I know 560 is not a high score for most but for myself I am very excited. Only 5 weeks ago I took the GMAT and scored 460. I wanted to apply for a scholarship that requires 550 minimum to participate. After my 1st test even though I was far I was never discouraged. This is the key!
I have always had more trouble with quant. I was a liberal arts major at UNC Chapel Hill. On the SAT my math score was only 430 so I knew the GMAT math would be challenging. On the first test I had 460 with just 33Q (38th percentile). To be fair, I had not done much before that exam in terms of preparing. I had done a lot of practice questions but mostly in Verbal because of my low confidence in the quant. Plus I had taken no practice test so I was very unprepared. This is the reason that I believed I could do a lot better the second time around. So I had 5 weeks and I needed a game plan.
A co-worker who is also preparing for the GMAT suggested that we study together, and he uses the OG12. Since I was too embarrassed to let someone else see how weak I am, I decided to first brush up on my math fundamentals. So I purchased Math Smart from the Princeton review. This small book discusses the math basics like manipulating fractions, finding percentages, working with distance equations... Just a lot of stuff that I did not know so well. I spent a 1-week marathon to run through that book.
After this I started to study out of the OG12 with my co-worker. We used the OG12 along with the OG Companion from gmatfix. Each day after work we would meet from 5:30 to 7:30 and cycle through the different topics like Number Properties, Combinatorics, Work & Rate... 1 topic per day.
We would look at the reference section of the OG Companion for a list of all the questions in the OG that fit our topic of the day. Then we would go through these questions in timed sets (10 questions in 22 minutes for PS, 10 questions in 17 minutes for DS). After the drills we would review solutions carefully to find out how we could improve. This was an important step I think. The OG gives pretty brief solutions, but the Gmatfix OG Companion gives more detailed solutions with big-picture strategy advice. This helped me get a deeper understanding.
On the weekends I would take practice tests from GMATPrep and look for explanations in forums like this one. My confidence grew and grew; When I took the test today, I was so proud of myself to have reached the 560, with 39Q (55th percentile!!). I reached my goal of 550
Take-Aways:
(1) Next time I won't do my practice randomly. It is better to have specific topics and practice those topics in depth before moving to the next topic.
(2) Spend time reviewing your work and studying detailed solutions! For me the solutions of the OG Companion were so important because the OG solutions are brief and they don't talk about strategy at all
(3) Take practice tests!! Don't do like I did and take your first test on exam day. This was crazy.
I have always had more trouble with quant. I was a liberal arts major at UNC Chapel Hill. On the SAT my math score was only 430 so I knew the GMAT math would be challenging. On the first test I had 460 with just 33Q (38th percentile). To be fair, I had not done much before that exam in terms of preparing. I had done a lot of practice questions but mostly in Verbal because of my low confidence in the quant. Plus I had taken no practice test so I was very unprepared. This is the reason that I believed I could do a lot better the second time around. So I had 5 weeks and I needed a game plan.
A co-worker who is also preparing for the GMAT suggested that we study together, and he uses the OG12. Since I was too embarrassed to let someone else see how weak I am, I decided to first brush up on my math fundamentals. So I purchased Math Smart from the Princeton review. This small book discusses the math basics like manipulating fractions, finding percentages, working with distance equations... Just a lot of stuff that I did not know so well. I spent a 1-week marathon to run through that book.
After this I started to study out of the OG12 with my co-worker. We used the OG12 along with the OG Companion from gmatfix. Each day after work we would meet from 5:30 to 7:30 and cycle through the different topics like Number Properties, Combinatorics, Work & Rate... 1 topic per day.
We would look at the reference section of the OG Companion for a list of all the questions in the OG that fit our topic of the day. Then we would go through these questions in timed sets (10 questions in 22 minutes for PS, 10 questions in 17 minutes for DS). After the drills we would review solutions carefully to find out how we could improve. This was an important step I think. The OG gives pretty brief solutions, but the Gmatfix OG Companion gives more detailed solutions with big-picture strategy advice. This helped me get a deeper understanding.
On the weekends I would take practice tests from GMATPrep and look for explanations in forums like this one. My confidence grew and grew; When I took the test today, I was so proud of myself to have reached the 560, with 39Q (55th percentile!!). I reached my goal of 550
Take-Aways:
(1) Next time I won't do my practice randomly. It is better to have specific topics and practice those topics in depth before moving to the next topic.
(2) Spend time reviewing your work and studying detailed solutions! For me the solutions of the OG Companion were so important because the OG solutions are brief and they don't talk about strategy at all
(3) Take practice tests!! Don't do like I did and take your first test on exam day. This was crazy.
