Apologies in advance, as this might be a little incoherent. I have now managed to get a bad dose of the flu and feel rubbish - excellent timing though, since it only hit me the day after my exam.
Why 5 weeks?
I have been thinking about doing an MBA for a few years but kept putting it off for one reason or another (most of them not very good reasons). At the beginning of this year I realised that if I didn't give it a shot I would regret it, so I decided to sit the GMAT and see how I went. At 32 years old, I also realised if I didn't do an MBA this year, I probably wouldn't do one.
I was planning on applying for a few of the top US schools which meant that if I wanted to be considered in their final round I needed to be quick about it. Unfortunately, because of my last minute decision I wouldn't be able to resit the exam since you have to wait a month between attempts and still make application deadlines. (As it is, I haven't left myself with much time to prepare applications). Hence my having only approximately 5 weeks in prep time.
I also had some advantages which not every test taker has and these enabled me to take some shortcuts:
1. Although I am not an American, I am a native English speaker.
2. I read all the time - newspapers, magazines, blogs and often up to 2 books a week which helps when it comes to the verbal stuff. All that meant I could focus my prep on the quant side.
3. My employer was pretty flexible and allowed me to work part time (approx 3 days a week) whilst I prepared. Unfortunately I had to spend an entire weekend in at work helping with something, but that was offset by taking the week off before the test to prepare I guess.
I wouldn't advise doing what I did though as I think it is better to spend a bit more time preparing to ensure good results. (I think 2 to 3 months is probably the minimum if you are working at the same time like I was)
Books and courses
I had a limited budget, so I didn't want to spend money on any courses and, in any event, I think they are all geared towards longer prep times than I had so they weren't appropriate for my situation. Instead I spent my budget on books.
Original Guides
1. Quantitative
2. Verbal
3. Review
Kaplan
1. Verbal Workbook
2. Math Workbook
3. Advanced
4. Strategies, Practice and Review
5. Maths Foundations
6. Verbal Foundations
Powerscore
1. SC Bible
2. CR Bible
MGMAT
1. Reading Comprehension
Princeton Review
1. 2009 GMAT
I found the OG books to be very useful. I liked some of the shortcuts to solving quant questions in the Princeton Review and Kaplan's Strategies. The Powerscore books very helpful to me for the theory on SC and CR (I didn't do any of their practice questions as I didn't have time). Last, but not least, I bought the MGMAT book as it gave me access to 6 online tests.
In terms of what to buy, the OG ones are a must and I recommend getting at least one of MGMAT's books so you have access to their tests. I think Powerscore were also pretty good.
I think there are probably better books out there than Kaplan though for the underlying theory - I based my study notes on Kaplan Math Foundations and the OG guides, but I felt they were lacking depth in some parts. However, I think it is an individual choice as to which prep books you buy, so your mileage may vary.
My preparation
It has years since I attended university and a decade and a half since I left school. I think it is safe to say that I was out of practice when it comes to my studying and test-taking skills.
I felt the best way for me to prep would be to do lots and lots of questions. I kept track of the number of questions I attempted just to keep myself motivated. All up, I did 1628 quantitative questions (1332 from the books, 296 from practice exams) and 866 verbal (538 from the books, 866 from practice exams) - a total of 2494 questions. I made sure I did every question in the OG books and I recommend you do all of those as a minimum.
I did more quant than verbal because my verbal skills were pretty good going into this for the reasons I mentioned above.
I timed myself on every question to get used to the pressure of the exam. However, for some of the more difficult questions I gave myself a pass from the timing as I felt it would be better to work out how to do the question and understand the underlying principles more than to just guess.
To break it down by section:
AWA
Again, my language skills were ok, so I didn't spend much time on this. I have yet to receive my essay scores though, so this may not have been a good idea!
I hadn't realised this initially, but GMAC posts all the potential questions for both analysis of an issue and analysis of an argument on their website as PDFs. It is worth downloading them and going through them all to at least familiarise yourself with what could be asked. I spent a day doing this and felt more comfortable going into the test because of it.
I think it is also a good idea to practice writing a few of them. Come up with a basic template you are happy with and use that as the basis for your practice. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to do the AWA part of any practice test you do. (I only did this once and in hindsight think I should have done it more). Doing it this way gets you used to the time constraint and also helps develop the stamina you need to get through the test.
Also, check the resources section of this site as they have some good templates. I wouldn't use them exactly, but modify them to suit your own style.
Quantitative
I used to be pretty good at maths at school, but that was years ago! I really needed to work on this part since the only maths I have used in my business career involved basic operations (addition, multiplication, etc). Plus you can't use a calculator in the GMAT and I have certainly come to rely on them over the years.
To wean myself off my reliance on calculators, I started doing basic maths problems in my head out in the real world - things like calculating how much change I should receive, what percentage discount I would get when buying books, etc. It is only a minor point, but it helped me get back in the game.
Otherwise, the only other thing I did was lots of questions. I would get most right, but probably about half the questions I got wrong involved careless errors - not reading the question correctly, making a basic mistake in addition, incorrectly applying theory, etc. GMAC, being the evil bastards that they are, catered to my stupidity by making sure that I would find my wrong answer in the answer choices.
My aim was to try and cut down these errors as much as possible through practice and being more careful.
Like a lot of people, I was not at all comfortable with data sufficiency. In fact, I am still not, but I got better by doing every DS question I could in all the books I had. The key for me was realising I didn't actually need to solve the questions, just work out if it could be done. I also worked out if I could get my head around at least one of statements I could eliminate a few answer choices and improve my odds if I had to guess.
The other thing to realise is that most of the questions are doable within a couple of minutes. A lot of the time when I was spending too long on a question, I was approaching it the wrong way - e.g. brute force solving versus working out if there was a shortcut such as factoring or if the information contained in the question gave you another way to do it.
Finally I made sure to review every question I got wrong and also questions I wasn't sure about when answering. For the latter, I would put a dot next to my answers as I went through to make sure I included them in my review of the solutions provided.
Verbal
I didn't spend much time on RC or CR. I went through the Kaplan Verbal Foundations book in the first instance (which wasn't particularly helpful to me) and later summarised the theory parts of the Powerscore and MGMAT books on RC and CR, but otherwise my prep in these areas was limited to doing the questions in the OG and on practice exams.
Where I did need work was SC. My overall language skills are very high, but I am not American and I found the use of idioms in the GMAT particularly frustrating. I also have a tendency towards passive vs active tense - a bad habit I haven't really shaken, unfortunately.
As per the quant section, I would review everything I either got wrong or wasn't 100% sure about.
Being a reader really helped me with this section and enabled me to do a lot less prep than I otherwise would have needed. If you have enough time, I would recommend reading as much as possible (fiction and non-fiction) before you do the test as it helps to improve vocabulary and understanding of language structure.
Practice tests
I did 8 practice tests all up, as follows:
1. 19Jan GMAT prep 1: 680 (Q42/V41)
2. 26Jan GMAT prep 1: 740 (Q44/Q47)
3. 31Jan MGMAT 1: 700 (Q42/V42)
4. 03Feb Kaplan 1: 670 (Q42/V43)
5. 06Feb MGMAT 2: 720 (Q47/V41)
6. 13Feb GMAT prep 2: 740 (Q46/V46)
7. 17Feb GMAT prep 2: 730 (Q48/V42)
8. 17Feb MGMAT 3: 720 (Q47/V41)
I only did my first practice test after doing some basic revision and preparing study notes. I felt it was pointless doing it without any prep at all as I already knew I had forgotten everything I learned at school. That way, the first test showed me how well I remembered the theory I had just learned and it gave me guidance to focus my practice. It was after this first test that I started to do all the practice questions.
I had planned my prep so that I would finish my general revision and practice questions two days before my actual exam. That meant I could do two practice tests on the day before the exam.
I was pressed a bit for time and so I only did essays in exam condition on my seventh test. I think in hindsight it would have been better to do more with essays as you are a little less sharp after an extra hour, so it makes the later sections tougher.
I wasn't too worried about scores other than GMAT prep as I don't believe the other test companies have worked out the scaling of marks correctly. I figured that the tests were still useful regardless because it helped me with timing - I messed up the timing on a few of these so it made me more wary going into the actual exam.
One gripe I have is the MGMAT verbal questions. I felt that they were very poorly written, often with several answers that were arguably correct. Doing their verbal questions was a frustrating experience for me, but I stuck with them as it was good practice (I found in my review of their answers I would often disagree with their reasoning). Their maths questions were tougher than the OG ones though, so it was good to try and solve them in time.
The test
I booked in for a test starting at midday which meant I could sleep in a little and read through notes in a relaxed fashion before heading in to do the test.
I bought a couple of chocolates and an energy drink with me and had a chocolate and a few sips of the drink in the breaks. Doing that gave me a sugar and caffeine hit to keep me sharp - I figured it didn't matter if I crashed afterwards, as long as I was focussed in the exam.
I think I did very well on the analysis of an argument (hopefully a 6) but not so well on the analysis of the issue (at least a 4, but hopefully a 5). That is only a guess though as I have yet to receive my marks. Still, for one day's prep, I was happy enough with that. One thing I did was to make sure I forgot about how I went on the essays in the break to not throw me for the task ahead.
I felt I did ok on the quantitative part, but I messed up the timing a little and had to guess the last two questions. I am still kicking myself for the guess I made on the last question since I realised during the break I doubled something instead of halving it! (Still I had about 15 seconds to read the question and select an answer - no pressure!) Again, in the break I decided to forget that part and just focus on the next. I think having a positive attitude helps so you don't let one section drag you down or make you overconfident.
Finally, the verbal. I was very confident going into this section given it was my strong suit. In all the practice tests I had done, I would have significant time left over (once nearly 20 minutes), so I made sure to take my time and check everything. Ironically, this meant I messed up the timing for this section too and had to guess the last couple of questions.
I felt I did well, but not as well as I could have given the timing issues I had. If I had to guess my score before revealing it, I would have said between 700 to 720. Needless to say, I was very happy to see 750 appear when I pushed the button.
One thing I was disappointed about though was that my quant score was only better than 78% of test takers, despite all the work I did on the section. I think I could have improved on this if I had a couple more weeks to practice, but thankfully my verbal score was better than 99% so it really helped to pull me up.
General advice
This has already gone on for way too long so I will make a few short points and sign off.
First, don't underestimate the test. I certainly would have had I not skimmed some of the forums here and elsewhere. I would have done a lot less prep and my score would have reflected that. But I was motivated to do more when I realised I was up against people who were spending 6 to 12 months preparing for the test. In fact, that was probably what kept me going. I wanted to have a shot at a top US school but I had handicapped myself by having less time to prep - so it meant I needed to work harder to get there.
Second, time everything. You need to get used to exam conditions - particularly if you are like me and haven't sat an exam in more than 5 years. Timing is crucial, so you have to work out how to do problems as quickly as possible without sacrificing accuracy. Even though I timed everything, I still had timing issues on the day of the exam, so I can't imagine how bad I would have been had I not timed my practice.
Lastly, read as much as possible. I am lucky in that I am a native speaker, but my real advantage for the verbal section comes from my loving reading. Particularly for the non-native speakers, I think you need to familiarise yourself with how English is used and a good way to do this is to read as much of it as possible.
Alright, that is enough from me. I am happy to answer some questions if you have any. Otherwise, good luck with your prep and with your exam!
