I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi Guys

I just beat the GMAT in my case. I needed a 650 and got through with a 660, which makes me happy

The first GMAT that I took was on the 13th of March 2009, so after a month and some days I took it again, and could improve by 50 points.

It's weird since I felt better while taking the test in the first attempt. This time I thought the quant questions were so easy and they never really got hard, which made me think that I was totally on the wrong path and could forget my dreams about getting into the school I wanted!

I didn't really prepare differently than for the first one and actually I studied not as much as last time, therefore I totally agree with a lot of people who once said "it's the quality not the quantity"

First attempt: 610 (Q43,V31)
Second attempt: 660 (Q44, V36)

I really think it's about understanding the concept and not about getting through all the questions. If you got what the GMAT Testmakers want to test, meaning what kind of strategies they use to confuse you, you got it and this leads even to scores up to 700 and more!

Seriously I think with a lot more organised preparation and a wise time management it is possible!

If somebody has any questions, feel free to ask

Last but not least: I want to thank this forum, it's great to have such engaged people here who are always ready to help each other! This community rocks and does a lot for actual and potential GMAT Takers! Thumbs up!

congrats on your score!

can you please tell me what you did hte second time to prepare?


i've worked through OG, and MGMAT CATS are throwing me off... making me feel insecure about my capabilities.

What can I do in my last 2 weeks of prep?

depens wether you are an international or an american student I guess!

What is your minimum criterion?

I didn't really change my study plan for the second phase, I was a kind of lazy because doing the whole process again seemed too burdensome to me!

I did all the Quant Questions in the OG 11 again and could remember some of them, but I actually realized that I answered the questions more formally with a certain structure for the each type of question!

Advice for the Quant Part: if you have a strong quant background, just make sure that you are comfortable with the questions being asked, so that you are not surprized on the test day. Otherwise I suggest you write each concept of solving a certain type of problem down. As you know there are SET and Group problems, Combinatorics and Probability etc. But if you are terribly weak on lets say probability, do not loose too much time trying to understand it, since you just have 2 weeks left. The probability that you get more than 1 prob question is very low...!

Mastering the verbal part seems harder to me, as there are always some confusing answer choices, so that you even if you know the rules can't really decide which one to choose!

If you are an international student, make sure that you learn at least the most common idioms that are used and being asked! The flashcards and the two grammar documents in this forum provide good basics for that... These documents are furthermore very helpful to understand and recognize confusing patterns in answer choices... There are certain rules which make some answer choices almost always wrong etc. Learn them!

For the CR part: Here again, try to understand what types of questions are asked, there aren't as many as it seems... Strenghten / Weaken, Assumptions, Conclusions and some more... If you know in advance what is asked, you know what you have to look for while reading a passage

Although MGMAT tests (I just took the free one) are good, they are still different than the official GMATprep... So make sure that you don't concentrate too much on "external" material. Try to take the GMATprep Tests, especially in the last week before your test, so that you are comfortable with them! There are enough questions in the software question banks and since you never perform the same way two times (although your score might be the same) you will see questions that you never answered before!

I am certainly not the ideal student to ask questions or give advice, since there are some real disciplined students here that are deeply commited... But I hope this helps so far...

Hope you get the score you want!