I just Beat The GMAT!

My first piece of advice is to remind yourself everyday that with hard work, you will get what you need. The GMAT is just one step of many to achieve your life's goals. Ultimately successful people in life will acheive their goals with or without the GMAT.

I did not use this forum at all for study purposes, but i read the ijustbeatthegmat part almost every day, i needed the inspiration and motivation. Thanks everyone for their posts! Four years ago I took the GMAT and got a 590, this was just after i had finished college. In hindsight it is very clear that i was not committed or dedicated at that time. Despite not reaching my goal then, the score turned out high enough to get into a respectable part time program in my area. I completed my MBA last December. Shortly after, I finally realized that I wanted to do a PhD . To be competitive at even 2nd tier schools you need a 670+. Studying for the GMAT and working full time, is no easy task, but i knew what I had to do to have a chance at reaching my goal.

What I did:

Quantitative and sentence correction were my weak areas. I knew i had to focus my time around these areas.

Jan:

I reviewed old algebra textbooks, algebra was a weakness of mine, and it is a must have, to do well in the quant portion. I then studied an old Geometry textbook. I did this 1-2 hours a day to refresh my brain on these concepts from so many years ago.

Feb-March

Took a power prep test after almost no review of GMAT type problems. Got only a 550, this was frustrating, but I knew I would improve. I started doing the 10th edition quant problems. Seeing these problems solidified my suspicion that you don't necessarily have to be a math genius to do well, but that you do need to understand how the GMAT works . After a month of prep with the OG I only improved to a 590 on the second power prep. At this point i was questioning my ability to improve.

March:

Given that I had only improved slightly in my weak areas I knew something had to change. I understood the fundamental concepts of the mat but I was having trouble applying it to the GMAT. I decided to buy MGMAT books. I don't want to come across some sort of sponsor for MGMAT because I am not, but these books made the difference for me. I bought all of the quant books, in particular the word translations and number property books were tremendous help. I also bought the sentence correction guide, and as many people posted, the SC guide is extremely helpful. Best of all it only takes 2-3 days to get an initial read through and helps train your brain for how the GMAT tries to trick you. I had not set a test day yet but I decided with these books I could get where I needed to be. I set the test for late april on a Monday, because after a long week of work, on saturday I am not always at my highest potential.

For all of march I did 1-2 hours studying during the week before work, i find in the morning i am freshest therefore it was a better use of my time. On the weekends I did 3-4 hours each day, and if one day during the week i did not feel like doing anything for the GMAT, I did nothing and did not feel guilty about it. Sometimes this lets things sink in better for me.

April:

Decided to see how the books were working, the first weekend in april i got a 650 on the power prep retake. Although not exactly where I wanted I knew i was getting there, and at this point i had not used the Official guides again. After this I started going through the tougher problems in OG 11 and repeating the material in MGMAT. I took another practice test a week before the test and got a 700. I knew I was there, all i needed was to remain confident. The last week I did one of the gmat focus quant tests from mba.com for $25; the questions were really close to the actual test and the diagnostic test gave me 80% confidence i would get between 42-48. While taking it i panicked, i felt i was doing awful. I only got 12 out of 24 right on it, but this emphasized you don't have to get every question right to do well, and having this experience actually paid for itself on test day.

Exam day:

Like everyone else, I barely slept the night before. Did my normal routine, and went to the test center. Quant really shook me up, and my timing was bad, had 24 minutes with 14 questions left. After i finished the section i was pretty worried, but i remembered how just a few days before i missed 12 out of 24 and did decent based on the mba analysis. I decided to just make up for it in verbal. Verbal was tough too, harder than what i had seen in power prep, but in the end i did about the same , so maybe it just felt more difficult. When i submitted the test i almost threw up, i was really hoping to see a 700+, but 690 came up. I was just as happy though, tests can go either way, and why worry about 10 points, it is not a deal breaker.

Moral of the story, you can beat the gmat. You don't need a 750 (although it sure would be nice) to get where you want to be. Even with a 690, i am going to face difficulty getting accepted for a 2nd tier university for a PhD program next year, but it won't be the GMAT that determines my fate. Now it is the time to build other aspects of my background. I wish everyone the best of luck with the GMAT, and I hope this is able to help someone. Keep your fingers crossed for me with PhD.

Congratulations on your Gmat! Unless you want to teach at top University it really doesn't matter where you get your Phd from.

Work on other parts on your application and you should be just fine! Also, already having an MBA can give you a leg up against the competition.

best of luck!