I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time reader that has only posted once-after my first try-when I was trying to decide if I should retake. In brief, I'm a white male, B.A. from a top liberal arts school in humanities, virtually no experience in finance, haven't taken math since high school, and am applying to top ten schools. I struggled whether or not to retake it (since 680 with 44Q 38V isn't [i]awful[/i]) but was encouraged when one of the moderators said I should because of my lack of quant background. Here is my experience and my prep:

The second time through the exam was so much easier- I knew exactly what to expect in terms of the sign in, how early to show up (I showed up 45 min early to budget in for any unexpected delays), and what the atmosphere would be like. A word to those who have yet to take the exam- bring layers with you. The first time I took the test it was hot and I went with a t-shirt. This time I brought a long sleeved shirt and a sweatshirt and ended up wearing both since it was freezing inside. I also went in with more confidence- I automatically reported my score last time so either I was going to do better and report my score after the fact or I would do worse and no one would ever know. I think this approach was liberating, and would recommend it for any retakers on the bubble.

AWA- The exam itself started off with two easy AWA topics. I do a lot of writing so I wasn't concerned about it and had gotten a 6 last time. My advice here is to take the entire length of the 30 minutes for each essay, even if you finish it with time to spare. It gives your brain and body a chance to rest instead of rushing through. I considered it an unscheduled break to relax for the final 2-3 minutes. At the end of the writing you have the official optional 8 minute break. Do not click the take the break button until the test administrator is standing right there with you ready to check you out! I can't emphasize this enough. You only get 8 minutes and this includes the amount of time it takes to get up, have them sign you out by rescanning your palm, as well as the time to resign you back in and walk back to your desk. This is not very much time at all! I ran around the corner to the bathroom, took care of my business, splashed some water on my face, and went right to my locker where I had a power bar and some water. Since the break is so short, I recommend having your snack and/or water already out of your bag and ready to grab when you open up your locker. I also had a handful of quant Beat The GMAT flash cards to look at to get into the mindset of quant. A couple minutes of that and then I signed back in.

Quant- As seems to happen for many people on the exam, the first question truly stumped me. It was a geometry question that really didn't make much sense to me and I ended up guessing after spending about 4 or 5 minutes. I felt a tinge of panic but relaxed when I got to the 3rd and 4th questions and answered them easily. Math is hard for me so I really needed to focus for the entire time. I actually ended up having about 3 minutes for the final question, a DS about standard deviation, and think I guessed right.

Verbal- The verbal is not as difficult for me but I didn't do nearly as well on my first GMAT as I thought I should. I really buckled down and did much better this time and I believe the reasons are threefold:
1. I always had a ton of time left in my practices CATs (10-15 minutes) and there is no bonus for finishing early. I took my time this time around and it was much easier.
2. The tendency on some of the logic questions (in reading comp or otherwise) is to use your common sense or knowledge of real life situations to answer the questions. You must ONLY use the info they give you! I found that the correct answer was almost always something much simpler than a conclusion I could draw by using my own logic. In other words, you need to make a concerted effort to only use the info you're given.
3. Sentence correction is best done by process of elimination. For these questions I always write out A-E on the wipeboard and crossed out wrong answers. Super easy but really helps when you're able to only focus on a couple different choices if you need to guess. I think you can memorize some of the idioms, but in general I feel like this is something that native speaker and non-native speakers alike need to do systematically.

Prep- I did a ton of practice exams between my first time through and then over the past month in between my two exams. I started off doing VeritasPrep online, which was good for me because it was less expensive than some others, had decent fundamentals in quant for someone like me that really needed it, had access to a lot of practice CATS, and allowed me to do lessons whenever I had the time. I also ended up buying the OG 12, and, after my first exam, the Manhattan GMAT equations, inequalities & VICs book. I bought this partly for the review but mostly to have access to their CATs. If I could go back, I would probably do all MGMAT. Their stuff is great and really gets to the point. I made my own flashcards but also downloaded and printed out the Beat the GMAT flashcards, which I think are spectacular- thanks much Beat The GMAT!

Practice CATs:
Test Date Verbal Quant Score
GMATPrep 6/29/2009 39 35 610
VeritasPrep 7/4/2009 50 42 710
800score 7/10/2009 42 33 620
Thomson/ARCO 7/14/2009 31 41 600
VeritasPrep 7/21/2009 44 40 670
800score 7/26/2009 42 40 670
Thomson/ARCO 8/1/2009 42 44 720
VeritasPrep 8/9/2009 35 42 630
800score 8/4/2009 55 37 730
800score 8/11/2009 40 37 650
Thomson/ARCO 8/12/2009 38 50 720
GMATPrep 8/15/2009 44 47 730
VeritasPrep 8/16/2009 37 42 650
[i]Actual GMAT 8/19/2009 38 44 680[/i]
MGMAT 1 9/12/2009 40 45 700
MGMAT 2 9/13/2009 39 44 690
MGMAT 3 9/22/2009 41 44 700
[i]Actual GMAT 2 9/26/2009 42 46 720[/i]


Thanks much to the community and good luck to all.
~BrooklynGMAT

BrooklynGmat:

Thank you for your comment about the test admin. I took my GMAT in Brooklyn (the one at York Station on the F line).

I work in Midtown and live in the lower East Side so I've really only left Manhattan less than 10 times since I've been in NY and should've understood the testing center better.

First of all, the place was hard to find so had I not found someone who was going the same way (and walked me there), I surely would've got lost. Even with a tourguide, I was late by a few minutes, having to get to the center from Midtown.

Like you said, the eight minute break is precious. I lost about a minute on the first eight minute break and a few minutes on the second one. Although the testing center admin was very nice, I literally lost a good 60 seconds for her to see my raised hand, nod at me, stand up, get into the secured area, walk to me and walk me out. I also lost a 60 seconds trying to use the hand-scanner to log in and out for both breaks.

I wish I could've known better.

Its also extremely important to utilize the break optimally. During my GMAT exam, I fully utilized the first break up to 7 minutes and then rushed 30 seconds before the Quant. I was able to relax and went in fresh for the Quant battle.

Second break was a different story. I followed the same routine, but I did not fully utilize the break. I entered when I still another 3 mins 30 seconds to go. After entering the room, I felt like I was not mentally ready for the verbal yet. I was not able to flush quant out of my mind during the second break. I felt, I had underperformed during my Quant, I was not expecting anything more than Q44 only to find I scored a Q48. The mind set when I went in to verbal was like let me get this done fast. I felt I already kind of lost half the battle. It resulted in a poor verbal score of a V21, which was lower than any of my practice test scores.

Couple of lessons learn't:

1. Flush previous section out of your system.
2. Utilize exam break optimally.
3. Never try to guess your score or assume difficulty levels of questions.

sreak1089 wrote:Its also extremely important to utilize the break optimally. During my GMAT exam, I fully utilized the first break up to 7 minutes and then rushed 30 seconds before the Quant. I was able to relax and went in fresh for the Quant battle.

Second break was a different story. I followed the same routine, but I did not fully utilize the break. I entered when I still another 3 mins 30 seconds to go. After entering the room, I felt like I was not mentally ready for the verbal yet. I was not able to flush quant out of my mind during the second break. I felt, I had underperformed during my Quant, I was not expecting anything more than Q44 only to find I scored a Q48. The mind set when I went in to verbal was like let me get this done fast. I felt I already kind of lost half the battle. It resulted in a poor verbal score of a V21, which was lower than any of my practice test scores.

Couple of lessons learn't:

1. Flush previous section out of your system.
2. Utilize exam break optimally.
3. Never try to guess your score or assume difficulty levels of questions.

Happened to me too. I was devastated by the quant section and pounding cigs for my second break. The demoralization factor played a big part as I was pretty flustered for the first twenty minutes of verbal. Although I did exceptionally well for the verbal, I messed up one at least one question and rushed maybe 5-10 at the end. Part of it was because I was freaking out after the quant and took at 11 minute break to chill out.

Great feedback! Congrats on the score and good luck with your applications