I just Beat The GMAT!

First of all, let me give credit to BTG and its members for inspiring me to aspire to a great GMAT score. I probably would not have studied as hard as I did without all of the great success stories I read on this board. Here's my story:

I scheduled my GMAT session for 8:00am on 8/8. You can tell I'm fond of that number, and it apparently served me well. My debrief follows.

My preparations began in May 2009, giving me about 3 months before my target test date of early August. I started with OG12, and then moved on to the OG Quant and OG Verbal books. I tried to do about 2 hours worth of problems per day, making sure to push myself for time. As it turns out, even though I'm an engineer, Quant was the hardest part to improve.

After going through the OG books (and prior to taking any practice exams) I moved on to the Manhattan Verbal guide and SC Bible. Both are very useful in addition to the OG.

On July 15, about 10 weeks after I started preparing, I took my first MGMAT CAT1 test and scored 640. I wasn't too concerned about the score since I had major distractions during the CAT. It was just a relaxed test to get a baseline. What was shocking was how much more difficult the MGMAT Quant was compared to the OG Quant. This is well documented in these forums, so just think of it as high-altitude training. I never once finished any of the 6 MGMAT CAT Quant sections without having to guess towards the end.

From my score progression, you can see that the extra effort I put into verbal review paid off. It really is mostly about acclimating yourself to the commonly tested aspects of the verbal section. I went from having to guess on many, to having the answers seemingly pop out at me. Towards the end of my prep, I usually had about 10 minutes leftover at the end of the verbal section.

Test day: Woke up at 6am, took a shower, had a light breakfast, and headed to the test center. Since it was a morning appt, had to wait for the proctors to show up. The AWA section doesn't matter much, but it went smoothly enough. On Quant, I felt that the difficulty progression was much more linear than in any of the practice tests I had taken. By the end, the Q's were getting really tough and time consuming, but I finished in time. In Verbal, I was lucky to get some RC passages that I had previous knowledge of (mostly scientific subjects), and also lucky not to get any passages on more humanist subjects such as women's suffrage. I finished about 10 minutes early. I quickly confirmed the profile questionnaire that follows the test, and then clcked Next to see my score. I suppose it takes a while to calculate the score, because the next screen didn't pop up instantly and instead it took a while to load. When it did load and I saw my score of 750, I gave a silent fist pump a la Tiger Woods.

A little history on myself: I didn't do particulary well on SATs (mid 1300's) or GREs, so I wanted to prove to myself that, with preparation, I could achieve a top score. I didn't really study all that much for those other tests (2 practice tests max, each) and even though I scored decently, I didn't really get a score that would put me ahead of the curve at the top schools. Now, hopefully, with this GMAT score and the rest of my apps in order, I will have a good chance at being admitted to a top MBA program.

Score progression:

Date Score Q V
MGMAT 1 15-Jul 640 43 35
MGMAT 2 16-Jul 660 44 36
MGMAT 3 19-Jul 670 45 36
MGMAT 4 22-Jul 690 46 38
MGMAT 5 3-Aug 750 48 45
GPREP 1 4-Aug 740 47 45
MGMAT 6 6-Aug 720 44 45
GPREP 2 7-Aug 730 46 45
GMAT 8-Aug 750 47 47

8 is my lucky number(atleast it will be) and my exam was at 8 a.m. on 8/8 just like you I got a 710.

Congrats on a great score(750) and all the very best for the rest of the process.

Regards,
CR

That reminds me how the Beijing Olympics opened on 08/08/2008 and they let team China enter the Stadium at 8pm.

Seems to be lucky for the 3 of you.

Looking at your practice tests...what made the BIG difference in your verbal??? Seeing that it jumped up 5 points is incredible. What material were you studying???



Mark

Looking at your practice tests...what made the BIG difference in your verbal??? Seeing that it jumped up 5 points is incredible. What material were you studying???

I studied the Manhattan Verbal Study Guide and their SC Book. In the first few tests, I didn't quite know what to look for. As I got more practice under my belt, I began to grasp that the GMAT Verbal only tests on a few key concepts. I was able to refine my general understanding of those concepts and put my brain into "GMAT Mode." That helped me use POE to whittle down most of the verbal questions to two possible answer choices (in SC the difference was usually in the usage of an idiom, since I used the gramattical rules to elimiate the other answer choices). To a native English speaker, a good 50% of the possible SC answer choices are just terrible and should be eliminated right away. Good luck with your studies!

Hearty congrats, That's a great score, wish you good luck for admissions.. am also interested with your verbal improvement, that was awesome, from 35 to 47 . If you have anything to share regarding it , it would be more useful.

crejoc wrote:Hearty congrats, That's a great score, wish you good luck for admissions.. am also interested with your verbal improvement, that was awesome, from 35 to 47 . If you have anything to share regarding it , it would be more useful.

I don't think my initial V scores were indicative of my true ability. I just had to calbrate myself to the GMAT rules and from then on it was smooth sailing.