-
CottesloeBoy101
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:50 am
- Thanked: 7 times
- GMAT Score:760
Hi all,
I just wanted to post a quick message thanking everyone on this forum for their help. I made extensive use of the success stories on this website as inspiration on my long (and sometimes frustrating) GMAT journey.
My background: I am a 28 year old Australian male, and my day-job is an equity analyst at a major global investment bank. I decided about 6 months ago that I really wanted to pursue an MBA at a top US university. I quickly realised that I needed a GMAT score well in excess of 700 to have a decent chance. I have a friend at Harvard BS who scored 770, and he told me that he only put in '8 weekends' of solid work using only the official GMAT study guides as material. This turned out to be very unhelpful advice, as I found out later...
I put in ~2 months study before my first attempt using just the OG for help. I scored a disappointing 650, which was mainly due to my shocking performance in quant (40th percentile!). I took a surfing holiday in Bali with a bunch of friends to clear my head and came back refreshed and re-energised. I realised that the OG, while an extremely important source for questions, is not overly useful for teaching the basics for GMAT success. I firmly believe that you need to make use of other study materials in order to gain a solid understanding of the material tested in the GMAT (unless you are a out-and-out genius like my friend at Harvard).
I bought the MGMAT study guides and spent 2 weeks working ~2 hours a day going through every book page-by-page, taking extensive notes in the process. The MGMAT material was very useful for me - it gives clear, simple, easy-to-understand instructions on how to tackle any problem you might encounter in the test. I cannot recommend MGMAT highly enough - I would advise any test-take with aspirations of scoring 700+ to buy these books and go through them in great detail. It is the best way to get a foundation of knowledge across all the subjects.
After that, I went through the OG doing every problem the book. I did them in 40-question bursts, and recorded my time on every single question. I think this was a good approach, as doing 40 questions in a row in timed conditions is the best way to prepare your brain for the rigours of the actual GMAT exam. For every question that I got wrong or took longer than 2 minutes to solve, I did again; if I still coudn't work it out I looked at the answers. I also went on this forum to find out how 'experts' solved the problem - the OG methods aren't always the best / quickest / most logical.
This took me another ~2 weeks, leaving me 2 weeks before my re-sit. I spent this time doing a couple of practice tests and reviewing my knowledge-base. I'm not sure that practice tests are overly useful for GMAT study - it is good to get an idea of your perfomance in 'exam conditions', but they are exhausting and time-consuming. If you are getting over studying or running short on time, I would recommend going through the OG problems in preference to doing practice tests. They wear you out and can ruin your study motivation. If you do decide to do practice tests, make sure you go through every problem after you've finished - the only way to get better is to find out where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes. You need to be methodical and ruthless.
I did the GMAT yesterday and scored 760 (Q:48, V:47). I think the most important difference between my 650 and my 760 was the attitude I took into the exam. I had to teach myself that I wouldn't get every question right and I would have to guess a few times. I am a very competitive person and a bit of a perfectionist - the thought of getting anything wrong is anathema to me. However to succeed at the GMAT you really need to acknowledge to yourself that you aren't going to get every question right. It's a very difficult exam and it will challenge you constantly for 4 hours. Sometimes you need to look at a question, put your hands up and acknowledge that it's too hard to do in your allotted 2 minutes, take an educated guess and move on. I can't stress this enough - time is way too important to waste on a difficult question that you aren't going to get right. I guessed on at least 4 questions in the quant. More importantly, I never let a hard question get me down or ruin my confidence and rhythm. I can't stress this point enough - the GMAT is hard, like it's supposed to be. To do your best you need to attempt every question to the maximimum of your ability, but if you haven't got it after two minutes then it's time to move on.
So in summary, here I my key take-aways that took me from 650 to 760:
1) Have a clear mind before you sit the test. Do NOTHING GMAT-related the day before or the day of the test. Having a clear mind is crucial. You need to be up for the exam, otherwise it will crush you. 'Cramming' is useless - you need to taper the week before you sit the exam. A marathon-runner doesn't warm up by running three marathons the week before the race. It's always good to stay warm, but don't do too much in the direct lead-up to the exam - you will exhaust yourself. Time your run.
2) Tell yourself that you won't get every problem right. You won't even 'get' every problem - there will always be a few that you simply won't have any idea how to approach. That's fine - take an educated guess and move on to the next problem. I took plenty of guesses and I scored 760.
3) There is nothing wrong with re-sitting the exam - you can always improve your score. Don't let a bad performance in the first attempt discourage you too much. Know where you went wrong and fix it. Be brutal. I think anyone can succeed in this test, but it takes the right approach.
4) If English is your first language, you really don't need to do much study for the Verbal. I only did a quick review of the Sentence Correction in the OG and that was enough for me.
Anyway I'm happy to give more advice if anyone has any questions. Good luck!
Tom
I just wanted to post a quick message thanking everyone on this forum for their help. I made extensive use of the success stories on this website as inspiration on my long (and sometimes frustrating) GMAT journey.
My background: I am a 28 year old Australian male, and my day-job is an equity analyst at a major global investment bank. I decided about 6 months ago that I really wanted to pursue an MBA at a top US university. I quickly realised that I needed a GMAT score well in excess of 700 to have a decent chance. I have a friend at Harvard BS who scored 770, and he told me that he only put in '8 weekends' of solid work using only the official GMAT study guides as material. This turned out to be very unhelpful advice, as I found out later...
I put in ~2 months study before my first attempt using just the OG for help. I scored a disappointing 650, which was mainly due to my shocking performance in quant (40th percentile!). I took a surfing holiday in Bali with a bunch of friends to clear my head and came back refreshed and re-energised. I realised that the OG, while an extremely important source for questions, is not overly useful for teaching the basics for GMAT success. I firmly believe that you need to make use of other study materials in order to gain a solid understanding of the material tested in the GMAT (unless you are a out-and-out genius like my friend at Harvard).
I bought the MGMAT study guides and spent 2 weeks working ~2 hours a day going through every book page-by-page, taking extensive notes in the process. The MGMAT material was very useful for me - it gives clear, simple, easy-to-understand instructions on how to tackle any problem you might encounter in the test. I cannot recommend MGMAT highly enough - I would advise any test-take with aspirations of scoring 700+ to buy these books and go through them in great detail. It is the best way to get a foundation of knowledge across all the subjects.
After that, I went through the OG doing every problem the book. I did them in 40-question bursts, and recorded my time on every single question. I think this was a good approach, as doing 40 questions in a row in timed conditions is the best way to prepare your brain for the rigours of the actual GMAT exam. For every question that I got wrong or took longer than 2 minutes to solve, I did again; if I still coudn't work it out I looked at the answers. I also went on this forum to find out how 'experts' solved the problem - the OG methods aren't always the best / quickest / most logical.
This took me another ~2 weeks, leaving me 2 weeks before my re-sit. I spent this time doing a couple of practice tests and reviewing my knowledge-base. I'm not sure that practice tests are overly useful for GMAT study - it is good to get an idea of your perfomance in 'exam conditions', but they are exhausting and time-consuming. If you are getting over studying or running short on time, I would recommend going through the OG problems in preference to doing practice tests. They wear you out and can ruin your study motivation. If you do decide to do practice tests, make sure you go through every problem after you've finished - the only way to get better is to find out where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes. You need to be methodical and ruthless.
I did the GMAT yesterday and scored 760 (Q:48, V:47). I think the most important difference between my 650 and my 760 was the attitude I took into the exam. I had to teach myself that I wouldn't get every question right and I would have to guess a few times. I am a very competitive person and a bit of a perfectionist - the thought of getting anything wrong is anathema to me. However to succeed at the GMAT you really need to acknowledge to yourself that you aren't going to get every question right. It's a very difficult exam and it will challenge you constantly for 4 hours. Sometimes you need to look at a question, put your hands up and acknowledge that it's too hard to do in your allotted 2 minutes, take an educated guess and move on. I can't stress this enough - time is way too important to waste on a difficult question that you aren't going to get right. I guessed on at least 4 questions in the quant. More importantly, I never let a hard question get me down or ruin my confidence and rhythm. I can't stress this point enough - the GMAT is hard, like it's supposed to be. To do your best you need to attempt every question to the maximimum of your ability, but if you haven't got it after two minutes then it's time to move on.
So in summary, here I my key take-aways that took me from 650 to 760:
1) Have a clear mind before you sit the test. Do NOTHING GMAT-related the day before or the day of the test. Having a clear mind is crucial. You need to be up for the exam, otherwise it will crush you. 'Cramming' is useless - you need to taper the week before you sit the exam. A marathon-runner doesn't warm up by running three marathons the week before the race. It's always good to stay warm, but don't do too much in the direct lead-up to the exam - you will exhaust yourself. Time your run.
2) Tell yourself that you won't get every problem right. You won't even 'get' every problem - there will always be a few that you simply won't have any idea how to approach. That's fine - take an educated guess and move on to the next problem. I took plenty of guesses and I scored 760.
3) There is nothing wrong with re-sitting the exam - you can always improve your score. Don't let a bad performance in the first attempt discourage you too much. Know where you went wrong and fix it. Be brutal. I think anyone can succeed in this test, but it takes the right approach.
4) If English is your first language, you really don't need to do much study for the Verbal. I only did a quick review of the Sentence Correction in the OG and that was enough for me.
Anyway I'm happy to give more advice if anyone has any questions. Good luck!
Tom
!!
