Crushed the GMAT!!! 750 (50 Q, 41 V)!!!

Ok so now that I have more time today, here's my little debrief:

June

I decided mid-June that I wanted to take the GMAT and apply for business school. I set a tentative date of the last weekend in August to take the test. I went out and bought the OG 11th Edition and took the diagnostic test. To be honest, I didn't really have a good plan in mind. I just figured I'd do a bunch of problems. After taking the diagnostic test, it was pretty obvious that my weakness was the verbal section. So I devoted 1 week each to SC, RC, and CR, strictly doing problems after work every day. It was pretty easy as I was traveling a lot for work and spending my nights in hotel rooms. I spent 1 more week on both Quant. sections and finished the OG at the beginning of July.

July

Work started getting crazy, so I put off studying for a few weeks. I finished the OG in maybe the 1st or 2nd week of July, and then I didn't do much for the rest of the month. I think my motivation died down.

August

At the beginning of August, I had a wake up call. I hadn't registered for the test yet, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was going to take it. But then I got a call from my career counselor at work. Through no fault of my own, I ended up getting screwed and didn't get the raise I was looking for this year, even though I was getting great performance reviews. This really got me mad and lit a fire under myself to get back on the horse and start studying again.

This time, I realized I had to have a plan as my original plan wasn't working. I decided that 1 month wasn't enough time to study, so I pushed the date back to October 3. I actually registered at this time, so I couldn't keep pushing it back. This wasn't too late for me. I was planning on applying in Round 2 anyways, as I haven't 100% decided I want to leave my job and go to B-School yet, so this gives me the max time to make my decision.

So I browsed around this forum, got recommendations from friends, and put together a plan of materials. I went out and bought the following items:

- Kaplan Guide 2009
- Kaplan 800
- Sentence Correction Bible
- Critical Reasoning Bible
- Manhattan SC Guide
- Verbal OG Supplement
- Math OG Supplement

I also copied all the notes from one of the stickies here onto notecards, and kept adding to them as I went along. By the end, I accumulated over 500 notecards!

So here was my plan. I was going to work my way through books. I devoted 2 hours per weekday, and 4 hours per weekend, with 1 day off per week. I spent 1 day a week on the quantitative part as I was an engineer and a lot of this is review for me. 4 days were split up into CR, RC, and SC. On days that I had SC or CR, I'd spend the first hour of the studying going through a chapter of the SC Bible, CR Bible, or Manhattan guide, taking diligent notes. I feel like this improved my Verbal tremendously. I wish I had taken a practice test at the beginning before everything, but I'd guess my verbal would have been in the 30-35 range. The last day of the week (Sunday) I'd complete a practice test, whether it be GMAT Prep or MGMAT exam. I'd take the test minus the AWA part and review afterwards.

I was pretty good about all of this, and I could feel everything getting easier. I would go through all my notecards before my study session daily. I'd bring them with me everywhere. On the subway to work, I'd read notecards instead of books. I felt like it was all I thought about.

I took my first practice test in mid-August. I got a 720 on the test, which totally shocked me. My original goal was 700, so I knew I'd have to change that. If I was 6 weeks out getting a 720, I could do better. So I revised to 750 as a goal, as there's really not much more room to improve.

I kept going well the rest of August sticking to this plan. I went through the following books in August - Kaplan, Started Kaplan 800, MGMAT SC Guide, Started CR Bible, Started SC Bible.

September

I continued with the plan of studying every day. Everything was going well until mid-September when I switched to a different project at work, requiring much more time. This took away from some of my studying, but I just traded sleep for studying and put as much time as I could in

2 weeks before test

I wasn't done with Kaplan 800 yet, but I didn't really like it that much anyways, so I put it down. I finished all the CR and SC guides and had a huge stack of notecards. My plan from here on out was to work only on real GMAT questions, so I took the Verbal and Quant Supplements and started working on those. I also got rid of the 1 section per day requirement, and started working on 5-10 questions of each section per day. Before every study session (or at least once a day prior to a study session), I'd go through my 500 notecards. I was drilling this into my head.

Last week

My test was on Friday. I decided to take a 1/2 day on Tuesday, and take off Wed-Fri. I didn't drink at all Sunday-Thursday just to cleanse my body of anything. I also started waking up at 7 am every day and going to bed early every night so I wouldn't be tired waking up for my exam. I usually wake up at 8 for work, so this is somewhat early for me.

I didn't quite get through the entire supplements, but I started working on the last few problems of each section this week to make sure I got the hard ones in. I was getting these right so I felt ready.

On Wednesday, I decided to simulate the test. I woke up at 6:30, went to Starbucks up the street and unwinded with a cup of coffee. I got myself a little breakfast and came back to my apartment at 8:00 am to get started on the test. I took the full test, AWA section and all and finished with a 750 (49, 44). I had never gotten so high on verbal before, so I was really hoping that was an indication of things to come. I made some dumb mistakes on the math section.

I spent the rest of that day working on quantitative stuff and starting my work on the AWA. I hadn't looked at it much. To be honest, I wasn't worried about that section. I just looked at formatting examples for about an hour. I figured I could pull out a 5 or better with little studying.

On Thursday, I did very little studying. I did go through my notecards, but that is it. I woke up early, went up to Starbucks and hung out for an hour in the morning going through my notecards. I also walked to the testing center so I knew exactly where it is. I went in and talked to the lady asking her some questions (the scratch paper, what do I need to bring, what kind of earplugs do you have, etc.). She was really nice and answered all questions for me. I went golfing and just relaxed the rest of the day. My girlfriend came over later to watch the VP debate, but I was in bed by 11 so I could get a good night sleep.

Test Day

I woke up at 6:30 on the dot. I usually hit snooze, but I was too pumped up and ready to go. I got out of bed and had a small breakfast. I usually don't eat much in the morning anyways. I just made a quick omelet with a few eggs, cheese, and some bacon and sausage put in there. I walked up to Starbucks and got a cup of coffee for the walk over to the center.

I arrived at the center at 7:30 on the nose for my 8:00 appointment. There were a few other people there taking various tests. I signed in, got my picture taken, gave my fingerprint, and they gave me a locker to put my stuff in. The proctor took me back to my workstation. Every time I left and entered the room, I had to give them my ID and take my fingerprint for ID purposes. I was happy to see that they also had huge soundproof headphones that I wore. They were fantastic as I heard nothing, and way better than those disposable rubber earplugs.

After going through some admin screens and declaring my schools I'd like to send my scores to, I got started with the AWA. My Analysis of Argument was first and, to be honest, was kind of tricky. It took me a little longer to think about a response, but I started typing away. I kind of felt like I was BS-ing a little bit, but it turned out ok. My Analysis of an Issue was much easier and I finished that with about 8 min. to spare.

I took my optional break of 10 min. and went out to my locker to get my snack (bag of almonds) and drink 1/2 my Dr. Pepper I brought with me. I used the restroom and got ready for the Quantitative section.

I started killing the Quantitative section early, although I could feel myself taking too much time for some questions. I didn't get a DS problem in the first 8 questions, so that kind of worried me when I looked at the clock. I think I got about the first 8-10 questions right. I had a few tricky number properties DS questions in the middle. Questions 15-25 were definitely very tough. Of the questions I got wrong, the bulk of them were here in my opinion. I looked at the clock after 25 and saw that I had about 20 min. left with about 12 questions left, so I knew I had to buckle down. Luckily I got a few geometry problems, and a few quick hitter problems, so I ended up finishing strongly. I think I got the last 6-8 questions right and finished with about 7 seconds left! The last question was really hard and I saw that I had 3 minutes left going into it, so I worked out an answer with 1 minute left and picked it, but spent the last minute just double-checking. I found an error with 15 seconds left and switched it out, thankfully.

I felt good coming out of that section. I took my break again, drank the rest of my Dr. Pepper, and ate a bag of Peanut M&M's to energize me for the last 75 minutes.

After going back in for the Verbal, I was ready to go and focused. The Verbal started out easy. I think I started off really strong (maybe 9 of first 10 questions right). I had a few SC and CR to start, and my RC section was at question 8 for 4 questions. I could definitely tell the middle of the test was super hard. It seemed like all my SC questions were entire sentences that were underlined. My CR questions were long tricky passages. Although the RC was pretty easy. They gave me easy topics, and there was only 1 longer passage. The other 3 were about 30-40 lines. I felt like I was losing energy at about question 25-30. I found myself thinking about how awesome it would be when I was done and looking at the clock. When I caught myself doing this, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a sec, and told myself to get my act together for the last 15ish questions. I pulled myself together nicely, and I think I finished off the section well.

At the end of the test I had the option to report my scores. I stared at it for a couple seconds. I felt like I wouldn't have been surprised with anything from 700-770. I just didn't know how well I did. When my score came out, I almost yelped. It was so nice to be done. I had this big ear to ear grin on my face. I just needed to contain myself until I left the facility. The lady in the front was smiling and congratulated me as I signed out and got my printout and stuff out of the locker. I think I spent the next 20 minutes calling my parents, friends, whoever would listen. I also celebrated kind of hard last night and was a bit hungover this morning

Reflections - What I learned

Overall it was a good experience. I have never studied so hard for a test or anything in my life. I felt like I didn't care about the SATs like this in high school, and college really didn't matter to me. So I definitely have that great sense of accomplishment.

The 44 V on Wednesday got my hopes up for a 43 or 44 V, so the 41 V score was a little lower than I had hoped for. But I really can't complain at all - that is just nitpicking. A 750 was my goal from the get-go, so I hit that mark. And there really isn't much of a difference in applications (for all intensive purposes) between a 750 and a 770 when people are applying. The rest of the profile is what will take over from here.

So next is the application process. I am applying to Berkeley, Stanford, Penn, Chicago, and NYU. I'm not totally sold on NYU yet, but the other 4 are def. on my list. I'm gonna take a little bit of a break though, and probably start these apps next week. I don't have to have them in until Round 2 deadlines (Dec-Jan timeframe), so I do have 2-3 months to go through them.

I learned a lot from the process. I learned to make sure you stick to the schedule you set for yourself - no matter what it is. Sometimes, you're going to get less sleep. We are busy people. But if you want something enough, it'll pay off in the end.

I also learned how to really study. It's not enough to know what the right answer is to every problem. It's also not enough to know why that answer's right. You also need to know why every other answer is wrong. Go through every single answer explanation. At the end, I was spending equal, if not more, time reviewing questions I already did as I was going through and doing questions. Lots of questions on the GMAT operate under the same principles, and you'll definitely see patterns, so pay attention to that.

Material/Books Review

OG 11th Edition, OG Supplements - Obviously these are amazing. I feel like I didn't utilize the original OG to the best I could have. The explanations are great here, so these are definite musts to have.

Kaplan Premier - I thought this was ok. I didn't really use it that much. The questions seemed a little easy to me. I skipped all the parts about how to go through problems as I was already learning methods and didn't want to confuse myself. I feel like I could have done without this.

Kaplan 800 - Same kind of deal here. The question difficulty was better as I was definitely getting tested on some of these questions. The answer explanations were ok as well. I just didn't really get a good vibe from the Kaplan Material.

CR Bible - Awesome book. I looked at CR way differently after this one. I was weak at CR, and definitely feel like this improved me.

SC Bible - Again, this is an amazing book. So many questions, and examples. It breaks down everything so nicely. I feel like the idiom section wasn't very comprehensive, but other than that, everything was great.

Manhattan SC Guide - The material here is great and the way it is presented is great. I think SC Bible for the most part expanded on it more and had more applicable questions. They were great to use together. The idiom section is beast here. I copied all of them onto separate note cards.

Overall, I'm happy and it was a good learning experience. I realize I just typed a book, so sorry if it's a bit long. But thanks again to all the folks here! Good luck to everyone else still yet to take the GMAT!

This topic has expert replies