I just Beat The GMAT!

Hey guys,

Long time lurker, first time poster here. This write-up is actually long overdue considering I gave my GMAT towards the end of August last year (2012) however, while cleaning out my inbox I saw a Beat the GMAT email and figured it was about time to post. Telling you from the get-go, this is a long post...

My first time round I started by enrolling in Kaplan weekly classes to re-learn basic math but more so to understand GMAT technique and tricks. I studied for about 3-4 weeks after graduation concentrating specifically on Kaplan materials as they were the only classes available where I was located. In hindsight, I would say the pros of Kaplan for me were the techniques they would use to solve different types of math problems and the Test Day Experience they provide (which I found invaluable). The cons would be that typically their tests do not accurately reflect the actual exam. Some people I spoke with liked using Kaplan because they felt their Math questions were harder than questions elsewhere. However, it's important to realize that this is flawed thinking because. In my experience, the math questions may have been harder but more importantly they were just different to those you could expect on the GMAT and as a consequence, were not useful for me to practice with. Ultimately I gave the test and scored a 690. My goal was to get a 7-handle score and even at 690, I walked out of the testing center knowing I would have to re-take it.

Given my background of being an international student of growing up in the Middle East and with my major and profession both lying in the realm of Finance, I had always been a more quant-oriented person. However my GMAT score reflected my Quant portion to be the problem and I would say the problem was overwhelmingly timing, as it is for most people. Anyhow, I didn't have time to re-sit the exam right after and only had the opportunity when I quit my banking job a year later and found myself with just a month to spare before beginning my new start-up job.

My second time round I took no lessons but I did spend a couple of days doing hard research and preparing my study plan before beginning the self-study. This is also when I joined beatthegmat.com. Even though it only marginally helps your test performance, I found that learning how the test works to be extremely useful, if nothing just for my own peace of mind. For example, I found that the hardest questions you may face at the end of a section, if you have navigated most before that successfully, can award you significant points if you get them right but will not cost you heavily if you don't know them as such a small % of test-takers get them right. As a consequence of this, it's not worth it to spend too much time on them. I also found that the test scales up its difficulty quite quickly, i.e. you could just get the first two or three questions right before facing 700+ level questions so don't be discouraged if you are having problems in the first 10 questions where most people think they should spend more of their time.

Most importantly and this is what caused problems for me the first time round, I realized it's important to realize that on any test I would have to be comfortable guessing questions, but never consecutively. There is also a bit of a strategy to guessing questions correctly. For eg. in the Quant section, if you have practiced enough you will realize that most of the time you can narrow the answer down to two or three choices quite quickly. I would spend about 15-20 seconds after having read the question to evaluate if I could figure out the answer in the next 90 seconds. And if I realized it would take more time than I could give, I would use just the next 20 or so seconds to look at the answer choices, eliminate as many as possible and make an educated guess. Then I would utilize the full extra minute I saved to ensure I did the next question correctly, thereby preventing my score from taking too much of a hit. I think it's important to realize this tactic because many people may guess the answer initially but still spend 2 minutes on it trying to figure it out. Your time is better spent forward ensuring you raise your score back up. The most crucial thing though was getting comfortable with the idea of guessing/skipping a question and I made a habit of doing this in all my practice tests.

Content-wise, I went through all the OG questions under timed conditions. Then I made a log of everything I got wrong and tried them again without looking at the answers initially. If I still got them wrong I would read the answers but then still attempt them again in timed conditions. I think test-takers should also know that there are several ways to solve most questions. I would usually scan the answers right after reading the question to see if there were any clues on quick ways to get to the solution and then go the method I had practiced with and was most comfortable with. I also went through advanced math questions from several guides but in general found these to be less helpful. I gave about 6 MGMAT tests (in my opinion, the best to practice with), scoring anywhere between a 680-740 on all of them. I also gave all tests under timed conditions including breaks and this helped a lot. After doing my test I would review all mistakes, and like my approach with the OG questions, I would re-try them under timed conditions first before and then after reviewing the solutions.

I also gave both the GMAT Prep tests and would like to share a piece of advice I found extremely useful using them. As a preface, I'd like to say that I did some research and found that GMAT test makers have to take into account some 40+ variables when preparing each question and apparently, it costs at least a couple thousand dollars to create each question. No prep company pays this money (understandably) to formulate these questions so any other guide or set of non-official questions you see would even at best, is not too accurate a reflection of what to expect on your exam. I found it quite surprising that most people only sit each GMAT prep test once. I gave each test repeatedly until I exhausted all the questions they had to offer (this was about 3-4 times for each one). And if I came across a question I had previously done, I would select the correct answer without hesitation but this was fine as the test would then direct me to harder questions (this is for all you test-takers obsessed with doing difficult questions). And I would say bar non this was one of the most helpful exercises as it gave me access to the most types of questions I could expect (I'll reference this point later). The first time I gave each GMAT Prep test though I got a 720 and a 770.

I also want to take a quick moment to reflect on the Verbal test portion, which I thought would be the hardest area for me initially. For CR questions I followed Kaplan's technique of reading the question first, then the prompt before guessing an answer and then finally looking at the choices. I found this to be helpful and once you get the hang of doing it correctly you can get through the questions quite quicklu. For RC I read through the paragraph actively (taking mental note of tone changes, argument changes and generally how the passage progressed). For both CR and RC I found reading the OG answers after attempting the question to be very helpful, especially their one-phrase reasons for why certain answers were wrong e.g. 'out of scope'. For whenever I couldn't guess the answer outright, I tried to train myself to identify those same problems withtin the answers choices to eliminate them. For SC I used the MGMAT book as well as Sahil and Spidey's notes (courtesy of this forum). I recommended these same materials to my friend who is a non-native English speaker and he told me SC is where he felt most comfortable on the GMAT.

On test day I got up after a sound night's sleep and just reviewed some Quant theory, no questions . In the actual exam I took my time through the instruction screens and started when I felt ready. On the Quant portion I was actually completely confused by the first question and till today I can't figure out how to do it. This really panicked me but I stuck to my strategy and made an estimated guess before continuing. I continued and felt quite well about how I was progressing, regaining my confidence. In total I would say there were 5-7 questions I guessed. I would also like to say I came across 2-3 questions which were almost identical to questions I had done on the GMAT Prep with just different numbers. In all these cases I was able to get to the answer in 30 seconds and one of them was an extremely difficult one I would have never figured out in the allotted time (another reason to do as many GMAT Prep questions as possible). For the Verbal portion I made 37 sets of ABCDE vertical lines on one page before starting the section. This allowed me to eliminate wrong answer choices easily and keep track of the progress I had made on a question as I was doing it. As a last tip, on the last question I would usually pre-select an answer before even starting to read it as if the time runs out it takes your selected choice to be the answer and at worst you have a 20% chance of success.

When I clicked through to my score I was expecting anything from a 680 to a 750 and was happy to see I received a 730, sitting at the median score of the world's top programs. Funny fact, the test center I sat the GMAT in was one of the busiest centers in the middle east but my administrator told me it was the highest score he had ever seen and he asked me if he could black out my name and details and hang a framed copy on his wall. I politely declined his offer.

Looking forward I don't know if or when I'll apply to B-school. This was done more as something to keep in my back-pocket. I have been researching programs as of late and think Stanford GSB would be my dream. I spoke to the president of the class of 2011 and he told me that while I did well on the GMAT (and better than he did), the majority of the app (60% in his words) was the essays. So I guess I still have a long way to go.

Told you this was long, but hopefully helpful!