First I just want to say I found this site a few weeks back and think its great. A lot of the posts are very useful. Today I took the test and so thought my story might be of some relevance to some people.
A lot of people on this website (understandably) are very committed to doing well and studying hard to get a good score. However, I've basically not been too willing to really put in tons of hours because I thought its just not worth it to have it take over your life! In retrospect its a bit frustrating because I know I could have aced the bad boy (and probably most people given ~2 months to study non-stop for the thing) but in the end I'm happy enough with how things turned out.
My profile: (all practice tests included AWA)
GMATprep1 (cold, no prep yet): 680
OG12 - diagnostic & questions 1-100 in 20 question increments over about a week
MGMAT 1 - 640 - test conditions
OG12 - questions 100-300 again 20 Q increments over about a week
MGMAT 2 - 700 (but had to do the verbal the next morning so this doesn't really count)
OG12 - questions 300-500 same as above, a week
MGMAT 3 - 660 - done properly test conditions
OG12 - questions 500-650 as above, a week
At this point I had a 10-day holiday and studied for about 2hrs on one day but only 30-45mins on other days and then 0 mins on maybe 1/3 of the days. So not much studying. BUT the studying I did do was MGMAT NP (chapters 1-10), Equations (up to chp6 maybe), SC (up to chp 5 I think). Doing it again I probably would have started going through the MGMAT guides earlier and also probably would've gone for the Word Translations too. Being in Europe though its a bit tricky to get these guides.
Back from holiday & 2 days before test - GMATprep2 - 730 (test conditions)
Day before: bit of MGMAT SC book reading. Some of the MGMAT flashcards (they're good!) though only really went through the NP ones since that was the book I'd read the most of... Requisite Family Guy episode.
Test day, actual: 730 (48Q/42V) - though confusingly these scores indicate I did better on Verbal (which I had done all along). Ironically on the SAT, 8 years ago, I aced the math (800) and lost out on Verbal (670).
So a couple of observations/comments: 1. GMATprep is a pretty darn good indicator! (and MGMAT CATs low-ball your score by ~50 pts!)
2. I went from a 680 to 730 so not a massive improvement and actually considering how much time I ended up putting in (maybe 35-45 hours total) a little disappointing. I was kind of hoping I might manage to get away with a 750. But to anyone in a similar situation (putting in 30+ hours but seeing relatively modest gains in score) don't think you're alone!
3. BUT! Studying for about a month on your own 1-2hrs/day isn't a bad way to do it. I definitely recommend the MGMAT books. Heck, go for all 8 and get the bulk discount. The MGMAT CATs are the best (though the math is defo much harder than the real thing) though I didn't try any others aside from GMATprep.
4. As other people say definitely track your performance on the OG questions and the MGMAT CATs. The MGMAT CATs are especially good as you see how much time per question (and thus avg time per question type). Analysing my numbers I saw my weakest was Data Sufficiency. So I was extra diligent about guessing and moving on with DS question on the real thing.
5. Check out the 13 sentences to glory posts (1 for each essay type) on this website. It was definitely reassuring to have a template in-mind of how the essay would look. Not because my essays were any better because of it but just because psychologically they are much less demanding if you just start each one with "author's logic is unconvincing, first xx, second yy, third zz, in conclusion" and then filling in the blanks. Helps to conserve that brain power / stamina for later!
Apologies if this post isn't very clear/well articulated but please do post any questions people may have!
Thanks everyone for their contributions on this site
Paul.
A lot of people on this website (understandably) are very committed to doing well and studying hard to get a good score. However, I've basically not been too willing to really put in tons of hours because I thought its just not worth it to have it take over your life! In retrospect its a bit frustrating because I know I could have aced the bad boy (and probably most people given ~2 months to study non-stop for the thing) but in the end I'm happy enough with how things turned out.
My profile: (all practice tests included AWA)
GMATprep1 (cold, no prep yet): 680
OG12 - diagnostic & questions 1-100 in 20 question increments over about a week
MGMAT 1 - 640 - test conditions
OG12 - questions 100-300 again 20 Q increments over about a week
MGMAT 2 - 700 (but had to do the verbal the next morning so this doesn't really count)
OG12 - questions 300-500 same as above, a week
MGMAT 3 - 660 - done properly test conditions
OG12 - questions 500-650 as above, a week
At this point I had a 10-day holiday and studied for about 2hrs on one day but only 30-45mins on other days and then 0 mins on maybe 1/3 of the days. So not much studying. BUT the studying I did do was MGMAT NP (chapters 1-10), Equations (up to chp6 maybe), SC (up to chp 5 I think). Doing it again I probably would have started going through the MGMAT guides earlier and also probably would've gone for the Word Translations too. Being in Europe though its a bit tricky to get these guides.
Back from holiday & 2 days before test - GMATprep2 - 730 (test conditions)
Day before: bit of MGMAT SC book reading. Some of the MGMAT flashcards (they're good!) though only really went through the NP ones since that was the book I'd read the most of... Requisite Family Guy episode.
Test day, actual: 730 (48Q/42V) - though confusingly these scores indicate I did better on Verbal (which I had done all along). Ironically on the SAT, 8 years ago, I aced the math (800) and lost out on Verbal (670).
So a couple of observations/comments: 1. GMATprep is a pretty darn good indicator! (and MGMAT CATs low-ball your score by ~50 pts!)
2. I went from a 680 to 730 so not a massive improvement and actually considering how much time I ended up putting in (maybe 35-45 hours total) a little disappointing. I was kind of hoping I might manage to get away with a 750. But to anyone in a similar situation (putting in 30+ hours but seeing relatively modest gains in score) don't think you're alone!
3. BUT! Studying for about a month on your own 1-2hrs/day isn't a bad way to do it. I definitely recommend the MGMAT books. Heck, go for all 8 and get the bulk discount. The MGMAT CATs are the best (though the math is defo much harder than the real thing) though I didn't try any others aside from GMATprep.
4. As other people say definitely track your performance on the OG questions and the MGMAT CATs. The MGMAT CATs are especially good as you see how much time per question (and thus avg time per question type). Analysing my numbers I saw my weakest was Data Sufficiency. So I was extra diligent about guessing and moving on with DS question on the real thing.
5. Check out the 13 sentences to glory posts (1 for each essay type) on this website. It was definitely reassuring to have a template in-mind of how the essay would look. Not because my essays were any better because of it but just because psychologically they are much less demanding if you just start each one with "author's logic is unconvincing, first xx, second yy, third zz, in conclusion" and then filling in the blanks. Helps to conserve that brain power / stamina for later!
Apologies if this post isn't very clear/well articulated but please do post any questions people may have!
Thanks everyone for their contributions on this site
Paul.
