I just Beat The GMAT!

I just did the GMAT this morning, and as this forum helped me a lot for my AWA preparation, I thought I would share my insights.

The first thing I want to say is that I am not an English native-speaker, and yet I just scored in the 97th percentile in verbal. So don't assume that you are necessarily at a disadvantage if your mother tongue is not English, actually I even think its an advantage (more on this below).

Summary of my preparation:
- I studied for a month, 100 hours. I had the beginning of the summer off so and I had time, but I truly believe this study should be done on a short time span. You gain a lot of efficiency by "craming" as you remember what you actually learn from previous exercises.

Material used:
- The five math manhattan GMAT books, as well as the sentence correction one. The other 2 verbal books are complete crap, in my opinion.
- OG12
- OG Verbal 2
- Forums messages for AWA templates (read a few, write 2/3 argument essay to really get the template registered in you brain and you should be set)

My Study Schedule:
- First went through the Manhattan GMAT books quite quickly (maybe 10 hours). Read the material, mostly as a refresher to remind myself of math basic I had not seen in years. I took a few notes, but didn't bother doing the exercises. I believe they are too difficult when you start off and are not representative of the GMAT setting.

- Second, I went through the whole 800 questions of the OG12. How you want to do them is up to you, really. At first I tried to go by batch of 25 in each of the 5 sections. My thinking was that by doing 25 I would test my brain in a more test based setting. I did this for the first 100 questions in all 5 sections, and this really helped me get an understanding of the questions format, I started to see patterns, etc. After 125 (when I was done one the section), I did things a bit differently especially for sentence correction. I realized that I was better off doing them one by one, and looking at the solution after each one to verify I had see the issues properly, that I had chosen the good answer for the proper reason, etc.
Yet however how you go through them: keep track of all the ones you get wrong!!! I believe this is really what helped me the most. Every question I got wrong, I noted. And when I was done, I went over them again. It's incredible the progress you do over time. On the second time, I got 98% of those write, especially in math because I finally understood them.

- Third, I did 3 Manhattan GMAT to test myself in an exam setting (scored on average 700 more or less 10). I also did the Official tests. One midway through my studies (680), then the second one at the end of all 800 exercises (760), and I did the first one again the day before my real exam (740). I only realized then but: the same official prep exam is not the same when you do it again! I think I saw 2 questions that were the same. Had I know this, I would have done both tests 3 times instead of doing the manhattan GMAT ones. The math in those exams is indeed way off the chart!

- Fourth, I needed additional practice and understanding for sentence correction, so I went back to the MGMAT book, read it again, took notes, and then went through all the questions in the OG Verbal Review.

My Test-Taking Advices:

- Math: know your theory, and understand most of the exercises in the OG12. I mean most because it is okay to not understand a few. Truth is, you can get a pretty good score by missing a few questions. No one care if you miss 5 questions because you don't know the math, if you're sure you can nail the other 32 questions that are always more basic!

- Reading Comprehension: Always, always, always fully understand the text! Personally, I like to read
the text 2, sometimes 3 times before going to the question. Why? Because the 1 or 2 additional minutes you invest initially in the reading will saves you the same time in every following questions, as you'll already know the answer. My thinking on this is that if I fully understand the text and know what each paragraph says, than I won't need to go back to it afterwards. So even though you take 5-6 minutes to read a passage, you spend 10 seconds per questions on the 3-4-5 following questions et voila! You're under 2 minutes per questions.

- Critical Reasoning: Never guess! Never infer anything; always keep exactly within what is said in the text! And always understand what is required! One of the mistake I personally did at first was to go off-topic; I would pick a choice that sounds good because it would indeed answer the question, but that is still unrelated to the setting. Also, and this might be new to the GMAT but i had about 5-6 questions today that asked me to find the assumption made in a statement. I hadn't practice this very much, but it went well anyway.

- Sentence Correction: Do all the exercises available! Everything that is tested is a pattern. Its just logic at that point. When you do that many, you see repetition, you know that "like" is only used to compare two similar object, you know where to look for the parallelism rule, etc. Practice makes perfect is so true in this case! And for the native-speakers: Don't trust your ear! Forget everything you know, and learn those rules. This is why I believe it is an advantage not to speak English as a first language: it forces you to do this by the book and learn the rules.


This summarize my studying and my insights. I hope it will help some people! Good luck to everyone on the GMAT! And try to learn to enjoy it, it is only a game!

Great insights dude. Thanks for sharing!

Congratulations on ur score!! and thanks for a good debrief

It is a brilliant score. When you say you are not a native speaker and you scored 44 in Verbal, I can only feel jealous.
Congrats on the awesome score!

I have seen lots of long debriefs here, but I personally like your debrief because you have given great advice for each section. I like your advice on Verbal a lot.

Thanks again.

great achievement dude and I personally think that you have a very good sense of humour!

Congratulations ontherise! Nice debrief and great score. Good luck for your applications.

gud one bro....

hope this turns out gold for rest....

Congratulations on your score.
You provided some very good tips and insights to the test preparation process.
Thanks.

Congrats for you awesome score. I am following the same strategy that you followed in RC. First understand the text & then jump to questions. I saves time as you calculated already...

ontherise wrote:I just did the GMAT this morning, and as this forum helped me a lot for my AWA preparation, I thought I would share my insights.

The first thing I want to say is that I am not an English native-speaker, and yet I just scored in the 97th percentile in verbal. So don't assume that you are necessarily at a disadvantage if your mother tongue is not English, actually I even think its an advantage (more on this below).

Summary of my preparation:
- I studied for a month, 100 hours. I had the beginning of the summer off so and I had time, but I truly believe this study should be done on a short time span. You gain a lot of efficiency by "craming" as you remember what you actually learn from previous exercises.

Material used:
- The five math manhattan GMAT books, as well as the sentence correction one. The other 2 verbal books are complete crap, in my opinion.
- OG12
- OG Verbal 2
- Forums messages for AWA templates (read a few, write 2/3 argument essay to really get the template registered in you brain and you should be set)

My Study Schedule:
- First went through the Manhattan GMAT books quite quickly (maybe 10 hours). Read the material, mostly as a refresher to remind myself of math basic I had not seen in years. I took a few notes, but didn't bother doing the exercises. I believe they are too difficult when you start off and are not representative of the GMAT setting.

- Second, I went through the whole 800 questions of the OG12. How you want to do them is up to you, really. At first I tried to go by batch of 25 in each of the 5 sections. My thinking was that by doing 25 I would test my brain in a more test based setting. I did this for the first 100 questions in all 5 sections, and this really helped me get an understanding of the questions format, I started to see patterns, etc. After 125 (when I was done one the section), I did things a bit differently especially for sentence correction. I realized that I was better off doing them one by one, and looking at the solution after each one to verify I had see the issues properly, that I had chosen the good answer for the proper reason, etc.
Yet however how you go through them: keep track of all the ones you get wrong!!! I believe this is really what helped me the most. Every question I got wrong, I noted. And when I was done, I went over them again. It's incredible the progress you do over time. On the second time, I got 98% of those write, especially in math because I finally understood them.

- Third, I did 3 Manhattan GMAT to test myself in an exam setting (scored on average 700 more or less 10). I also did the Official tests. One midway through my studies (680), then the second one at the end of all 800 exercises (760), and I did the first one again the day before my real exam (740). I only realized then but: the same official prep exam is not the same when you do it again! I think I saw 2 questions that were the same. Had I know this, I would have done both tests 3 times instead of doing the manhattan GMAT ones. The math in those exams is indeed way off the chart!

- Fourth, I needed additional practice and understanding for sentence correction, so I went back to the MGMAT book, read it again, took notes, and then went through all the questions in the OG Verbal Review.

My Test-Taking Advices:

- Math: know your theory, and understand most of the exercises in the OG12. I mean most because it is okay to not understand a few. Truth is, you can get a pretty good score by missing a few questions. No one care if you miss 5 questions because you don't know the math, if you're sure you can nail the other 32 questions that are always more basic!

- Reading Comprehension: Always, always, always fully understand the text! Personally, I like to read
the text 2, sometimes 3 times before going to the question. Why? Because the 1 or 2 additional minutes you invest initially in the reading will saves you the same time in every following questions, as you'll already know the answer. My thinking on this is that if I fully understand the text and know what each paragraph says, than I won't need to go back to it afterwards. So even though you take 5-6 minutes to read a passage, you spend 10 seconds per questions on the 3-4-5 following questions et voila! You're under 2 minutes per questions.

- Critical Reasoning: Never guess! Never infer anything; always keep exactly within what is said in the text! And always understand what is required! One of the mistake I personally did at first was to go off-topic; I would pick a choice that sounds good because it would indeed answer the question, but that is still unrelated to the setting. Also, and this might be new to the GMAT but i had about 5-6 questions today that asked me to find the assumption made in a statement. I hadn't practice this very much, but it went well anyway.

- Sentence Correction: Do all the exercises available! Everything that is tested is a pattern. Its just logic at that point. When you do that many, you see repetition, you know that "like" is only used to compare two similar object, you know where to look for the parallelism rule, etc. Practice makes perfect is so true in this case! And for the native-speakers: Don't trust your ear! Forget everything you know, and learn those rules. This is why I believe it is an advantage not to speak English as a first language: it forces you to do this by the book and learn the rules.


This summarize my studying and my insights. I hope it will help some people! Good luck to everyone on the GMAT! And try to learn to enjoy it, it is only a game!

Hey Ontherise,

My Data sufficiency accuracy in OG question is hovering around 55-60%, any suggestions?

Thanks
Sandeep

Congrats buddy.. That is an awesome score..

Awesome score.. And that post is really helpful
Even I am not an English native-speaker and this post has inspired me
Thanks

Thanks for sharing your incredible journey to an amazing score!

In your debrief, you mentioned that you saw a "pattern" after doing so many problems, over and over again.
Can you elaborate what kind of "pattern" you were able to identify?

Thanks in advance!

Congrats mate.....good score..specially verbal.....and ur absolutly right in terms of reading comrehention and SC,,dats what i do....Do let us knw which all iniv's u applied...

Chaw

Congrats!!