I just Beat The GMAT!

Just got back from a long but happy day... and I'm glad to report that I beat the GMAT! . I'll try to keep this short so that anyone reading this can (hopefully) get something positive for his or her own personal GMAT study course.

My GMAT journey began a little over a month ago. I was just starting to seriously contemplate taking the GMAT, when I found someone online giving away 2 free books (the OG and a Princeton review book). I read through these on and off in the evenings after work.

As fate would have it, I found myself a victim of the economy, and was laid off early August. Rather than be deterred or disappointed, I saw this as an opportunity to spend more time studying for the GMAT.

I spent a few hours a day just studying these books. I did practice problems, and I also purchased a Manhattan GMAT book from Amazon so that I would have access to their CAT's.

In all, I took 5 CAT tests:

Chronologically:

1. GMAT Preptest #1: 730
2. MGMAT Free test #1: 690
3. MGMAT test #2: 660
4. GMAT Preptest #2: 730 (2 days before test)
5. MGMAT test #3: 720 (day before test)

My target score was originally 750 (better to shoot high than low). As I was taking the practice tests, I began considering anywhere from 700-730 acceptable. However, I didn't lose hope that the practice tests were wrong and I'd do better.

D-day arrives, and I'm a ball of mess all day (including the night before). Pretty nervous all day, but luckily I pulled it together in the end.

General tips:

1. Get there early. It will take time to sign you in.

2. Test your marker and dry erase board as soon as you get it. If you find the ink is low, ask for a new marker. I didn't do this, and luckily the pen wrote fine during the quant. However, I tried using it again during the verbal, and the damn pen wouldn't write at all.

3. Quant: TIME MANAGEMENT is the key. I froze on the first question and wasted 3-4 mins on it.. don't let this happen to you. Ideally you'll want to hit all of them, but it's just as good to skip a question that you know you have no shot on. I did this twice later in the exam and it allowed me to finish (I had to guess on the last one because I ran low on time, but it could have been much worse).

4. Verbal: DON'T RUSH: If you're anything like me, you usually finish your practice verbal sections with 7-8 mins to spare. On my last practice test, I made a conscious effort to slow down. This really helped me out on the actual test, as I finished the section with about 1.5 mins left. I think the extra time I took to look at problems really helped.

Anyway, don't be disappointed if your last few test scores are lower than what you expected. I just scored 40 points higher when it counted, even though I was a nervous wreck all day. Just have confidence, pray (if you're a praying person), and give it all you've got. Good luck to everyone else and thanks to everyone who's posted replies to my questions on the forums!

(Edited quant score in title)

Congrats on an amazing score!

Good luck with the rest of the process!!

Regards,
CR

Wow, great score. Congrats.

It only took you a month to score 770? I see that you are from Jersey so Verbal probably wasn't too difficult. But to score a 51 after month of study is still remarkable.

Do you have some type of background specializing in either English or Math?

Hi navalpike,

Most of my verbal scores started out pretty anemically. My first few were in high 30s (unfortunately I never wrote down my breakdown for my first GMAT preptest, so I'll never know what my starting point was).

However, I think the following steps were crucial for me:

1. the gmatpreptests don't give you a breakdown of what questions you got right or wrong, so there's no way to improve based on this test alone. However, the manhattangmat tests give you a full breakdown and explanations on all questions. I'd highly recommend taking at least their free online CAT test and pinpointing what areas in verbal you're doing poorly in). Next, with this info, I'd go back and buy the corresponding MGMAT book. This way, you'll accomplish two things at once: 1. you'll have some more reading material to help your weakness, and 2. you'll have access to 5 more CAT tests.

2. I did see a slight improvement in my verbal (my last practice verbal score before the test was a 44). I'm not sure how I managed to make the leap from a 44 to a 51. My guess is that on the actual test, I purposely worked as slowly as I could (while still keeping an eye on time!).

3. In the past, I've taken the LSAT (although I did nowhere near as well as I did on the GMAT). The reading comprehension and the critical reasoning questions on the GMAT are virtually identical to those found on the LSAT. For this reason, I didn't focus too much on these questions this time around. For some extra studying in these types of questions, consider buying some LSAT books related to these topics.

And no, I'm not an English major, I studied engineering during my undergrad. I guess this helps for the Q.. possibly for the CR section of the verbal as well.

Amazing score!!! Verbal 51! I have just seen a few instructors who have 800 score and got 51 in verbal. That's just amazing. And the interesting part is that you had to slow down I had to rush through all the time and now able to finish the sections just in time.
Any particular strategy which you want to share for verbal section?

I have NEVER seen a 51 in Verbal before! That is mind-blowing! Congratulations!

riteshbindal wrote:Amazing score!!! Verbal 51! I have just seen a few instructors who have 800 score and got 51 in verbal. That's just amazing. And the interesting part is that you had to slow down I had to rush through all the time and now able to finish the sections just in time.
Any particular strategy which you want to share for verbal section?

Hi,

Unfortunately, I don't think I had a clear strategy other than take a little more time on CR, and spend less time on most RC and SC questions. However, there were a few "tough" SC questions that I didn't mind slowing down on. In fact, there were a few that I took 2-3 mins on. As long as you learn to move quickly through the rest of the test, you can afford to spend a little extra time on some of the SC's.

Also the Manhattan GMAT SC book helped me a lot with an area I'd been struggling in. It's a great book to have if you are struggling in SC as well.

Where did you read CR and RC from? And for SC, did you just refer to MGMAT?
Any other books you read for practicing the stuff?

Lot many questions

riteshbindal wrote:Where did you read CR and RC from? And for SC, did you just refer to MGMAT?
Any other books you read for practicing the stuff?

Lot many questions

Hi,

For CR, I used the Logical Reasoning Bible from Powerscore. It's primarily geared towards the LSAT, but I think it works great for the GMAT as well.

For RC, I didn't use any specific book. I just sort of went through plenty of LSAT practice tests a year or so back, so I got used to the concepts.

For SC I only used the MGMAT SC book. It is very informative and I highly recommend it.

Of course, for all 3 of these, I also went over the problems I got wrong on the full length practice CAT exams from Manhattan GMAT.

As a final update, I received my official score report via email today (1 week after the test). Luckily, there were no discrepancies on my report. Also, I got a 6.0 on the AWA; I was a little worried I would get something lower since I only wrote intro/2 body paragraphs/conclusion for both my essays (instead of 3 body paragraphs).

Amazing score! Thanks for sharing the debrief.

Care to share how you prepared for AWA?

Also, did you use any other resource for Quant other than the OG and Princeton Review? Could you share your approach on studying the OG and PR problems?

Amazing score man!!!!!..... Good luck

Congrats on the amazingly high score! 51V, wow!

Did you read PowerScore CR Bible as well? If so, is it worth it to read the LSAT LR Bible if I've studied the CR Bible?

hi

unfortunately i did not also read the CR bible. from my understanding, the CR bible and the LSAT bible are essentially the same, except the LSAT bible has a few extra LSAT-specific sections. i don't know if it would be worth it to read both, but if you've never read either of them, i generally recommend the LSAT one.