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Advice for taking the GMAT when you are 40!

Find out how Beat The GMAT members tackled GMAT test prep with positive results. Get tips on GMAT test prep materials, online courses, study tips, and more.
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Advice for taking the GMAT when you are 40!

by indiagrad » Sat Jan 01, 2011 12:26 am
Hello fellow GMAT takers, Wish you all success in 2011. I would like to hear from someone who has been in the work force for a long time, has basically forgotten many of the concepts in quant and finds the verb section an effort to hijack one's sanity! Anyone with a similar background and has scored 700 and above? Would like to get some tips to study and crack the GMAT.
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by rishi raj » Sat Jan 01, 2011 12:46 am
Welcome to the community! You'll see some people here who are 35+ and have not been in touch with formal studies for quite long.
What you need to do is firstly assess your current competency level for the GMAT by taking a diagnostic test. Download GMATPREP from www.mba.com and take one test.
Since you've been out of studies for a long time, so you may want to stretch your preparation for some more time. For the first 1-2 months, you may want to come in the study mode by going through basic maths, reading miscellaneous stuff etc and then in the next 3 months, you may want to go the whole hog.
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by fitzgerald23 » Sun Jan 02, 2011 3:43 pm
I had taken the GMAT when I just turned 35 and was pretty far removed from most of these concepts tested on the GMAT. Id highly recommend the Manhattan guides, specifically for the math portion of the exam, as well as the Official Guide from the GMAT itself to measure your progress. I took my studying pretty slowly over the course of a few months doing a little here and there at night when my little baby (she was just about to turn 1 year old when I took the exam) and really picked up the intensity at the end. It does take a little time to relearn the concepts, but it is certainly doable. Id make sure to plan at least 6 months of studying if you want a 700 and once you start learning the concepts again make sure to take some practice exams to measure your progress and prepare for what the timed exam is actually like.
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by InkyBinky » Mon Jan 03, 2011 5:49 am
I took it several months ago at the age of 32. I don't think that being far-removed from academics will negatively impact your score. In fact, I think your verbal skills will be stronger than someone younger because those develop over time. I highly recommend the Manhattan GMAT books for the math section but, to be honest, they didn't help my verbal score at all. I heard on here that Manhattan exaggerates the difficulty of the quant section, but I wouldn't necessarily listen to that advice. My quant score on the real GMAT matched my MGMAT average quant score.
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by SFtraveler » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:22 am
I'm 42 and was not a strong quant student when I was in college over 20 years ago. I would absolutely agree with the other posts that depending upon your baseline knowledge, you may find yourself needing to re-learn the basics, before you can start tackling the tougher problems that will come your way. This means a bit longer of a runway before you jump into the regular GMAT study plan. A GMAC GMAT practice exam will help you learn how long of a runway.

I just finished working through the Kaplan Math Workbook Edition 6 to give me the foundation and now will be moving into the OG books. The beat the gmat forums and articles will tell you everything you need to know to prep yourself. The advice about analyzing practice problems to learn be able to master the problem is really key. Finding this website has been hugely helpful, from the ability to post a problem that you don't know how to solve (and get an answer from someone on the other side of the world in as fast as an hour) to the success stories, study tips and practice problems.

From my vantage point, scoring well on the GMAT has been and will be a massive commitment for me. In order to keep myself motivated, I visited the top three schools that I plan to apply to for an EMBA program and sat in on classes. Being in that academic environment observing world-class professors engaging a class full of bright, accomplished professionals was incredibly energizing.

I truly believe that one advantage that those of us over the age of 40 have is experience with dealing with difficult and challenging obstacles in life (likely far more impactful than the GMAT) and that deeper perspective will help you keep an even keel should your runway be a bit longer than those just a few years out of college.

Go for it! You'll learn a lot about yourself in the process.
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