Hi everyone,
Just wanted to say thanks to all of you who participate on this website. It was a great resource for me in my pursuit to beat the GMAT! I often would log on to this site for information and this forum in particular for inspiration to keep going!
Here's a rundown of my GMAT saga:
Studied for the test for 1 month. It was a crash course. I used the OG11, VR, QR, GMAT Hacks (by Sackman) Math Review, Critical Reasoning Bible and Manhattan SC and Number properties books. Basically, these were the books that I always saw highly recommended on this site - so I chose to use them and they were very helpful.
When I took the diagnostic test in the OG - I did terribly, below average in math and verbal!
My math was terrible at the start. Graduated from college about 6 years ago and obviously had completely forgotten many math concepts. That was my focus early on - going thru GMAT hacks material. I recommend his "e-book" that you can buy online. It gave me the fundamental knowledge and the practice questions are challenging and employ many of the GMAT exam's "tricky" question quirks.
RC was never a problem for me. So SC and CR were my next projects. Both the books I used (see above) were really great. Each gives you great info about how to attack and decipher the questions.
So I thought I was ready. A day or two before the exam I took the second of MBA.com practice tests and got a 690.....yay! Then I took the test. I had serious jitters and just couldn't seem to get my head of straight. Each math question seemed like a foreign language! I toughed it out and at the end I was rewarded w/ a 600 - YIKES!
I was bummed out. Took about a week and a half off and then began studying again in earnest. This time I paid attention to not only getting the correct answer but HOW to arrive at the answer and WHY the others were wrong. For math, try finding multiple ways of doing the problem. I believe a math tutor (Stacey??) may have been the one who suggested this in a forum. IT WORKS.
Three weeks later, I felt much more relaxed about going in there to take it again. I felt much more familiar with the material (having lived with it for two months). During the test I was so running behind the clock, I had to make a few educated guesses on a few just to make up the time - must've lucked out on those guesses because:
Final verdict: 710 46M/42V
Takeaways:
Get comfortable with the math material (GMAT hacks)
Understand the testmaker's thought process behind CR questions (CR reasoning bible)
SC - must learn the grammar rules and also the common mistakes that usually make an answer wrong (for example: the word "being" in a sentence is a common error). Manhattan's SC book is very good for this.
You will perform better if you feel comfortable with your abilities and the material. Don't rush yourself too much....
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE and THANK YOU!
Just wanted to say thanks to all of you who participate on this website. It was a great resource for me in my pursuit to beat the GMAT! I often would log on to this site for information and this forum in particular for inspiration to keep going!
Here's a rundown of my GMAT saga:
Studied for the test for 1 month. It was a crash course. I used the OG11, VR, QR, GMAT Hacks (by Sackman) Math Review, Critical Reasoning Bible and Manhattan SC and Number properties books. Basically, these were the books that I always saw highly recommended on this site - so I chose to use them and they were very helpful.
When I took the diagnostic test in the OG - I did terribly, below average in math and verbal!
My math was terrible at the start. Graduated from college about 6 years ago and obviously had completely forgotten many math concepts. That was my focus early on - going thru GMAT hacks material. I recommend his "e-book" that you can buy online. It gave me the fundamental knowledge and the practice questions are challenging and employ many of the GMAT exam's "tricky" question quirks.
RC was never a problem for me. So SC and CR were my next projects. Both the books I used (see above) were really great. Each gives you great info about how to attack and decipher the questions.
So I thought I was ready. A day or two before the exam I took the second of MBA.com practice tests and got a 690.....yay! Then I took the test. I had serious jitters and just couldn't seem to get my head of straight. Each math question seemed like a foreign language! I toughed it out and at the end I was rewarded w/ a 600 - YIKES!
I was bummed out. Took about a week and a half off and then began studying again in earnest. This time I paid attention to not only getting the correct answer but HOW to arrive at the answer and WHY the others were wrong. For math, try finding multiple ways of doing the problem. I believe a math tutor (Stacey??) may have been the one who suggested this in a forum. IT WORKS.
Three weeks later, I felt much more relaxed about going in there to take it again. I felt much more familiar with the material (having lived with it for two months). During the test I was so running behind the clock, I had to make a few educated guesses on a few just to make up the time - must've lucked out on those guesses because:
Final verdict: 710 46M/42V
Takeaways:
Get comfortable with the math material (GMAT hacks)
Understand the testmaker's thought process behind CR questions (CR reasoning bible)
SC - must learn the grammar rules and also the common mistakes that usually make an answer wrong (for example: the word "being" in a sentence is a common error). Manhattan's SC book is very good for this.
You will perform better if you feel comfortable with your abilities and the material. Don't rush yourself too much....
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE and THANK YOU!
