I just Beat The GMAT!

Recap of test scores...

11/7 - Manhattan - 710 - q47 v40
11/12 - Manhattan - 650 - q44 v35
11/15 - Manhattan - 700 - q47 v39
11/18 - GMATPrep1 - 780 - q50 v48
11/24 - Manhattan - 770 - q50 v44
11/25 - GMATPrep2 - 770 - q49 v??
(I reset GMATPrep a couple of times, but I didn't write down the scores. All were between 750 and 780 (inclusive. haha))
12/3 - Actual - 740 - q49 v42

Resources

OG12
Manhattan SC - very good
Manhattan Number Properties
Powerscore CR Bible - (well, a cursory glance at the first few chapters)

Breakdown

Began studying the 6th of November. I was initially pleased with the first CAT test from Manhattan, since my goal was a 720. I'm not sure what the hell happened on the 2nd test, but it definitely did frustrate me a bit. In the first Manhattan test, I had to pause the test during the quant section. I felt pretty confident in RC and CR, so I didn't really study them, outside of a few chapters of Powerscore CR Bible.

Actual Test

Everything went smoothly. The proctor was very nice. I was a little concerned about the AWA's because I write pretty slow, but they turned out to be decent.

Quant

The main thing worrying me was that I would not be able to finish the quant section. On the first GMATPrep test I took, I barely finished the quant section. So, I was very concerned. Started off going a little slow in the first few questions. I sped it up in the middle, but ended up with plenty of time to finish. As far as the difficulty, I thought the quant section was closer to Manhattan GMAT than GMATPrep. Although, I may have rushed myself in the middle, thus I may have not approached the problems correctly. When I did slow down with about 15 questions left, I definitely felt that the questions were more simple. So, perhaps the questions in the middle just seemed harder than they were.

Verbal

Ah, good ole verbal. I went in usually finishing with 15-20 minutes left to spare on the section. I felt CR and RC were strong points, and SC would be the deciding factor in my score. However, it was the total opposite. The CR and RC were, in my opinion, not close to what was on the GMATPrep. They seemed to be not as clear-cut as the GMATPrep. A couple of CR questions I probably spent 5-6 minutes on. The SC problems were incredibly easy (at least I think, perhaps not). I did feel pretty dumb for not studying for the CR section, but oh well.

Final thoughts

I thought the Manhattan SC was very thorough. In retrospect, I wish I had planned for more time to study for the test, but I am thankful that I am done with it. I would just like to thank Eric and all of those at beatthegmat. Y'all are awesome. (Yes, I am from the South.)

Hey there, congrats on your good score, with barely one month of preparation, I wanted to ask you, the Quant questions in the actual gmat, are they similar to the one's in the OG in terms of complexity, cause I have worked out the first 120 PS form OG, and they dont seem that tough, on the other hand the sums from Kaplan are a shade tougher.

Please share you experience in terms of complexity of the questions in comparison with the OG and other material.

TIA

PS- I am a HUGE Arsenal fan too!

jaskaran wrote:Hey there, congrats on your good score, with barely one month of preparation, I wanted to ask you, the Quant questions in the actual gmat, are they similar to the one's in the OG in terms of complexity, cause I have worked out the first 120 PS form OG, and they dont seem that tough, on the other hand the sums from Kaplan are a shade tougher.

Please share you experience in terms of complexity of the questions in comparison with the OG and other material.

TIA

PS- I am a HUGE Arsenal fan too!

How did you like that game versus Chelsea? We really need Van Persie back. It'll be interesting to see what attacking threat Wegner can get during the upcoming transfer period.

As far as the quant section in the actual GMAT, I think it is tough to gauge the complexity without being able to see which questions I got wrong. Some questions may have only appeared difficult. I would say some of the questions on the test were closer to the difficulty on Manhattan's quant, but some were on the level of the later questions on the OG.

I do think that probability questions on the GMAT do not resemble what some test prep companies have. The probability questions on the actual GMAT were pretty simple. I didn't use Kaplan, so I can't really compare the actual vs Kaplan, but I'm sure there are some here who can.

So, that is my opinion. Personally, I would take most people's assessment of difficulty with a grain of salt. For example, I thought GMATPrep2 had more difficult quant than GMATPrep1, but after going over answers my opinion was that they were equal.

I would say that fear is the biggest enemy of test takers, and the GMAT makers take advantage of that fear. Just like magicians, GMAT makers use sleight-of-hand techniques. So, the two best things you can do for the Quant section are...

1. Don't fear the test, but don't underestimate the test.
2. Become proficient at identifying the correct approach in problems. So, compare your approach to questions you got wrong with how Kaplan/OG/whoever set up the problem.