GMAT Strategy

Hi guys, i've just decided that I want to take the GMAT test in order to apply to an MBA in 1-2 years.

I'm currently working so I have limited time, i was thinking about spending 2 hours a day and extra hours during the weekend. My goal is to achieve a GMAT score around 700. Can i make it within 2 months? I'm thinking of starting NOW and passing the exam in June.

I'm kind of clueless how to proceed, which materials to get/buy, use flashcard, etc. I'd love if someone could guide me a bit on this.

I already have a Master's degree so I do fine on studying on pressure and little time. However I'm afraid that the GMAT requires math that I haven't used in a long time which can make everything more difficult. Still, I think i'm a quick learner so with some guidance i guess i can make it.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Daves10 wrote:Hi guys, i've just decided that I want to take the GMAT test in order to apply to an MBA in 1-2 years.

I'm currently working so I have limited time, i was thinking about spending 2 hours a day and extra hours during the weekend. My goal is to achieve a GMAT score around 700. Can i make it within 2 months? I'm thinking of starting NOW and passing the exam in June.

I'm kind of clueless how to proceed, which materials to get/buy, use flashcard, etc. I'd love if someone could guide me a bit on this.

I already have a Master's degree so I do fine on studying on pressure and little time. However I'm afraid that the GMAT requires math that I haven't used in a long time which can make everything more difficult. Still, I think i'm a quick learner so with some guidance i guess i can make it.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

As Rich wrote, you'll need to take a practice test to have a rough idea of what kind of time frame you're looking at. I've seen test-takers get 710 on their first practice test and score 780 six weeks later, and I've seen other test-takers need to score 300+ points higher to hit their goal score, and this takes considerably longer.

As for what materials to buy, you'll want:

- the Official Guide (2016 edition),

- the free tests from mba.com: https://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-exam/pre ... tware.aspx

- (optional) supplementary material from mba.com: https://www.mba.com/us/store/store-catal ... ction.aspx

- and prep material to relearn foundational concepts and cultivate strategies. Most companies offer free/trial resources, so do a little shopping and see what works for you. (Here's our app with all our lessons: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat-iphone-apps/

First of all thank you guys for the quick answers!

I've downloaded the software from the official website and just finished the first practice exam.
Overall I felt pretty much confortable with the exam. Couple of things:
I decided to skip the Essay section, it seemed pointless to do a mock exam.
I found the Integrated reasoning quite hard and could not finish the last question in time.
I thought I was OK with the quant but definitely need to revisit a lot of concepts and practice more. I finished this section with around 15min free time.
Regarding the verbal section I need some training in this (english not my first language), some texts I had difficulty in clearly understanding the meaning/purpose of the section. I finished with around 10 min still available.

My results were:
Integrated Reasoning: 5 (52th percentile)
Quant: 45 (68th percentile)
Verbal: 35 (74th percentile)
Total: 660 (81th percentile)

I guess that 660 is an OK result given my goal, what do you guys think? I don't know if one can say "one week of study = X points on GMAT" but 8 weeks of study to get 50 points sounds reasonable right?
I didn't feel the time constraint people were talking about, so I think next time I can do things more calmly.

So I got the following material from some friends:
2016 Official Guide Review
Manhattan 5th edition

Am I ok with this or should I go for more stuff?
Can i buy or find more practice exams? I was thinking of studying during the week and do a practice exam every weekend from now on, so that would mean that I would need to find 8 practice exams to do (and I still have one free left to do from MBA.com).

I plan on doing MBA next year (september 2017) and I'm still not sure which school I want (can?) apply to. I wanted the GMAt to give me a sense of my capabilities. If I had to choose one today I would probably choose INSEAD in Singapour. My choices would be a 1-year MBA in a top-30 school. Depends on money also, so i couldn't afford a 2 year program in the States.
So why do the GMAT now when I have 1.5 years ahead? I'm doing the CFA level 1 in December, so I want to be done with the GMAT before June to study for that.

Thank you guys for the help it's nice to find a forum where we can learn form other's experiences!

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the reply. I thought that the Essay and IR weren't used in calculating the GMAT score. Anyways, how does the machine rate your essay? :O

OK that sounds like a good strategy, I will do so. In the meantime I already booked the GMAT exam for 3rd week of June so time to study!

Is it worthy to buy more practice exams? Apparently Kaplan, veritas, Manhattan, etc. offer more bang for the buck compared to the official Gmat. Are they very different from the official tests?

Daves10 wrote:Regarding the verbal section I need some training in this (english not my first language), some texts I had difficulty in clearly understanding the meaning/purpose of the section. I finished with around 10 min still available.

Hi Daves10.

Scoring high on the verbal section tends to take careful attention to the details and logic of the various parts of the question. In other words, while many can finish the verbal section in under 75 minutes, unless you are getting every question right, finishing early is not a good idea. I am not saying that finishing early this time was your plan. I am saying that going forward, you should use up all of the time allotted in order to maximize what you see in the questions. In fact, had you used that ten minutes this past time, you might have gotten enough verbal questions right to hit your score goal. Think about it. An extra minute or two spent on five to ten questions may have given you time to get the key insights you needed in order to get them right.

Now you could go back over the ones you didn't get and seek to get them right BEFORE you read the explanations. In doing that you would be training yourself to see what you have to see and to do what you have to do in order to get right answers to verbal questions. Then after you have given them another shot, you could go the explanations to get some additional insights.

Regarding the verbal practice, in other words not parts of tests, questions that you do, you should do them untimed. You need to learn to more consistently get right answers to verbal questions, and at first getting right answers may take more, even much more, than two minutes per question. The best way to train to see what you need to see is to work on questions for as long as it takes to get a high percentage, 80 - 100%, right. Once you have developed solid processes for getting them right, you can seek to speed up.

The same goes for quant questions. Start off doing them slowly and carefully. Then speed up once you know how to get them right. If you find certain types of quant question to be particularly challenging, then find a bunch of questions of those types and work each type separately.

To maximize your score, make your preparation more test driven than material driven. In other words, don't prepare for the GMAT the way you might prepare for a school test, by covering every little thing. Prepare for it by figuring out how your score could be higher and addressing that directly. If you are taking forever to handle a particular type of quant question, work on that type. If you are having trouble with reading comprehension, work on that.

Here's a great post on GMAT quant. The title mentions careless mistakes, but the post goes into depth regarding what it takes to score high. https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/careless-m ... gmat-math/

If you get better at handling various types of quant questions and at seeing the details and logic of verbal questions, your score could increase by 100 points, or more, within two months.

By the way, be careful to not get too caught up in learning commonly used "strategies" for handling verbal questions. Many of those strategies are good for getting to the 600's but are not very good for getting harder questions right. Your best approach for verbal is mostly to just get better at seeing exactly what's going on in the questions and answer choices.