I just Beat The GMAT!

First off, thank you all for posting, answering questions and your motivating stories. They helped me and I hope this helps you one day.

A little about myself. I grew up in the U.S.. Obtained my bachelors and masters degree's in Civil and Structural engineering, respectively. So Quant was definitely a strong suit. But the GMAT is not about designing buildings, so I had to brush up on a lot of my math skills. Let me start by saying when I started I thought the GMAT was a piece of cake. Until I took a practice test and barely squeaked out a 580. That really woke me up and brought me back down to earth. So here it is.

I decided engineering is cool, but not something I want to do for the rest of my life. So at the ripe old age of 23 I started studying for the GMAT. Goal has always been either Kellogg or Booth, since I live in Chicago. So I knew I needed at least a 700 to have a decent shot to get in.

After doing some research I liked Manhattan GMAT, so I bought all of their Study Guide Books on Amazon. Honestly, the books were awesome. I read through them. Felt pretty good about everything and did some MGMAT CAT's. Below are some of my scores.

Took actual GMAT without studying too much, just brushing up on concepts:
GMAT #1: 600 (Q46 v27) November of 2011.

Obviously that was a failure. So practice MGMAT's are below.

MGMAT CAT1: 650 (Q44 V35)
MGMAT CAT2: 640 (Q43 V34)
MGMAT CAT3: 670 (Q45 V36)
MGMAT CAT4: 640 (Q44 V34)
MGMAT CAT5: 630 (Q46 V31)

I figured 5 tests was good enough. I took the actual test a second time.

GMAT #2: 570 (Q45 V25) End of March 2012.

This was devastating. This almost brought me to tears and I really don't cry that often. Up to this time I really thought I could wing the GMAT without being that great at grammar. I didn't have time to learn grammar. I have a loving wife and 2 yr old kid with whom I enjoy spending time with. I also have a lawn that is not going to cut itself. Long story short, I was working about 50-60 hours a week as a Structural Engineering and trying to not be a horrible husband/father while studying for the GMAT.

Luckily my wife encouraged me to take the test again. I took about 2 months off and did not even think about the GMAT. Around May of 2012 I realized that I need to work on my grammar and such for the SC portion. I started from scratch. Literally from 'what is a verb'. I bought the SC GmatPill. It was ok overall, but not earth shattering. In all fairness my conversational English was just fine, but my proper/GMAT English could use some work. Either way, the MGMAT SC Book was pretty awesome. I also bought the PowerScore for CR. Also very solid. I kept doing a lot of OG problems. Using an error log. Tracking the time for each questions. Really slowing the process down and getting QUALITY OVER QUANTITY! This is huge!

I signed up for all the daily problems from every possible website. I lived and breathed with my GMAT study books. At first I wanted to take the GMAT a third time before the IR change, but realized that I needed some more time. I'm very glad I waited.

Eventually I've done all of the Verbal OG questions twice. and taken the MGMAT CAT's again. Below are some of the score.

MGMAT CAT6: 700 (Q47 V39) (I was pumped!)
MGMAT CAT1A: 660 (Q44 V36)
MGMAT CAT2A: 620 (Q45 V31) This was 5 days before the exam!

I was again devastated. I took the GMAT Practice tests with their software and was consistently getting about 660. Nothing spectacular.

So with 5 days to go I start stressing out. My wife is out of town, so I have some free time. Took a day off of work and just put in like 8-10 hrs. Just piles of practice SC problems. Used any and every problem I could get my hands on. Dissected the solutions until I started seeing doubles of everything. Also I went back to all my MGMAT tests and wrote down the formulas/concepts for all the math problems I got wrong. Which was only Probability, Combinatorics and some Standard Deviation stuff. I went back to the MGMAT Guides and reread those sections (all within the last 5 days). I really felt even more confident in Quant. So then came test day.

Test Day:

Left 4 hours before the test (trip is approx. 1 hr) Got stuck in major traffic (this never happens at 10am) and started freaking out. Of course this would happen on test day. Test was at 2pm. Got there with 2.5 hours to spare. Started reviewing all of my notes of questions I missed furiously. Almost forgot to eat. Got some food. Walked over to test center, said a quick prayer and walked in.

Testing folks were great, no problems there. Signed in and destroyed the AWA Essay. That CEO had no chance. Now I never practiced any IR at all. But it seemed relatively straightforward. I feel pretty good about how I did there, guess I'll find out in a couple days. Took my first break.

Had my granola bar. Downed a Starbucks coffee. Did about 30 push ups. I was pumped for the Quant. Went back in and was doing good. At about question 20 I may have finally missed a question, but was still ahead as far as timing goes. But the quant didn't feel bad, until question 25 or so. Man, the GMAT gods struck with a vengeance. Crazy geometry. Obscure inequality/absolute value data sufficiency. Just an absolute nightmare. I was glad I was ahead on time. I finished with about 39 seconds to spare. Felt wiped out, but knew I did well. Took my second break.

Had a few more granola bars. Did 30 more push ups. Got my blood pumping and back in to do Verbal. First 20 were fine. Couple weird SC's, some vague and confusing articles but I took detailed notes on RC articles and really forced myself to actually care about them. There were a few tough CR questions, but nothing unmanageable. Around question 30 I started to lose it. I knew the test was almost over. My heart started beating really fast. I lost my concentration and was falling apart. I was ok on the timing, even 3 minutes ahead. So I stopped completely and for 60 seconds, closed my eyes and just did some breathing exercises. This helped calm me down. Finished the last couple questions, probably got them wrong and didn't feel too confident in my Verbal score. Went through the bs demographic questions and boom: 700.

GMAT #3: 700 (Q49 V38)

Double fist pump in the air. I felt about 20 lbs lighter. I was so happy to have this over with.

Some general thoughts/tips.
1. Don't let the test consume you. Breathe. Exercise. Do whatever you need to be in control.
2. Timing is KEY! If you are behind and guess it's ok. But do NOT under any circumstances spend 4-5 minutes on a math problem. It will destroy your timing and is not worth it. I strongly believe that with time and a good foundation one can easily score 660-680.
3. Don't give up. I have to say that I am by far one of the worst standardized test takers. When I tell my friends how I do on standardized tests they do not believe me, because the scores are so low. I suck at them! They are horrible! They give me nightmares. If you are like me, then all I can say is that there is hope. But it requires a lot of practice. Like so much practice that you start understanding how and why the GMAT writers give you certain options on the SC and what they are trying to trip you up with. So much practice that when you Data Sufficiency problem and you want to select C (both 1 and 2) you realize that it's a trick question and you're falling for their trap. Practice is not overrated. Studying works. If you think it doesn't then you haven't studied hard enough.

Do I wish I got higher than a 700? Of course. But getting a 700 is good enough at this point. My ROI to get a 720 or so is simply not worth it.

If you have any questions feel free to message me.

The GMAT is a tough test. If anyone ever tells you otherwise then challenge them to actually take it. The GMAT will humble you and bring you down to your knees. But with enough practice you can beat it!

So happy studying to all of you. Hope this helps. Now I'm off to write some essays.

Very inspirational and motivating....All the Best with your app and no doubt..you will make it.

Also, celebrate your score with your family...they gonna love that.

Congrats! That's a great score.

Rkucher - congrats on your awesome score! I notice many parallels between our prep and initial scores. I'm also strong in math and took the GMAT last year despite studying the MGMAT study guides and scored in the 580-600 range. What was the single biggest factor in increasing your verbal score this time around? What did you learn from the most? I've also been dragged down in quant with timing issues. Any advice would be appreciated.

gmatnj1 - Biggest factor in Verbal is hard to pinpoint. Like I said previously, my grammar was horrible. I had to re-teach myself completely. This was exceptionally difficult since I am a native speaker of the English language, just not the GMAT English language. There are difference that you simply cannot rely on your ear for and need to know the rules of grammar and what to look for.

For Reading Comprehension, the biggest thing for me was finding a strategy that worked. The only way I would read "actively" was to take detailed notes. This worked for me, because it was hard for me to memorize the overall flow/meaning of the passage. When I would take notes, I would never have to even go back to them, but the process of writing it down, made the reading and understanding easier. This caused me to spend a lot of time on RC. Not too much, but I was averaging about 8 minutes per article (including questions). So that meant that for SC I had to get them done in a maximum of 1.5 minutes. Most of the time I tried for a minute per SC question. This is where an error log comes in handy. Keeping track of how long SC and CR take you.

For CR, I don't know what a good strategy is. But I know if my answer was deviating from the exact conclusion of the argument I got rid of it. CR was not that hard for me. But I would need about 1.75 minutes for medium questions and about 2 minutes, at least, for tougher ones. CR is something you can improve with more practice. SC is something you need to practice a ton of, but also know and understand all of the rules. RC sucks. I hated practicing it and honestly didn't practice it too much.

For quant I would go through your MGMAT tests and determine why you got questions wrong. If it's lack of technical knowledge, go back to the study guides and review, SLOWLY. Let it sink in. Do all the practice problems. If it's a silly mistakes due to working to fast, then slow down and reread the question before selecting your final answer, just to ensure that you are answering what the problem asks.

Nice testimony! I'm looking to score around 685-700 and Verbal SC is giving me more difficulties than I would like. Would you recommend any other resources outside of MGMAT, which I have their SC and CR books, to increase my knowledge? Lastly, for the practice exams, did you take them every week leading up to the actual exam? Thank you in advance and again congrats!

hi

Is there anything that you can advice on the question types like hovv tough or anything in particular that youdl like to share

@dgriffinsimmons: Well, going over the MGMAT CAT tests in details, slowly, helps a lot. Then try to do the SC/CR questions you got wrong again, in like a week or so. I used the PowerScore CR Bible. That was awesome for CR. Also, every MGMAT book has an additional 25 questions you can unlock. Use this! These questions are new and have not been in any of the tests. I did this about a week before and kept retaking until I got the questions right.

The main key with SC is to determine exactly what is being tested. Once you know that, it is easier to apply the appropriate rules.


I took practice exams about once a week for the last 4 weeks before the exam. The next day went over quant. Tried all the problems I got wrong again. Took notes on topics/equations I got wrong. Next day did Verbal. retook the questions I got wrong on my own and tried to understand what rule I didn't apply that I got the question wrong. You have to apply a methodical, slow and consistent approach.

@venmic: A tough question for me may be an easy question for you. The only way to find out is to keep track of what you get wrong. It will become very obvious where you lack if you keep track of what you get wrong. I think Number Properties are tough as well as the 750+ level probability and combinations. That's what was tough for me. My worst on verbal section was verbs and understanding tenses and such. Those can be tricky at time. The short answer is that it is different for everyone.

I thought that I did not need to write and keep track of my wrong answers. This was when I was studying for the 2nd GMAT. I ended getting an even lower score. Put in the work to keep track. Develop good timing. Guess well on questions you can't solve. If you put in the work your score will improve. I thought I was good, until I got a 580. Then I understood that I am not any better than any of the other people who beat the gmat. As I said in my original post, this test will humble you. It humbled me, but you have to keep practicing and have confidence in yourself.

Congrats, you should be pleased with your effort!

Great job.

I also got 700 score but the combination was Q47/V38. I wonder how does that work unless GMAC recalibrated the scores in the last couple of weeks.

Thanks.

Super inspirational post !!