GMAT 730/96th percentile....Q: 48/74% V: 41/94%

Find out how Beat The GMAT members tackled GMAT test prep with positive results. Get tips on GMAT test prep materials, online courses, study tips, and more.
This topic has expert replies
User avatar
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:06 am

GMAT 730/96th percentile....Q: 48/74% V: 41/94%

by daf08 » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:32 am
After 3 months of rigorous study, I was ecstatic when I saw 730 (96th percentile..Q:48/74%, V:41/94%) pop up on the screen. After reading many of your debriefs over the last few months, I wanted to share my experience with you all but also provide some of the high-level ideas and strategies that I came to learn. In this debrief, I would like to share some of the "points of wisdom" I wish I knew before I started. I paid for this wisdom the hard way, by making mistakes, and I wrote this down to hopefully help future GMAT test takers avoid them. I hope this proves beneficial and that it can maybe help some of you to reach/exceed your goals.

One preliminary point: If you're serious about improving, it's crucial to get a baseline score. You must have either an official GMAT score or a practice test score taken under realistic conditions. Once you have this score, you'll have a starting point for your strategy. I actually took a few tests early on and I learned that I needed to focus on quant more than verbal. I was scoring around the 80th percentile on verbal but only around the 60th percentile on quant. I was a bit dismayed by my lower than expected quant scores since I have a strong background in math. I was a finance major at a very well respected university. I did quantitative work on a daily basis for an investment bank. I then did asset management for a financial group, and I'm currently a Global Cash analyst at GE Headquarters.

Point of wisdom #1: Just because you have a background in math or finance, or business, don't think that you'll naturally be great (or even good) at GMAT math. The GMAT asks questions that require very specific analytical reasoning skills that, at least in my opinion, most people do not have coming into the process. The GMAT is designed to be a test you have to study for. Don't fight this. Don't tell yourself lies. If you score in the 60th percentile of the quant section of the GMAT, accept that your GMAT quant skills are weak. Then, set out on a course to fix them. In this process, you must have self-awareness or you'll drive yourself crazy. Accept what is, and then get working!! I was applying to only top-five business schools, so I knew I had to get both my quant and verbal scores higher. I studied approximately 30 hours per week for about 3 months.

Point of wisdom #2: You'll naturally underestimate the amount of time that it's going to take you to earn a great GMAT score. To save yourself a lot of stress, take whatever number of hours you think you'll need to study per week and then double this number (within reason, of course). Studying for the GMAT is arduous. You must mentally prepare for the journey. We've all heard stories of people studying for two weeks and earning a 750 - but you must ignore these. If you don't, you will have the same mentality as someone who reads about a lottery winner and then convinces him or herself that winning the jackpot will be a likely outcome. There's no way to authenticate these stories (so I think) and I'm sure there's some which are just plain untrue. I know a lot of really smart people who had to study long and hard to earn respectable GMAT scores. But if there are people who can do this, these people are probably not like you - don't even think about them. Just focus on what you need to do to earn a great score. Forget everyone else.

Point of wisdom #3: We all have demanding jobs. Don't complain or make excuses about your work/GMAT study balance. Don't think that while studying for the GMAT your life will be like the life of a regular person. This is not studying like you did in college or in high school. This is the kind of study that you do when your life depends on it. Instead - get used to spending your nights and weekends with the GMAT. The more mentally prepared you are going in, the better results you'll have. After about a month of self-study, I was definitely making improvements but I was starting to hit my first plateau. I wanted to make sure I could continue to accelerate my progress, so I began looking for a private GMAT tutor to help me. In the business world, we all fight to have the best mentors and the most powerful, most helpful bosses to groom us and to catapult our careers. However, when it comes to the GMAT, our thinking changes; we decide that we can walk the road alone. This was a big flaw in my early thinking. Instead of trying to self-study, I should have found a GMAT tutor from the very beginning. I realized that not doing so was like trying to teach yourself a new language - it can be done, but it's not nearly as effective as if you have a teacher to help you along the way. I realized that I should have emulated the same actions in my GMAT prep that made me successful in college. I should have asked for help, and you should consider this too. The GMAT is the most important test that most of us will ever take. Why not do everything in your power to earn the best score possible? If you are applying to a program that only requires you to score above 500, for instance, then this is not directly applicable to you. You can probably make it there with some solid fundamentals and the OG. But, if you're applying to a top program, you need the best score possible, and breaking into 700+ range got much harder as I progressed.

Even if you're just struggling or just want the process to be over sooner, get yourself some professional GMAT help. Would you spend 6 months teaching yourself Mandarin to get the same level of proficiency as you would have after a 3-week course? I wouldn't. But with the GMAT, this idea was not entirely clear to me in the beginning and I lost a good amount of time to my own inefficient self-study.

Point of wisdom #4: Not all GMAT tutors are created equal. I won't bash anyone here, but I spent a lot of money working with a big name tutor/company and I was not happy with the results I was getting. I hung on to this tutor for too long. I should have cut the cord sooner, but I did not know who to work with. After all, this company was supposed to be the best. It was then that some of the former admissions directors turned consultants from Fortuna Admissions recommend Scott Woodbury-Stewart from Target Test Prep. I took their advice and started working with Scott. Scott is a teacher, not just a tutor, and he really cared about my level of understanding behind the concepts, not just my ability to do a problem successfully from time to time. If anyone needs expert GMAT help, I completely recommend him. He helped me to build a lot of sophisticated skills that, to be honest, I did not know I was missing or needed. I learned to break down complex GMAT problems into smaller, simple structures that I was able to precisely analyze and quickly attack. Working with Scott was the turning point in my GMAT prep.

Of course Scott is not the only excellent GMAT tutor out there. Get yourself a great GMAT tutor no matter what. If you find the right one, you'll be happy you did. Do not settle on the first one you come across unless you are sure he or she is the right person. Do your research and read his or her reviews, not just the company's reviews. If you don't feel like you're learning, then cut the cord. GMAT tutoring can be expensive and this is a pricey lesson I learned.

In short: Find someone you're comfortable working with and who gets you results. Just remember - if you are not making outstanding progress with a tutor, get another one.

After I felt that I had a strong grasp on the content tested on the GMAT, about a month out from my scheduled GMAT, I began taking two full length GMAT practice tests each week. I'd take one on Saturday morning and spend the rest of the day studying my right and wrong answers. For some of the questions, I searched the forums for answers. Sometimes the answers of the forums were helpful and sometimes they were not so clear, so I would have Scott cover the best solutions to the problems with me. I would repeat the same process on Sunday. Taking about 8 full length practice tests prior to taking the real test helped me a lot. Doing so, really built my stamina, my confidence, and my time management skills.

Point of wisdom #5: There is a big difference between being able to correctly solve random GMAT questions when you are doing small practice sets from the comfort of your own home while checking your phone or watching EPSN in the background, and being able to confidently handle real questions in the actual test environment. To become adept at doing well under real test conditions, you must regularly practice doing well under the most realistic conditions possible. This means only give yourself the allotted break time, do not use the "pause" button, and try to give yourself limited scratch paper.

Take as many practice tests as you can. I took GMAT practice tests from Manhattan GMAT and from www.mba.com. I also took quant-specific tests from GMAT focus. I did not find the Manhattan GMAT practice tests to be well-representative of the material I saw on the real GMAT. I also found the scoring to be off. However, the tests from www.mba.com were super helpful, and the scoring seemed very accurate. Here were my final four mba.com practice test scores prior taking the real test:

GMAT Prep #1: 710
GMAT Prep #2: 720
GMAT Prep #3: 730
GMAT Prep #4: 750

Point of wisdom #6: Come test day, it's important to keep a few things in mind.

First, don't try to be perfect. You don't have to get every question correct. If you've already spent 3 minutes on a question and the solution is not in your grasp, move on! Don't waste your time trying to answer questions that are beyond your level of ability. This will only cause you to get behind on time and then spiral out of control from the time pressure. To be clear, try hard on each question (try very hard!), but you must be disciplined with the time. Given five minutes per question, I'm sure everyone could get the first 16 questions correct, only to get a horrible score. Watch your time!!

Second, don't worry about how you're doing. Doing so can drive you nuts and break your concentration. If you've prepared properly, there will be nothing to worry about. You are not going to guess accurately how you are scoring, especially since you never know which questions are experimental.

Third, don't tire yourself out with the AWA and IR. Do the best you can, but make sure you have ample energy going into the CAT sections of the test. Use those as a warmup - don't sprint the first mile of the marathon!
Resources I Used

Here are some resources that I used to prepare:
To prepare for the verbal section, I used the following resources. Each had strengths and weaknesses.

Manhattan GMAT SC Guide - Good at covering the basics of GMAT grammar. However, there are no realistic practice questions but worth the time/money investment none-the-less.

Manhattan GMAT CR Guide - This is pretty good but has more about strategy than content, I also picked up the Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible. This guide helped me a lot. I highly recommend it. I also used a few LSAT CR materials that I think helped me.

I did not do any formal practicing for RC other than taking practice tests because my RC was pretty strong.

To prepare for the quant section, I started using a number of resources. I used the Manhattan GMAT math guides, the math books from Veritas, and some materials from Kaplan. I stopped using these materials and used only the Target Test Prep Online Quant Course that my tutor actually created himself to fill the gaps sometimes left by other materials - this means that it is quite dense and very long, but if you manage your time well, it's easy to read and well worth the effort. I can't say enough good things about this course. In addition to these materials, I spent a lot of time with numerous versions of the OG and OG quant.

If you are trying to earn a great GMAT score, take a deep breath, sit down, and then make yourself a strategy map. Try to stick to the map as closely as you can. Read and re-read the points of wisdom above - I learned these the hard way. Remember that you can earn a great score! Be positive. Don't get stressed out. Keep yourself healthy through the process. Remember, You CAN do it!

If you're reading this and looking to take the GMAT sometime in the future, I wish you great success. The GMAT is more a test of dedication than anything else - you have to play to win if you want to succeed. If you do, a solid GMAT score awaits on the other side.

User avatar
Legendary Member
Posts: 1100
Joined: Sat May 10, 2014 11:34 pm
Location: New Delhi, India
Thanked: 205 times
Followed by:24 members

by GMATinsight » Thu Jan 29, 2015 4:56 am
Your detailed description of Wisdom is truly interesting.

And the Verbal score is really exceptional. I wish your Quant were a little more in Sync with Verbal then you could have been closer to 800 :P

Congratulations!!!
"GMATinsight"Bhoopendra Singh & Sushma Jha
Most Comprehensive and Affordable Video Course 2000+ CONCEPT Videos and Video Solutions
Whatsapp/Mobile: +91-9999687183 l [email protected]
Contact for One-on-One FREE ONLINE DEMO Class Call/e-mail
Most Efficient and affordable One-On-One Private tutoring fee - US$40-50 per hour

User avatar
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2014 7:10 am

by Sergey Kharlanov » Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:13 pm
Thanks for debrief and especially for this words
There's no way to authenticate these stories (so I think) and I'm sure there's some which are just plain untrue. I know a lot of really smart people who had to study long and hard to earn respectable GMAT scores.
I read and heard a lot about "two-week preparations and 730 result" and such things really demoralize when you prepare for more than threee months and don't see such results.

Good luck to you and thank you again for great and motivating debrief :)