500 to 700 All While Working Full Time with a Toddler

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Well yesterday was test day and I have to say I am happy to be done with the GMAT and on to focusing on the rest of my application. Now I know a 700 is not an overly impressive score for many on this forum but considering I was initially aiming for a 650 I am more than pleased with my result.

A bit of background on me to put all this in perspective a bit. I'm a 30 year old working mom who is targeting a local part-time MBA for a 2017 start. My husband works afternoons currently so over the course of my GMAT prep I was basically a single mom so fitting in studying was a bit interesting. I signed up for Magoosh's premium subscription which was super helpful for me as its been a long time since I've touched a lot of the math covered by the test. I used Magoosh's 3 month study plan and found the structure worked well for me. Most of my study time was my lunch breaks at work and evenings after my 1 and half year old went to bed.

My first practice CAT was 500 (29Q/31V/7IR) back in May. I was disappointed with my showing in the verbal as I have a background in English though I wasn't too surprised with my quant performance out the gate. I'm pretty good with math but I've never been super fast with mental math and as I said before was super rusty on my concepts. I spent about three weeks plugging through concepts and doing lots of practice before my next CAT but I paid off as I saw my score jump to 650 (sorry I don't have that breakdown in fron of me bu I believe my quant was in the mid 39s and verbal was high 30s). Because of some pre planned vacations and nasty flu that ran through our house I only managed two other practice CATs. Both were 680. My last one the week before my official test had a breakdown of 44Q, 40V and 7IR. I was feeling pretty good going in to test day.

I scaled back my studies the week leading up to the test. Reviewed key concepts that I was weaker with and did a bunch of mixed practice sessions using both Magoosh and OG. The day before I didn't crack any textbooks. Luckily my parents took our little one for the night so I was able to relax a bit and sleep soundly. My exam was at 8am so we were up early and my hubby dropped me off at the testing centre at 7:30. The staff was super nice and got me checked in right away. The test itself went well, I felt my studies had prepared me well for the experience. I'm glad I did full practice CATs despite it being tough to get 4 hour blocks of time to do them. I think that helped come test day as I was ready for just how gruelling the test truly is.

I took all my breaks though not the full 8 minutes. I think I took 6 my first break and just shy of 5 my second. Finished each section on time or with a bit of time to spare (I will note I'm a fast test taker to begin with. I think my test taking style was actually conducive to the GMAT). Overall I felt pretty good. I was a bit worried about my quant performance when I got through that section because I generally felt the questions were easier then I had been seeing in practice. Tried to put that out of my mind and moved on to the verbal. I had a couple of questions were I got hung up between two answers but generally felt pretty good about it.

When my score came up the first thing I saw was my IR and verbal and I wasn't too thrilled. I pulled out a 5 in the IR. While I'm not upset I would have liked at least a six but oh well I'm over that 50th percentile hump. Verbal was 39, obviously those questions I was humming and hawing about two answers hurt my score. Still it's and 89th percentile score and a 8 point jump from my starting point. Then I saw my quant and overall score... I nearly hit the floor. I had managed a 47in quant! That was 3 points better than my best practice score! Overall I had managed to hit 700!

The program I'm applying to has a minimum requirement of 550 and an average of 620ish so I am thrilled with where things came out! Goes to show you that even juggling a career and a young family you can hit your goals. You just have to have a plan that fits your life and some determination!

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by MartyMurray » Mon Jul 25, 2016 3:57 pm
Sweeeeet. Nice job.

I noticed that along the way you used some did some key things that were factors in your success, things such as practicing untimed, reviewing quant concepts thoroughly and, when practicing verbal, using logic to carefully reason your way to answers.

Here are some great quotes from your posts.

"... and understanding that for both quant and verbal sections that the test is more of a logic and critical thinking test then a test of actual skills."

"If you are missing questions because you aren't familiar with the background concepts of questions it can mean lots of review but it doesn't mean you can't pick up the information pretty quickly (especially if you've seen it before but haven't used it in a long time). If you are getting stuck more on the psychology and what the test is really testing, that is really learnable too. Same thing goes if you have holes in both areas (like me).

Long story short, figure out where you need to focus your studies and you can really bump your mark up quickly."

Way to go!!!!
Marty Murray
Perfect Scoring Tutor With Over a Decade of Experience
MartyMurrayCoaching.com
Contact me at [email protected] for a free consultation.

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by Knitgeek » Wed Jul 27, 2016 11:13 am
My official score report just came in (I'm surprised how fast the turn around was) and my AWA came back at 5.5. So I am happy to say I can officially close the book on my GMAT experience with a smile on my face.

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by dggiles » Sat Aug 06, 2016 5:25 pm
Congrats on the improvement. Your story is definitely an inspiration for improvement.