indexed, so you can focus your studies where you need help most. The book has a unique way of presenting material to give you a whole new approach and perspective to a problem. I also found this book to be a bit of a confidence booster since the chapters are covered in a very simplistic manner, so after reading them I found myself thinking 'gee, this isn't that hard.' In that same vein, the practice material isn't terribly difficult. There are only a couple 'challenge' problems in each section, so I think his book is great for building foundations and repeatedly drilling them, but probably not sufficiently difficult for 700+ level questions. I also used his Explanations to the Quantitative problems in the Official Guide. This book is exceptional! As we all know some quant explanations in the OG are just plain ridiculous. I was continually amazed at how these problems can be viewed and solved in much simpler terms! Lastly, his website is filled with extremely useful articles on many topics. It's worth your time to read them - and they're free!

"¢ The very first book I ever used was Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT. To keep this short, don't waste your time. The book is focused on developing a test taker's ability to gauge the difficulty of a question and then applying guessing techniques based on what the 'average' person would do. What a waste of time! No one has the ability to accurately gauge the difficulty of a question on a regular basis, especially under the duress of a timed test! Stay far, far away from this book.

"¢ Manhattan GMAT Guides. I bought all quant books except Geometry. These books are far and above the best quantitative prep material available, and are the primary reason for my improvement in quant. They cover everything you could possibly need to know, in an understandable fashion. What I liked most is that after every chapter, a problem set from the OG is presented, where you can directly apply what you've learned to OG problems. This is targeted practice that directly translates to an improved quant score. BUY THEM ALL without hesitation.

"¢ PowerScore's Critical Reasoning Bible. As most reviewers on this site agree, it's the best CR book out there. Presents information in a clear, concise manner, and really gives you insight into how the test writers think and how they write questions. It improved my CR accuracy immensely. My biggest downfall with CR questions was knowing when 'new' information in the answer choices is acceptable, and this book spells that out perfectly, among many other things. BUY IT.

"¢ Test results

a. Kaplan tests: Don't have details anymore, but never above 600.
b. Actual GMAT May '09: 590 (Q39/V32)
c. Knewton 1: 570 (Q37/V32)
d. Knewton 2: 610 (Q39/V36)
e. Knewton 3: 610 (Q41/V34)
f. Knewton 4: 680 (Q42/V42)
g. Knewton 5: 640 (Q44/V34)
h. Manhattan GMAT 1: 640 (Q44/V33)
i. Manhattan GMAT 2: 680 (Q46/V36)
j. GMATPrep 1: 660 (Q43/V38)
k. GMATPrep 2: 690 (Q46/V38)
l. Actual GMAT Sep '10: 680 (Q47/V35)

"¢ Final thoughts:

a. Take time to internalize the basics and truly know how to solve a problem. At the beginning I would get questions wrong, quickly review them and think 'ok, got it, next time I see that problem I'll get it right.' WRONG. One's propensity to make repeated mistakes is remarkable. Take extra care to review every problem you get wrong, and then redo the problem as many times as necessary until you get it right and have a thorough understanding. Don't go nuts with this mantra either - there were many 700 level questions that I knew I'd never get to anyway, so I skipped em. Everyone will face some questions they don't know how to do, and that's okay.
b. Practice OG problems with a timer! A question not completed in two minutes is as good as wrong. Make note of any problem that took longer than two minutes and redo it until you can complete it in two minutes or less.
c. As most everyone knows, the only practice tests that accurately gauge your ability are the GMATPrep ones. This is proven time and time again. Take all other test scores with a grain of salt.
d. Whatever it takes, keep a calm head and keep test anxiety at a minimum. I was a nervous wreck taking my first real GMAT, and it obviously showed in my results. I was only able to calm my nerves and build confidence by adequately preparing for the test. I went in there telling myself that I had done everything possible to prepare and that I was ready. You really must believe this and have confidence. As a result, my nerves were calm and I performed at the top of my ability.
e. The Verbal, and especially reading comprehension, was very difficult on my actual GMAT. I aced most RC questions in practice, but on the actual test I was really struggling. The passages and questions were remarkably confusing. Don't underestimate the Verbal - I sort of did and spent the summer working on Quant. As such, my Verbal score was lower than I thought it should be. Don't forget to keep reinforcing your strengths.
f. Realize that the GMAT is not the end-all be-all of your MBA dreams. It's only one piece of the puzzle. As long as you're in the 10th-90th percentile of accepted GMAT scores of your target schools, your GMAT score is likely sufficient. Your time is better served crafting a competitive application through demonstrating fit and differentiating yourself from the other applicants.

I hope this proves useful if you read this far, and I wish everyone the best of luck! On to R1 applications...

Great improvement and score. Was the quant and sentence correction the same difficulty as gmat prep/OG?

Thanks. I felt everything was very similar to GMATPrep/OG, except reading comprehension. Quant was spot on, and I even got one problem that was exactly the same as a GMATPrep problem! CR and SC were quite similar in difficulty level as well. Again, reading comp really threw me for a loop. It wasn't even a difficult science passage, but one comparing the social status of women between New England and England in the 17/18th centuries. It was filled with double-negative sentences, conventional theories contrasted with modern scholars, some of which agreed/disagreed with only certain facets of of the conventional theory. I read it twice and still didn't understand it. This was really disheartening to me, especially because I had no trouble with RC passages on any of my practice tests....The test is designed to test the upper limits of your ability, and it certainly did that with me!