Beat The GMAT

drhomler · Sun May 06, 2007 2:33 pm

I recently found this forum, and I find it very inspirational. It also happens to be very informative in terms of peoples experiences and strategies.

A little background: I work in finance and I work between 60-70 hours a week with a massive project that is aimed at completion by Sept. I am determined to move on with my life and career and I see the GMAT as my largest obstacle. I want to go to an international b-school in Europe. I went to a small liberal arts college in Maine and I scored a 1400 on my SAT back in '95. I hit 98% percentile in my math portion(which seems to have created one of my biggest conundrums)

I took the virtual MGMAT class last summer never took a practice test or did the homework(yes I fulshed $1000 down the toilet). With no preparation this morning I took a practice test at mgmat facility and scored a 620. My goal is to either kiss 700 or surpass it. I am giving my self until July before I take my first "real" test.

Oddly quant seems to be my biggest issue. I am scoring in the mid 60th percentile. I work in finance with numbers all day and I have always been good at standardized tests my whole life. I havent put in enough time yet to realize my biggest problem areas. I do know that I am light on my memory of geometry so I figure I can improve there.

If anyone has tips on how to improve my math and or words of encouragement I would really appreciate it. My job is really cramping my lifestyle, but I am hanging up any hopes of having a life this summer with the hope of getting through this test by July. I plan on making it my second job I figure I can do 1hr a night m-f and 6hr on sat with a practice test a week on sunday for the next 12 weeks. I plan on eating, sleeping and breathing the GMAT for the next 3 months(getting nauseaus just thinking about it) July 31st is D-day and I am defintely a little nervous.

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rajesh_ctm · Sun May 06, 2007 8:57 pm

As you said, you have got 98 percentile in Maths before, and also you have done well in standardized tests. Moreover, you work with numbers in your job. So definitely you can do well on GMAT. You only need to plan your preparation according to your needs.

If you still scored in mid sixty percentile, you might have lost touch with the topics, or you might have done careless mistakes. Both of these are very common, and can be overcome.

To identify your areas of improvement, take the diagnostic test of OG11. GMATPrep is also great in this aspect, but I would keep GMATPrep for some later stage in the preparation.

Geometry can be easily conquered, you only need to re-read it and you'll remember the concepts. Number properties, permutations/combinations, and probability can be tricky. Others are mostly straightforward in Quant. Also, how to approach DS questions is something you'll need to learn.

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drhomler · Mon May 07, 2007 6:27 am

Thanks Rajesh-I appreciate the words of encouragement.

I will do the OG11 diagnostic and try to identify the areas where I am lacking.

I know I mainly need to work on quant(Algebra, geometry, DS q's) I wont spend as much time on verbal but my SC is weak relative to the rest of my verbal performance.

I bought the kaplan800 book yesterday.

I have to say though it is difficult to really "get into the material" it seems irrelevant to any "real world" application which makes motivation difficult. At the moment my inspiration comes from hoping that my hardwork will get me past this test and into school.

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rajesh_ctm · Mon May 07, 2007 10:33 am

Do you have the Manhattan GMAT books? They are the closest to actual GMAT (after OG of course). And it's better if you review them before going to Kaplan 800.
For SC, Manhattan GMAT's book is the Bible! Study that and the OG explanations, and that's all you'll need for SC.

Wherever your inspiration comes from, just take it Smile

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drhomler · Mon May 07, 2007 6:19 pm

I do have all the MGMAt books and the OG11. My plan is to review my mistakes on the test, and familiarize myself with basic geometry and quadratics on the math. And it is definitely the sentence correction that is my achilles heel on verbal.

I officially signed up for the "real" test, my test date is July 28th. Exactly 12 weeks from now.

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drhomler · Thu May 17, 2007 10:55 am

Its been 10 days-immediate observations are that Eric's flashcards are awesome. Not only comprehensive but very helpful in keeping the basics straight. Spidey's notes have been good too, but I know I need alot of help in grammar.

I have taken two practice tests and at MGMAT went from 620-640. So far the study time has been tight during the week 3o minutes here an hour there. But the weekends have been productive and I have identified my weaknesses.

Geometry and Sentence correction I havent seen geometry since I was 17 and Grammar, if you can call it that is not my strength but I have been told these are the easiest things to improve upon, so I am hopeful. I missed every sentence correction except for 1 on the last practice test. I have been trying to participate is some of the SC on the community here and look at 1000sc but without definitive answers I am concerned that I might be studying the wrong info. Does anyone else feel that way?

I am definitely going to be tackling the OG SC on Saturday and I expect to see improvement, shouldnt be hard to get more than 1 right, I hope. I also seem to finishing the Verbal in 55 minutes which I think is most likely poor timing on my part. I could probably spend those xtra minuteson SC.

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beatthegmat · Thu May 17, 2007 1:25 pm

Great update--keep up the good work!

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CLJACKSON04 · Thu May 17, 2007 6:28 pm

Just out of Curiosity, which school in Maine did you go to? I'm currently at USM and also studying for the GMAT.

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aim-wsc · Thu May 17, 2007 7:04 pm

Have you checked Ms Prachi P's blog? the one, I mentioned on my last post of ''1000 SC answer n discussion'' thread? She's GMAT tutor... I know,1000 SC thread must be updated but I've very limited resources these days. Sad

are you native English speaker?

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drhomler · Fri May 18, 2007 5:46 am

Thanks for the support guys. I will check out the blog on SC, and to answer your question I am a native English speaker. For some reason the rules don't seem to stick in my head, some fo the easier ones I can go on "ear" alone but once it gets more complicated I lose track of what is being tested. I went back through the test I took last week and one thing I noticed was that since I was getting the reading comp and CR questions right when the MGMAT algorithm rotated back through SC I was getting questions in the 700-800 range almost exclusively, which was difficult for me.

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aim-wsc · Fri May 18, 2007 7:30 am

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drhomler · Fri May 18, 2007 12:45 pm

I am definitely not taking it personally. I just have to learn the game to move on, personally I think this portion of the test should be irrelevant to entrance into business school. I know they want people to have solid fundamentals in writing but I dont think playing tricks with sentence structure makes anyone a good writer or improves the capability of expressing thought and opinion, otherwise we would all be copy editors.

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drhomler · Sun May 20, 2007 7:32 pm

Well a week and half worth of studying SC and hanging out on this website and Ive taken my verbal to 93% on mgmat practice test. I know that mgmat verbal is widely considered easier than the real thing but every little bit of imrovement helps.

Now all I need to do is figure out why my math dropped so much considering I felt like I was taking it to town while I was in the test, evidently not. Probablities, geometry and DS. time for some serious OG

Im moving my test date up to June 30th from July 28th I figure worst case scenario Ill take it in July anyway.

Thanks Beat the gmat

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Stacey Koprince · Mon May 28, 2007 10:54 pm

We changed our algorithm in late April - it was overscoring by about 7 percentile points in Verbal. No longer. Smile

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