I just Beat The GMAT!

I just beat the GMAT!

It may not sound like much, but I've been wanting to write that very sentence for 2 months now! I put in a lot of time and effort and as you'll see in my list of scores below it was quite the journey. The low point was 2 weeks before G-day, when after studying so much and feeling really confident, I took the GMAT Prep Test 2 and scored a meager 650. This was only an improvement of 20 points since GMAT Prep 1, and I was feeling pretty low and mainly just confused as to why all the hard work I was putting in wasn't producing the results I was hoping for.

After the low point, I continued pushing forward spending as many hours as I possibly could to the GMAT. I lived it; breathed it; even dreamt about it at night (I probably created well over a dozen DS questions in my dreams and the proceeded to solve them -- I should be the subject of an RC passage at some point)!

I've included a list of pointers and key lessons learned through my process, but after reading so many fellow posts and success stories from people on this community, it drove me to work harder, work smarter, and aim for that 700 score - and when it showed up on the computer screen today I was as relieved as I've ever been in my life!

So here are a few key takeaways and lessons that I've learned through the process that I think will prove helpful to future test takers:

Prep Classes - Having attempted to self-study towards the end of last year and not having much success, I enrolled in the Manhattan GMAT class in Toronto and took the 8 week Spring session. While I think Manhattan has done an excellent job in producing by-far the best quality prep material compared to the other test prep companies, I also feel that in some ways my reliance on the Manhattan methods sometimes impeded my success rather than helped it. I spent so much time trying to understand what I did wrong on my MGMAT tests but later realized if you spend that same amount of time analyzing OG problems your time is much better utilized. It's good to use MGMAT and other test prep company resources as a basis but the only way you're going to improve your actual GMAT score is by focusing on questions in the OG (both 11 and 12) as well as the Supp. guides. In addition, while I took the in Manhattan in-class sessions because I needed some structure in my studying, I didn't actually find the classes that useful in teaching me anything that I couldn't have learnt by myself in the same amount of time. For example - if you spent a solid 3 hours two times a week learning the content covered in their book, you'll likely learn it as well as by going to the in class sessions. I wouldn't say it was a waste of my $1200, since who knows if I would have gotten serious without knowing I had a GMAT class every Tuesday, but if you don't have that much mulla to dish out, don't be discouraged because I don't actually think the in class sessions are THAT helpful overall. Do buy the books though - buy the whole set, do all the homework, learn all the concepts, and then apply those concepts to questions in the OG, discussed next.

OG OG OG !!! I can't stress enough the importance of using the OG. I initially believed that the prep I did would be sufficient in helping me score well on the GMAT Prep test, but I was dead wrong. Not only did I find Manhattan's questions to be quite different than the ones I faced in the GMAT Prep test, but they were also a lot more complicated and confusing and in my opinion a waste of time to try to solve. Instead, go through EVERY question in EVERY OG you can get your hands on, and do EVERY problem. I did all the questions for quant and verbal in OG 11, OG 12, OG 11 Quant Supp and Verbal Supp. You'll start to notice how important number properties and inequalities/percents/overlapping sets, etc. are in the ACTUAL GMAT, but which do not appear as often in Manhattan GMAT tests. It's REALLY not worth your while spending so much time on advanced probability and combinatoric questions from Manhattan if you're not likely to see any of those questions on the actual GMAT. I strongly believe that if you do all the questions in the OG, you should be set.

Flash Cards! - I know that there are flash cards on this forum and Manhattan provides a set as well but I found neither to be helpful or effective in enabling me to grasp and remember the most important concepts. I would highly suggest making your own Flash Cards, and getting into the habit of reviewing them before you go to sleep after every few days (and everyday as you get <2 weeks to your G-Day). I made about 100 Flash Cards in total across Quant and Verbal -- about 10 (front and back) each for Geometry, Fraction/Decimals/Percents, and Word Translations, and about 20 each for Number Properties and Equations/Inequalities. I did this by going through the Manhattan guides and picking out concepts that I felt were important or that I needed to memorize (e.g. what 1/7 is in decimal and percent form; what the square root of 2 and 3 was; what the common right angle / isosceles / etc. triangles are; etc.). Furthermore, I made sure I included at least 3-5 DS questions for each area - this helped me get into the necessary frame of mind for tackling DS questions. For Verbal, I only made Flash Cards for Sentence Correction, but probably ended up with about 40 in total. I went through Manhattan's SC guide with a fine tooth comb and made detailed notes about each area (e.g. examples of subjunctive mood (If I were a rich girl, la la la la la la... I'd have all the money in the world and I wouldn't have to write the GMAT, la la la la la ....) lol... I also wrote out the most common idioms tested on the GMAT from Manhattans SC guide (they put an asterisk * around the ones most commonly tested - I would make sure you put those on your Flash Cards). I ended up being quite attached to my Flash Cards, and keeping my mind refreshed with the info. contained within it definitely helped me retain knowledge/concepts longer.

SC 1000 - There's a document floating around forums called SC1000 - it essentially contains all OG SC problems from the past X number of years. As the same suggests, there's a thousand problems, and I went through all of them. For every day 2 weeks prior to test day, I tackled about 40 in one sitting in the morning and another 30-40 in the evening. For both the questions I got wrong and right, I made sure I took time to understand why. And the questions in areas I got wrong frequently (e.g. I made alot of Comparisons mistakes) I would add to my Flash Cards for later reference. If you go through this SC1000 doc, I think you are in good shape for the real SC on the GMAT, and given my Verbal score I'm estimating that I only got 2-3 questions wrong out of the 41, and they were probably SC. They're the toughest but also the ones you can get the best at with practice.

Strategize! - As a Management Consultant, I like looking at things strategically. I found this very very useful in deciding how to split up my time on the GMAT - especially for verbal. Having had limited science background and knowledge, all those science passages scared the hell out of me, and even before tackling the questions I would be mentally beat. I dealt with this by using Manhattans EXCELLENT Assessment reports feature to look at the average time I spent on SC and CR questions. It turned out that for the questions I got right across all my MGMAT tests for SC, I had spent just around 1 minute per question. And for those questions I got wrong, I had spent around 1:20. So I concluded that I should allocate myself only 1 minute per SC question, and in my subsequent practice with the SC1000 questions I would only give myself 1 minute per Q. (Yeah - I sat there with Manhattans stopwatch beeping every minute - annoyed the hell out of the other people at the library with me but kept me quite focused!!) ... Furthermore, I also analyzed my CR timing patterns and recognized that I was getting questions right within ~2 minutes per Q. After determining the average amount of time I was typically spending on each Q type, I went into GMAT Prep and looked at the breakdown of the number of questions of each type I was getting. Combined with some research from online forums - it showed that you can expect to get about 17 SC problems, 11 CR problems, and about 13 RC questions (3 passages with 3 questions, 1 passage with 4). Therefore I split my 75 minutes by allocating 17 to SC, 22 to CR, and voila I had 36 minutes left for the 4 RC passages! That averages out to about 9 minutes PER passage, significantly more than what many online forums suggested I spent on a RC passage. I know this sounds nerdy, but I can truly say my ability to "get over the hump" in Verbal was the confidence I had in knowing I had 9 minutes per RC Passage! I usually didn't even end up using that much time, but just KNOWING I had it if I needed it, allowed me to focus more on the content of the passage, stress less about spending too much time on it, and tackle the questions with greater accuracy. This is a strategy that I would suggest you use to your benefit as well - get a good idea of how long you're spending on each question time and then work out a timing schedule that works for you. BTW, I was still able to stay close to the general timing grid suggested on this site: 60mins > Q8, 45mins > Q15, 30mins > Q22, 15mins > Q30, and 5mins > Q35. I was still able to stay close to these marks with the timing strategy I developed myself for RC.

Discover your weaknesses and focus on them Since I'm assuming everyone has purchased at least 1 Manhattan guide (they're all worth it, but at least buy their SC and Number Properties guide - definitely the bibles for their respective fields), than I would also highly recommend taking advantage of their Assessment Reports. You can run these on all the previous tests you've taken, and they go into such great detail that you can pinpoint with great accuracy the areas you're weak in. This helped me focus a lot less time on areas that I enjoyed (and probably found easier) and a lot more time on my weak areas (FDPs, VICs, and DS questions in general). Furthermore, I was able to develop the timing grid mentioned above, and since I took 8 tests I knew I had sufficient data points to make a customized strategy. Kudos to Manhattan for developing this tool, yet another example of how Manhattan is WAY ahead of the rest of the pack when it comes to test prep.

Online forums Since you're reading this I already assume you know about BTG online forums, but I want to reiterate its importance. Every question you get wrong on an OG problem or better yet a GMAT Prep test, type it into google and look at peoples explanations and tactics. I did that and it helped me understand the concepts a lot more, and improve my Quant score quite a bit. Special shout outs to Ian Stewart and Stacy Koprince, your explanations were by far the best and most easiest to follow; I learned a lot through you two as a silent stalker of the various forums so thank you for your help.

Tests As you'll see below, I started taking tests at a pace of about 1 every 2 days in the 2 weeks before my exam, and went through each GMAT Prep 3 times. Surprisingly, I continually saw fresh questions (esp in RC) each time around, and I would urge you all to make the most of the GMAT Prep software by exhausting all the questions within it. I also downloaded the old PowerPrep software from Gorilla Test Prep's website, and used that towards the start of my studies (since a lot of their questions can now be found in OG 11 and 12). For those of you who are taking a test "fresh" at the start of your studying, I'd say you download the PowerPrep GMAT test and take that one first instead of using up the GMAT Prep test #1. Both tests provide as good an indication of your true score visa vis the actual GMAT, and contain old retired questions from the exam itself. Aside from PowerPrep and GMAT Prep, I also used Manhattans 6 tests (and reset the question pool and took 2 more tests, both of which contained relatively few repeat questions). Finally, I found Princeton Review also has some pretty similar questions to the GMAT, so the 4 free CATs they provide you with when you buy their book should also be exhausted. Though some points to keep in mind regarding these various tests: 1) Manhattan Quant is harder than the GMAT, so don't worry if you're not able to get their insane combinatorics or distance/rate problems. On the other hand, their Verbal is quite good and quite indicative of where you'll score on the real GMAT. 2) Princeton Review is pretty useful for Quant and has surprisingly a lot of questions that are very similar to real GMAT questions, whereas their Verbal is in my opinion horrible! The CR questions in particular are ALOT more LSATish than they are GMATish, and some questions have some very debateable answer choices. Furthermore, the annoying thing about Princeton Review's scoring algorithm (from what I gathered) is that it bumps you down a few levels every time you get 2 questions wrong at a certain level. For example, if you reach a 36 score on Quant, and get 2 questions wrong, they'll bump you down to a 33. This makes it harder for you to climb back to the top; whereas based on my observations of the real GMAT scoring algorithm, they don't penalize you as gravely for getting a few questions wrong at a certain level. I was only able to score a 650 as my highest Princeton Review test score, while I was scoring 700 and 710 on Manhattan CATs and GMAT Prep (suggesting that Princeton Review is off by about 50 points). Finally, GMAT Club's Challenge Tests are also supposed to be good and I wish I had learned about them earlier on in my study, I'm sure I would have been able to raise my Quant score a few points had I used them sooner.

Manhattan CAT #1 - 4/28/2009: Q41 V35 - 630 (untimed)
Manhattan CAT #2 - 5/26/2009: Q29 V31 - 510
Manhattan CAT #3 - 6/12/2009: Q44 V31 - 610
OG GMATPrep. #1a - 6/26/2009: Q42 V34 - 620
Manhattan CAT #4 - 7/01/2009: Q38 V35 - 610
Manhattan CAT #5 - 7/07/2009: Q42 V34 - 630
Princeton Rev #1 - 7/09/2009: Q33 V33 - 550
OG PowerPrep #1a - 7/13/2009: Q45 V34 - 650
Princeton Rev #1 - 7/15/2009: Q34 V37 - 590
OG GMATPrep. #1b - 7/17/2009: Q42 V38 - 650
Manhattan CAT #6 - 7/20/2009: Q44 V39 - 690
OG GMATPrep. #2a - 7/24/2009: Q44 V33 - 640
Manhattan CAT #7 - 7/25/2009: Q43 V42 - 700
OG GMATPrep. #2b - 7/26/2009: Q48 V40 - 710
Princeton Rev #3 - 7/27/2009: Q43 V37 - 650
Official GMAT - 7/29/2009: Q45 V42 - 710

Closing remarks - Keep at it - the GMAT CAN BE BEAT, and even though you'll hit a lot of stumbling blocks along the way, a few scores much lower than you are capable of, even a few 500s (damn you Princeton Review!) if you utilize all the resources at your disposal, practice often, and develop a routine where you start dreaming about GMAT Problems, that 700 score can definitely be attainable!

Thanks to all of you who have ever contributed any question, solution, or insight to these forums - at some point I creeped across your contributions and therefore in some way you've all helped me in my journey!

Nice feedback. Congrats on your score and good luck on your apps!

thanks for the great debrief

Great debrief and congrats! Do you have an example of the timing grids? Also can you weigh in with your thoughts on my current pacing? Any advice or strategies would be most helpful.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/recommended- ... tml#196470