740 (Q47, V44, 97%) - I mortally wounded the GMAT - The Beat The GMAT Forum

I've been a frequent visitor to this site for the last 10 weeks and owe much gratitude to all those who have provided insight and opinions. As a result, I think I owe it to the forum to provide a debrief on my GMAT experience.

Background
I spent several years in investment banking and am now at a private equity fund. My plan is to apply to business school this fall.

It's Go Time
At some point back in December I decided that I needed to knock out the GMAT and I wanted to do it before the weather warms up and I get distracted by wanting to have drinks out on the patio. I also work 60+ hours a week, so I really value my free time and didn't want to spend an extended period preparing for the test. I also knew that to get in to a top 5-10 MBA program, I would need to exceed 700 and would likely need to be much higher to give myself the best chance of admission. I set my goal at 750.

The Madness Begins
I knew from talking to my peers that the best prep strategy was "practice, practice, practice". I knew I need to do as many problems as possible, in order to process all the possible ways that the GMAT can approach the same strategy.

I knew that I would need outside assistance, but I didn't have the time or patience for a physical class. After reading online reviews of various programs and assessing my own needs (quant was by far my weakness), I decided on the Manhattan GMAT self-study program.

MGMAT - the good, the bad, the ugly
I received my MGMAT books in mid-January and immediately deviated from the provided syllabus. Rather than taking a baseline CAT from a cold-start, I decided to skim all of the MGMAT Quant books and do some of the In-Action Number Properties problems. I should also note that anytime I took a CAT exam, I spent about 2 hours the next day re-working the ENTIRE quant section with a stopwatch in hand.

OK, so I had spent some time reading the MGMAT books and then decided the give my first CAT a whirl:

January 23 -MGMAT 1 - (Q-43, V-45) - 720

Though a 720 was a great outcome, I knew that my approach to the Quant section was unsustainable. I guessed on the last 3 problems and overly relied on "cracking the code" on a few problems by using "smart numbers" when I knew there must be a more efficient approach.

I decided to spend the next 3 weeks following the Self Study syllabus and spent my time reading MGMAT Quant books, doing OG 12 problems and reviewing the online classes. It was time for my second CAT and the outcome was SHOCKING:

February 12 - MGMAT 2 - (Q-42, V-38) - 660

I was initially devastated, but after a review of performance, I realized that I had faced significantly hard Quant problems and had totally BOMBED the sentence correction questions. I also could feel that my approach to various Quant questions was more efficient, but I think I just ran out of time because I over-allocated time to some of the 700+ level questions I faced (especially DS).

I didn't let this deter me, nor did I take a "back to the drawing board" approach. Instead, I kept plugging away based on the MGMAT syllabus, though I did eliminate the online classes, which I felt were too slow moving and generally not a good use of time unless there was a specific topic I wanted to get advice on (i.e. Word Translations).

I also eliminated all studying of RC and CR because I had reached the point where I basically could get 95% of those questions right in under 1:30-2:00. However, I ABSOLUTELY continued the SC work because there were just too many idiomatic expressions and odd GMAT rules that I needed to cover.

Unfortunately, worked picked up significantly at the end of February and I basically ended up taking a full 7-10 days off of GMAT prep because I wasn't getting home till fairly late and wouldn't have been able to study effectively.

Work settled down a bit, I continued to prep and I was ready for MGMAT CAT #3.

March 5 - MGMAT 3 - (Q-42,V-41) - 690

The 690 was better than before and I knew that I was achieving significant progress on the Quant side given that I didn't have to guess at the end and I reached fairly high difficulty levels throughout the test.

At this point, I continued to follow the Quant-oriented portion of the MGMAT self-study. I also want to make sure to highlight that as I went through the OG12 questions on the MGMAT Self-Study syllabus I made sure to work/rework any problem I missed until I knew exactly where I had gone wrong.

A week later, I took MGMAT CAT # 4:

March 12 - MGMAT 4 - (Q-47,V-45) - 740

Holy h*ll...I was almost there. I was very happy with this score and knew that at this point, I just needed to focus on improving my weaknesses, which at this point were generally limited to inequalities and some variable in answer choice problems.

2 weeks later I took MGMAT CAT #5:

March 26 - MGMAT 5 - (Q-45,V-40) - 700

My initial reaction was one of indifference because I had done fairly well on the Quant section (for my standards), but was had underperformed drastically on the Verbal section. I continued to review the MGMAT SC book and completed additional OG12 SC questions. I was starting to get nervous that my scores weren't close enough to my goal of 750, but I knew that I had developed the right Quant/Verbal skills and just needed to pull it all together on the same test.

I was getting close to the test date and I wanted to get more realistic for the real GMAT, so I decided to take my first GMAT Prep:

April 2 - GMATPrep 1 - (Q-44,V-44) - 710

Eh...not bad, but again, I was failing to achieve success on the Quant section and Verbal section on the same test. I was running out of time and I spent the next 7 days doing about 2 hours per night of practice problems from the OG12 and OG Quant Supplement.

April 9 - MGMAT 6 - (Q-44,V-45) - 720

I'm starting to feel like a 720 is going to be my limit, despite my goal of 750.

April 10 - GMATPrep 2 - (Q-48,V-49) - 760

WOW!!! I had finally pulled it all together and after a review of the test, I knew that the only questions I missed were because of careless errors and stupid miscalculations. I was no longer encountering problems that I had no idea how to solve.

Closing in on D-Day
During the final I week, I spent time doing/re-doing the last 75 or so problems in the OG 12 and OG Quant Supplement (both PS and DS). I also paid $30 to take the GMAT Write, which provides a good read on your AWA essay writing ability. I scored a 6 on the argument essay and 5 on the issue essay. Other than the GMAT Write, I spent zero time preparing for the AWA essays...we'll see how that plays out once I have my official AWA scores.

Test Day
My test time was at 12:00pm. I woke up around 9:30am, had some coffee, ate a turkey sandwich and then spent about 30 minutes doing a high-level review of a few Quant topics and working 10-12 OG 12 PS problems (generally the 300-500 level questions). After this warm up, I walked over to the test center, checked in and got started.

The AWA essays were almost enjoyable. I was asked to evaluate an investment strategy (which is what I do everyday) and quickly outlined my thoughts and then tapped out the first essay. The Analysis of an Issue essay was much harder, primarily due to the abstract nature. I outlined my thoughts and finished up the essay with a few minutes to spare.

I took my 8 minute break, but got fairly anxious to get started with the Quant section, so I only ended up using about 4 minutes of my break. The Quant started and was VERY easy relative to the MGMAT prep materials. I breezed through the first 8 (with only 1 slowing me down) and was on par with the 2:00 min/q pace. Then things got tough!!

I started encountering some odd geometry questions that took some time to solve just given the number of steps I needed. I also ran into a number of PS questions involving transformation of %s that just required a number of steps. I started to fall behind and by question 15, I was about 6 minutes behind pace. I ran into a few odd geometry problems (Ratio of Sphere:Cylinder and unusual shapes contained within a square) that appeared difficult at first, but had some pretty easy shortcuts. I picked up my pace and by question 30 I was only about 4 minutes behind. I cruised through the 30-35, but only had 3:00 for the last two questions. I'm fairly certain I nailed both of them. The last one was a total factors of a prime number question that took about 30 seconds to solve if you know the shortcut.

I also ran into what must have been an experimental question on Circles. I had been fighting some VERY difficult questions and suddenly was given a question about a circle and a line that I solved in about 15 seconds (a 3rd grader could have solved it faster).

I was a little concerned because I didn't see any Standard Deviation problems and only had one or two probability questions. I didn't want to read too much into my performance and took a break to re-focus on the Verbal section.

The Verbal section was extremely easy. I ran into a couple of SC/CR questions where I got down to 2 answer choices and had to make a tough call, but otherwise, it was fairly predictable and the SC were almost identical to the OG questions (at times I thought I had even seen the question before).

I clicked through and saw my score 740!! When I saw the V-44, I was a little disappointed and figured I could have done much better, but I couldn't complain too much.

So, I just missed my goal of 750...so I wouldn't say I beat the GMAT, but I certainly mortally wounded it.

740 (Q47, V44, 97%) - I mortally wounded the GMAT

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