I just Beat The GMAT!

CappyAA wrote:I've been on these forums for a while, and I have never seen anyone say that extensive preparation is the only way to get a great score. You're probably a very smart individual and already strong in most of the GMAT-tested concepts. Your baseline score is probably already quite high. If this is the case, you're right - any prep work is going to have small returns. If you are scoring 700+ on your first practice test, there's not much room to go up.

However, most people are not scoring 700+ on their first try. They may be deficient in certain areas. If this is the case, these people will need more prep time to adequately learn the concepts being tested on the GMAT.

Congratulations on a 760 - it's a fantastic score. However, rather than taking the test first to figure out your score, you can take an official practice test on the GMAC website, which is what people here should be doing anyways. If they score 760 on that, they're probably in the same boat as you and can go right to taking the test. However, if they're scoring lower, a more detailed study regiment is probably needed.

On a side note, your score is very indicative of a super smart individual who has plenty of testing experience. Your verbal score is basically perfect. This makes sense to me, because the verbal section is quite similar to the verbal sections in some of the other standardized tests out there. Your math score is great, but a little lower. Again, this make sense. Some of the GMAT math problems are unique. Once you study and understand the concepts and patterns, they're not super hard. But I'd expect someone with no GMAT experience but plenty of testing experience to perform relatively better on the verbal than on the math.

There were actually two sections that I wasn't familiar with, one on each. I've never taken a test with a significant amount of data sufficiency questions, or with sentence corrections. Most of my standardized test taking skills come from the new version of the SAT I or Math II-C, which, as I recall, has neither. I think there may have been some data sufficiency on some of the AP math tests in HS (Calc AB, Calc BC, Stats), or IB Higher Level math, but they were limited.

If you're curious btw, my background on some other standardized tests has been:

PSAT: 670V, 730M, 670W
SAT I Math: 720, 710, 790
SAT Verbal: 660, 690, 640
SAT Writing: N/A, N/A, 640
SAT Math II-C: 790
SAT Physics: 760
SAT US History: 620

AP Calculus BC: 4
AP Calculus AB: 5
AP Statistics: 4 (also a miracle as I've never taken a stats class in my life--but knowing how to multiply probabilities and understand standard deviations goes a long way...)
AP Physics C (mechanics): 5
AP Physics B: 4
AP English Language: 3
AP US History: 2
AP World History: 3

CPA REG 92
CPA BEC 91
CPA FAR 91
CPA AUD 83

And I think that's just about my entire standardized testing history except for IB tests in HS, which no one knows about anyway, so why bother remembering the scores?

jwatt13164 wrote:Do you have prior math skills, etc to draw from ? My biggest problem in studying is although I know and understand arithmetic, etc., when having to do it without a calculator, then throwing in the Algebra and Geometry, of which I know very little (even less than what I should have known from high school), it is making the process difficult. I am taking practice quizzes, etc (kaplan), but am not scoring very well and am not sure what that means. I have been preparing for about 9 months, and will probably go ahead and take it and see how I do. I'd love to know your thoughts, and if you already had the math down. Thanks !

I haven't taken a math course since high school. I did, however, take a derivative of a polynomial and set it equal to zero to solve an optimization problem on the GMAT. Probably could have done it without calculus, but that was the method that jumped out at me.

ketavgupte wrote:Agreed. This is not normal. Not everyone is a natural like you. I would give an arm and leg to get the same verbal score.

Well, thanks? That said, I'm not the only person capable of this, so this was really intended for people of similar backgrounds who are going to kill themselves studying for a test that they've already learned to beat.

bullshark wrote:You are contradicting yourself in your statements.

First you state that you don't need to spend hundreds of hours studying and that, based on your example, you only need one practice exam, 2 hours of prep, and a half-hour of warm up the night before to get a good score.

Then you state that you have taken alot of tests over your 24 years of life and hence I'm sure have done alot of preparation for all of those tests that you have taken before. That preparation can be leveraged toward the gmat as well.

Gmat test takers come from a wide variety of backgrounds. There are international students who are weak in Verbal skills while great in Quants, Non-technical folks such as former lawyers or those who at one time aspired to be lawyers and are good in verbal but weak in Quant, and older test takers that haven't taken standardized exams in years. As the previous posters have stated, you are not they typical test taker in that you have tons of experience in test taking.

So in reality, if you include all of the preparation you have done for all of the previous tests that you have taken, you didn't study for this exams for 4.5 hours, you studied for 4.5 years.

I actually agree with pretty much everything you said here, although I don't think I was contradicting myself, I was just not being clear. 4.5 marginal hours of studying. If you're applying to an Ivy b-school, you probably are the type who fought tooth and nail to get into a good undergrad college and then have lots of prior experience, like me. If this is not the case, then yes, everything I said is N/A.

cbenk121 wrote:

CappyAA wrote:I've been on these forums for a while, and I have never seen anyone say that extensive preparation is the only way to get a great score. You're probably a very smart individual and already strong in most of the GMAT-tested concepts. Your baseline score is probably already quite high. If this is the case, you're right - any prep work is going to have small returns. If you are scoring 700+ on your first practice test, there's not much room to go up.

However, most people are not scoring 700+ on their first try. They may be deficient in certain areas. If this is the case, these people will need more prep time to adequately learn the concepts being tested on the GMAT.

Congratulations on a 760 - it's a fantastic score. However, rather than taking the test first to figure out your score, you can take an official practice test on the GMAC website, which is what people here should be doing anyways. If they score 760 on that, they're probably in the same boat as you and can go right to taking the test. However, if they're scoring lower, a more detailed study regiment is probably needed.

On a side note, your score is very indicative of a super smart individual who has plenty of testing experience. Your verbal score is basically perfect. This makes sense to me, because the verbal section is quite similar to the verbal sections in some of the other standardized tests out there. Your math score is great, but a little lower. Again, this make sense. Some of the GMAT math problems are unique. Once you study and understand the concepts and patterns, they're not super hard. But I'd expect someone with no GMAT experience but plenty of testing experience to perform relatively better on the verbal than on the math.

I agree.

1) Congrats on the great score!

2) There is a large gap between studying for 5 hours and studying for 100s of hours. I invite you to read through a few more posts on this site, and you'll see far more stories of people in between the extremes.

3) In addition to inviting you to reading more posts on this site, I'd encourage you to share some of your secrets, rather than just sharing your results: that's how people really learn. What did you review in your 2 hours of formal prep? What about your warm-up? What was your "mental attitude" going into the test?

Honestly, if you did this great with so little preparation, there are likely a few very effective strategies you employed, in addition to natural intelligence / strong educational background you may be underselling yourself on (lots of people have taken lots of tests...and still score under 600).

As requested:

The most important things I learned to do was consider the computer adaptive nature of the test. The questions at the end of the test will feel very difficult for just about any test taker. Do not get flustered with these questions, as they will destroy your attitude an confidence on the next one.

For the quant, do not waste time solving problems to the end that do not require it, specifically on the data sufficiency. Answering 100% of questions with 80% confidence is better than answering 50% of the questions with 100% confidence and not having any time to think about the rest. On the verbal, don't ever try and bring in any outside knowledge into the reading comprehension questions, it's not required and will screw with your answer. Everything is there, you just have to find it.

If you're going to practice something more than anything else, I'd say sentence corrections benefit the most from seeing the common problems. There are a lot of sentences where I liked multiple, or none of the answers. Break them down and identify what word is different. Don't think about the sentence as a whole until you've already decided what answer to favor. Then if it sounds awkward in your head you should you reconsider. I don't know how non-native speaker strategies differ, since I am a native speaker.

And I would definitely recommend doing the two main things I did: 1) Take a practice test. 2) Attend a free introductory GMAT prep class (the one where they try to sell you the rest of the classes). If you just need to learn the test, and not content, most of the class is probably worthless (I didn't take it so I don't know, but I'd imagine that there is a lot more content to learn than strategy).

Do these in either order, or even better (and I didn't do the second practice test) Practice test, Intro class, Practice test again. That way you'll know what questions to ask the instructor based on concerns you have, learn a few things, measure what you learned, and then decide if its time to take the real thing.

Anyway, that's what I found to be the most valuable. If you're already a good test taker, any more than that will probably not materially increase your score. If you're not a good test taker, then you'll need some more help, so everything I've said is N/A.