Achievement feels good. Q43 V42

As I write this, I've already consumed a fair amount of celebratory alcohol so I apologize in advance for incoherence. (Hehe...)

I am the world's worst test-taker so a 700 is a mighty achievement (for me. If that score isn't good enough for you, then you must be some kind of math whiz, in which case, good luck in the real world, my friend).

Having studied and scored in the 90 percentile, here are the insights I've learned that have allowed me to achieve a pretty great score. I sincerely hope they help...

Last night, after retiring my studying efforts for once and for all and leaving the rest up to God (or what not), I went to a yoga class. For those who have never been, usually yoga instructors tell you to set an intention for your session. At the beginning of last night's session, my intention was, "Go fast!" By the end, it was something entirely different (We'll get back to that in a minute.)

Some background:

I bought the Manhattan GMAT books (all of them plus the OG GMAT guides) over a year ago with the intention of taking to exam sometime in 2010. It never happened, for one reason or another. I would study a bit, hard at times, only to give it a nice long break.

Then, in August '10, I decided, now's the time. So I started to buckle down. By December, I was studying, mostly math, about 10 hours per week.

Then in January, I began taking practice tests. I was scoring 640. Q43 V35. I took the MGMAT test three times scoring the same every time before I decided to go ahead and hire a MGMAT tutor. At this point, I had titrated my study time to almost 30 hours per week. That's in addition to working a 40 hour work week. Thus, I felt that the investment in a tutor would help me focus my substantial efforts. It did. (Marcus Hedahl at the Manhattan GMAT center in DC was an enormous help, and I couldn't have done it without him. He's also quite cool, although from what I understand, all Manhattan GMAT tutors undergo a rigorous personality screening which requires them to be "quite cool.")

Here's what I learned from the tutor, distilled.

1) The GMAT has an affinity for equality. That means that even though I was scoring about 70 percentile on both math and verbal (Q43 V35), my score would exponentially increase if I could get my verbal raw score up closer to 43. Therefore, for the following two months, I focused my attention on verbal.

2) As I continued taking practice exams, I found that when I finished a section, either math or verbal, with a little bit of extra time to spare, I scored much higher on that section. For example, on the last practice test I took, last week, I arrived at the final math question about 4 minutes early. I scored a 49 on math that time. Consequently, I realized how important it is to finish--not just on time, but--early.

3) How do you finish early? As you go through your section, at intervals, calculate exactly how much time you should have left in relation to where you are in the exam. If you're behind (or even if you're exactly on time) skip a question to get ahead. Being ahead is more important than being on time. For seriously. As soon as you become comfortable with this, you'll find that you'll score higher. This is no joke-this alone will increase your score! Skipping is powerful.

4) And (FINALLY!) yesterday, I tapered down my studying at 5:00pm and went to a yoga class. No more studying. I set my intention for the (yoga) class as "Go fast!" But by the end of class my mantra has changed to "Be still." That's the key. You have to be cool with skipping questions. And you have to be happy with your performance the whole way through. You have to realize that the last ten questions are where you make your money, where most folks fatigue and start screwing up. Be still. Be cool. Don't spin your wheels. If you find a question difficult, don't waste time. The GMAT is testing your ability to be able to move on. So move on. Be cool. Unless you're scoring super high (99 percentile on a section) the adaptive aspects of the test will make sure you're getting 40% of questions wrong. But don't sweat it.

5) Be still. Be deliberate. Be cool. Finish early. (This point is important enough to repeat. For seriously.)

6) Consume your test in bite sized pieces. Remember to breath. Take a five second break on questions 21 and 31 in either section. This is where you make your money. "Five, four, three, breathe, one. Go!"

Ultimately, I scored only 65 percentile in math and (wow) 95 percentile in verbal. But since my verbal and math raw scores were so close (Q43 V42), the multiplier built into the algorithm ("GMAT has an affinity for equality) catapulted me to 700. I'm quite happy with my score. 700 was my goal starting out. I'm not a terrific test taker, and for me, I totally beat the GMAT.

My score on practice tests:

1/8/11 - MGMAT - 640 Q43 V35
1/16/11 - MGMAT - 640 Q43 V34
1/22/11 - MGMAT - 630 Q41 V35 ïƒŸ hired tutor after
2/9/11 - MGMAT - 630 Q38 V37
2/14/11 - GMAT PREP - 670 Q44 V38
2/21/11 - GMAT PREP - 700 Q49 V38
3/1/11 - GMAT (real) - 700 Q43 V42

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