I just Beat The GMAT!

Just a brief review of the three books I ordered (1 more than indicated in my earlier post)

Sentence Correction Manhattan GMAT Preparation Guide
Good, concise summary. It didn't really have any startling test insights or test tips. Useful as a handy guide, to save time surfing grammar guides if nothing else. Best part of the purchase is the online access to the 6 MGMAT tests. MGMAT's website also has some good tips if you surf around it.

Kaplan GMAT 800
A bit of a disappointment. Seems to be just a series of examples, admittedly some good ones. Quite a few irritating (and useless) mini-homilies on what "an 800 test taker" should do.

The PowerScore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible
Can't remember where I saw this recommended but it turned out to be the best of the three books. What distinguishes this is that it presents methods/tools (rather than just examples) to help you solve CR problems. If you can get through its 300 rather dry pages you actually have general techniques that apply to virtually all CR questions.

Chris

For those following the old geezer's progress, here's an update. I spent about 1 week trying very hard problems, and picking up the techniques in the explanations. To source hard problems I've been using a question set bought from GMAT Hacks plus the MGMAT Challenge problems.

The former are about the right difficulty level although have a few wrong answers. The latter tend to be too difficult but have quite a few tips, that I could not find anywhere else...so worth plowing through.

After all that theory, I moved on to exam practice. So far my results are (started 1 week ago)

MGMAT 1 720
MGMAT 2 750
GMATPrep 1 770
GMATPrep 2 780
MGMAT 3 730

I think these flatter me, especially the GMATPrep tests, where I had seen many of the Q problems before although none of the V.

After each test I review wrong and slow answers. Storing a copy (sometimes screen print) for later use.

My biggest problem now is relatively weak Q performance. I have scored 99% on the V four times, but am averaging mid-80s for Q. I am always struggling against the clock on the Q.

Although it's over 20 years since I did any maths at college, I was not expecting the Q to be such a battle. The lesson here, perhaps, is that those taking the GMAT after a big gap after graduation will need to spend a massively disproportionate time on Q.

Another problem I have is knowing when to cut losses. In MGMAT 3 I spent over 15 mins on 3 questions and got all of them wrong! I really have to learn to sacrifice a very good score for a decent score, because by trying too hard I end up with a worse score (if that makes sense).

I must say I like the MGMAT CATs. The review section (where you can see timings and explanations) is excellent. It would suit me better though if the Q questions were not quite so hard. Although it's good training, it feels mentally crushing to do each MGMAT CAT.

My test is in a few days time. My only aim now is to break 90% on the Q, as I know my V is very strong (famous last words).

Another thing I have done is change my test time from morning to afternoon, as I realised that mornings are not my best time for doing GMATs! Since I was changing the time I brought the date forward too, as I am getting to the point of diminishing returns, not to mention being slightly jaded.

Hi cpfirth,
You seem to be on top of your game, so I wouldn't worry too much. How are you doing in the last 1/3rd of questions in PS and DS of the Official GMAT guides. Many people state that the actual quantitative section is tougher than the questions you see in the OG books. If you're pressed for time I'd order the Official guide Quantitative review and solve the last 1/2 or 1/3rd of the questions. Good Luck.

I bought the OG Quantitative but apart from a few at the end I didn't find the questions especially challenging. My problem is usually that I can do hard Q questions but can't get the answers quickly enough, so then start to have time pressure for other questions. The MGMAT 700-800 questions are a lot harder than even the toughest OG Quantitative questions.

Hi cpfirth,
I had to post when I read your message. I, too, am in my 40's and have decided to pursue a PhD. I finished my Master's degree 16 years ago, so I know how it feels trying to study for this crazy thing they call GMAT after so many years in the work world. It's weird to be doing homework, but isn't it kind of fun to have such a concrete challenge? No politics, no budgetary concerns, no red tape, just you against the test.
The good news is that I wrote the test last November and scored a 760 (99th percentile, Q49, V44), with a 6 AWA. Geezers rule!
I also had to work hard on the quantitative, with the verbal seeming a lot easier (except for SC in my case). My GMAT Prep tests all showed a 99% in verbal, but I found the exam harder in that area. It may have been a stamina issue. I was pretty exhausted after the AWA and quant. sections, and it seemed really hard to concentrate. I had lots of sugar in the breaks, but apparently not enough.
For the quant. section, it really is true that the key is cutting your losses early. I took my time on the first few questions, then panicked when I realized I was behind. I rocketed through questions left and right, and ended up with 30 minutes for the last 5 questions! I thought I had really messed up, but I ended up with a 49. I was not being meticulous. So don't demand perfection from yourself - the test can be forgiving. If it makes you feel any better, tell yourself that the ones which you move on quickly from are simply the non-scoring ones.
I do wonder about your impression that a 650 would be enough for most programs. I know the ones I've looked into do have averages of around 700. But I certainly didn't do exhaustive research on this!
Anyway, I'm sure you'll do great. You've put the work in, and are way more prepared than most people who take the test. Everyone on this forum is here because they're the type who want to arm themselves well. You have done that. Lots and lots of people simple read the OG and take their chances. But you, you're ready.
I'll be watching to see your results...

Cola - good to see I'm not the only one out there. I'm still struggling against time on the Q, although perhaps this is because I'm practising using MGMAT which seems to be well-known as a tough Q CAT.

I should qualify my earlier statement: 650 would be enough for most programs in the country where I live, for someone with good qualifications/experience.

I hope geezers do indeed rule! I don't think I will match your 760 though.
Chris

Quick update then more later.

760 (Q48, V47)

Slightly disappointed with the Q score. Got stuck on an "easy" problem to calculate the area of a hexagon. Just couldnt get my answer to agree with any of the choices, even after 3 attempts. Had practiced a very similar question this morning so was quite annoyed to get this wrong.
After that it was all a bit of a rush and had to guess on a few other questions that weren't so hard but they involved a lot of awkward arithmetic.

Anyway, shouldnt be too upset, I would have gleefully settled for 760 when I started studying in November.
Chris
(looks like geezers do rule!)

Congratulations!!!That's a fantastic score!!!

As you can see, not a lot of people gettin that score these days so you rank quite high!

Bet you just bolstered your chances of getting in

Congratulations once again!

Hey Chris,
I am delighted to see your score! All of your hard work really paid off. Don't listen to the niggling doubts that are asking if you could have done even better - you rocked it, plain and simple. It's a dream score and you should stand satisfied.
Now you just have to relearn how to come home from work and NOT study!
Good luck with your applications. Are you going for a 2008 or 2009 entrance?

Congratulations and best of luck.

One fascinating thing is that even though you're score has moved up significantly you're percentile remained the same. Whether or not you agree that GMAT is effective in measuring one's aptitude you must admit it does seem like they're consistent

Cola- thanks for the good wishes. 2008 entry planned.

parore26 - thanks. percentile before was 98, now it's 99

debrief a bit later, need a break first!

Great achievement!
Congratulations

cpfirth wrote:Quick update then more later.

760 (Q48, V47)

MATURE STUDENT’S GUIDE TO THE GMAT

Rather than repeat some of the good advice already on Beat The GMAT Forum here is a perspective from the point of view of someone who graduated over twenty years ago. It’s probably most useful to a fellow “geezer”, but there could be one or two tips for the typical GMAT taker.

I used Eric’s debrief https://www.beatthegmat.com/720-96th-per ... t-t13.html as the template for this review (thanks to Eric, and to all BTG Forumers).

Background
I am a non-recent science graduate from a UK university and have worked mostly full-time for the last twenty years. I attended MIT Sloan in 1992-3, so did the GMAT in 1991 and scored 710 98th percentile. (Postscript: I found my old GMAT score report. In 1991 my score was V45 (98%) and Q44 (93%), my guess is those scaled scores are not directly comparable with scores of today.) Because I’m interested to do a part-time PhD in Economics or Finance, I signed up for the GMAT in November, 2007 giving myself about 2 months preparation time.

What I initially thought was important
I focused efforts on three areas
1. get familiar with the mechanics and “culture” of GMAT taking, such as question types, CAT format, AWA essays (the latter two items were new to me)
2. boost my very rusty quant skills
3. practice, practice, practice

The issue of Q v. V was key. It may be obvious, but unless your job involves engineering you gradually forget the principles of even basic maths. Examples that you may laugh at: how to do a long division (really!), how to manipulate |x|, how to factor a quadratic equation. I use Excel every day at work so am about as rusty as it is possible to be on simple arithmetic manipulation. You never entirely forget the concepts though, so all is not lost.

Study sequence
I registered for the test first because I need a deadline to motivate myself. My next step was to visit a bookshop and buy the best GMAT guide they had in store. The choice wasn’t very wide and I ended up with Barron’s guide. It turns out this guide doesn’t have a great reputation but it was a useful primer, albeit at a relatively easy level.

Pretty soon I realised that I needed to plug a few gaps in my quant knowledge, and also I thought it would be useful to have something to help with CR.

After searching online I found GMAT Hacks website quite useful and bought its maths “bible”/review. This was a good purchase for me because it was very specific to the maths needed for the GMAT. Around about the same time I bought Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition and the two supplementary guides. Although I did about half of the questions from these I didn’t find them especially useful as a way to learn how to do questions. For example, absolute inequalities had me baffled for a long time and OG has just a brief sentence to define what an absolute number is, but virtually nothing on how to use them. Also, the pool of tough questions is very limited.

I then discovered Beat The GMAT Forum, which is one of the best GMAT-related sites. The evidence for this is that most times I searched on a GMAT question the solution would be on this forum.

As I got into my prep, I added the following, thanks to this forum and a good posting about/from someone who scored 790:

Sentence Correction Manhattan GMAT Preparation Guide
Good, concise summary. It didn't really have any startling test insights or test tips. Useful as a handy guide, to save time surfing grammar guides if nothing else. Best part of the purchase is the online access to the 6 MGMAT tests. MGMAT's website also has some good tips if you surf around it. I think a definite buy.

Kaplan GMAT 800
A bit of a disappointment. Seems to be just a series of examples, admittedly some good ones. Quite a few irritating (and useless) mini-homilies on what "an 800 test taker" should do. Their advocacy of backsolving was quite good but I probably didn’t use it as much as I should.

The PowerScore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible
Can't remember where I saw this recommended but it turned out to be the best of the books. What distinguishes this is that it presents methods/tools (rather than just examples) to help you solve CR problems. If you can get through its 300 rather dry pages you actually have general techniques that apply to virtually all CR questions.

GMAT Hacks quant questions
Quite a good set but relatively narrow focus. A few answers were clearly wrong (“5040 + 11 = 5055. 5055 is a multiple of 5, so none of the numbers in the range given are prime, choice (A).” Although I emailed the author on these I did not get a reply.

MGMAT Challenge problems
Bought these towards the end of my study period (remembered to use the 10% discount for BTG members). Tough problems but lots to learn from. In hindsight it was probably a mistake to get these as, despite being online, they didn’t have a timing mechanism, nor could you sort them by category. Didn't have time to do many either.

CATs
I used GMATPrep and MGMAT CATs. The former I ran several times just to get to the hard questions, but I eventually abandoned that idea once I had access to the MGMAT CATs. The last few days of preparation I just did the Q part of MGMAT CATs (I set a timeout of 0 secs for the V questions). The post-test analysis is the best part of these. I used their Excel download so i could show my cumulative running time, time plus or minus my time benchmark, and for each wrong or slow question I inserted a comment, such as “forgot xy was the question” and “With only two sides of the triangle, it is impossible to determine whether a2 + b2 = c2.”. Using these tools I was able to see where my time was going. Timing was a constant battle for me on the Q.

Question type summaries
For the Q section I produced around 20 x 1-2 page summaries of the major question types, such as: probability, work, geometry. Each summary would have the main principles, equations and sometimes typical question examples. It is the act of making these summaries that is more valuable than having the summaries themselves.

Test Day
As mentioned before, I re-scheduled my test day. Mainly because I decided a morning time would not be best for me. But also because I wanted to take the test sooner as I felt I wasn’t improving very much - the gains from studying longer were shrinking. I work full-time and I felt the GMAT had to drop down the priority list soon!

On the day itself I didn’t do anything remarkable. Ran GMATPrep in the morning and did around 10 questions as a warm up. I didn’t take any breaks except for about 30 seconds to get a mouthful of water. I didn't eat any special food or take high-energy bars/cookies with me to boost my concentration levels (I suspect this might be a GMAT urban myth).

My first AWA essay was very easy to do but the second one was such a bland topic I was not flowing with ideas. I had done one practice AWA essay of each type before the test. This page has some good advice on AWA: https://www.manhattangmat.com/strategy-s ... -score.cfm.

The only complaint I had on the test day was the logistics. The writing pad was way too small for me (seemed only 8 pages but may have been longer). During my practice tests at home I was used to a fresh page for every question. The test coordinator refused to give me extra pages at the start, saying I should raise my hand. I had to do this twice, once for a pen that dried up. Moreover, the writing paper had a grid of lines on it, which I just found distracting. I could have done better with 37 sheets of blank paper and a normal pen! Calling for spares probably cost me 60 seconds of test time and a loss in concentration. These things matter when you only have 75 mins! I did like the noise cancelling headphones, though.

As it happened I finished all sections ahead of time but this pacing was deliberate and sometimes I was brutal to cut losses – each section was finished with only around 20-90 secs left. On the V at one point I had about 15 mins to finish 5-6 questions.

Final Advice
By the time of the exam I had achieved a good grasp of the concepts required for the Q section. I don’t recall any question I didn’t know how to do on the test day but there were at least three questions that I abandoned due to time pressure. I was just too slow at arithmetic calculations or finding shortcuts to simplify expressions. In retrospect I believe my consistently slow Q times were due to two things: (i) rusty concepts/techniques and (ii) slow algebraic and arithmetic manipulation. I think I eventually fixed (i) but didn’t beat (ii). In fact, I hadn’t really identified (ii) as a problem until after the test, so I only have myself to blame for losing 1-2 "easy" marks on the Q. An example: one test question asked me to find a price, which was 24/23 of another value. I couldn’t think of any shortcut for calculating this so was faced with a “lengthy” and dreaded long division calculation. 16 years ago I think I could have rattled this off very quickly, but not this time.

In compensation, 20 years of work experience (and mainly in English) means the V section is a doddle. I did very little preparation for this and found the only resource that added anything was the PowerScore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible.

A final reflection on 1991 v. 2008. I worked a lot harder to get 99% in 2008 then I did to get 98% in 1991. I think the standard has gone up for one thing (in forums I notice many clever Indians scoring 50-51 on Q), and secondly, the Web means competition is even more intense. Top candiates can be much better prepared these days. The CAT also means you cannot trade off time (Q v. V) or re-visit questions. I had at least 5 spare mins on the V that I could have used to work more on Q questions.

Anyway, geezers – take heart. You may be a bit slower on the Q, but you more than make up for it on the V.