Got a 770 on the real thing. Q was down @ 48 (from Q49-50 on prep tests), but the V48 was about what I expected (47-48 on GMATPrep). Since there's a wealth of information out there already, I'll only share my own deductions/discoveries.
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My prep consisted of ~1 week of info-gathering, ~2 weeks of casual OG11 work, ~8 days of concentrated study. If you're reading this at the beatthegmat forum, you've probably gathered the right kind of info already. The only materials I used were OG11, MGMAT online tests, and everything else on the net. Time spent on each material was: OG11 (45%), MGMAT online tests (15%), and everything else on the net (40%... includes forums, ebooks, peoples' notes, reading about related crap, debriefs, etc). Also, my split in time spent on Q/V was 65%/35%, primarily since my last math class (calc) was 4-5 years ago.
Q
- My approach to Q was substantially different from what I see most people doing. Up until 3 days before the test, I wouldn't put the pen down... I wanted every second possible to write/formulate/compute with. This was largely due to MGMAT's intensive Q. It wasn't ridiculous, like many say, but I feel it emphasizes the wrong aspects of GMAT Q: the real thing is more about concepts (which, I imagine, are very difficult to write hundreds of fresh questions for) rather than hard math. When I was taking the GMATPrep CAT2 for the first time, I decided to spend at least 25 seconds thinking about the problem before than writing something down: I scored a Q50 that time. On subsequent re-takes, I actually forced myself not to write anything down at all. Scored a Q49 and found myself much less mentally exhausted for V. I am not advising this approach for everyone, but if you have more than a month until the test, try it out. See how much it hurts your Q score and whether it improves your V score. Keep the big picture in mind.
- Don't worry about room to write -- the official booklet had lots of room. I needlessly condensed my scratch paper habits due to people hyping this up.
V
- If you're aiming at V46+, do not trust 3rd party materials. My own experience was with MGMAT, whose verbal section was riddled with unintentional nuances that made answers much more ambiguous than those on both GMATPrep and the GMAT.
- If you're a native speaker, trust your ear only as much as how properly you speak in everyday conversation. For most people, this means almost never.
- I'm not a fast reader, but I feel the V section has a generous allotment of time per question as long as you read deliberately. Needless to say, I didn't try the skim-first, re-read later strategy.
- As long as you're not pressed for time, draw a grid and use elimination. Just do it.
Overall
- Realize that the test is a psychological game. The more relaxed you are and the less you let it get to you, the better you'll likely do. It's just a test, life goes on, put things in perspective and try not to freak out.
- Caveat to the above: don't overdo it and lower your score. I'm a good example: I was waaay too relaxed during Q, and ended with 6 minutes to spare. I consider finishing early on Q bad time management, but far less detrimental than taking too long.
- On V, I went as slowly and thoroughly as I deemed safe and was left with 18 mins. This is after evaluating each response and eliminating until I was confident of one answer. Again, you don't have to be a very fast reader... just be deliberate. Maybe a (relatively) relaxed Q section had something to do with this?
Here are my prep scores:
TEST | Q | V | SCORE (latest on top)
GMATPrep CAT 2 50 47 770
MGMAT CAT 4 48 40 710
MGMAT CAT 3 47 37 690
MGMAT CAT 2 44 40 700
GMATPrep CAT 1 49 41 730
Closing
All in all, I might have overdone the "don't sweat details; just see the big picture" bit on Q (worked well on V), but it's a much less taxing approach. By the end of the test, I felt ready for another V section or two. I can't stress the importance of attitude enough: at the end of the day, it's just you and a computer that's trying to gauge you. Give it a relaxed, collected you and it'll probably do a better job of seeing how smart you are.
The GMAT isn't a sprint. Like all things in life, it's about balance, endurance, and tradeoffs.
Cheers.
--
My prep consisted of ~1 week of info-gathering, ~2 weeks of casual OG11 work, ~8 days of concentrated study. If you're reading this at the beatthegmat forum, you've probably gathered the right kind of info already. The only materials I used were OG11, MGMAT online tests, and everything else on the net. Time spent on each material was: OG11 (45%), MGMAT online tests (15%), and everything else on the net (40%... includes forums, ebooks, peoples' notes, reading about related crap, debriefs, etc). Also, my split in time spent on Q/V was 65%/35%, primarily since my last math class (calc) was 4-5 years ago.
Q
- My approach to Q was substantially different from what I see most people doing. Up until 3 days before the test, I wouldn't put the pen down... I wanted every second possible to write/formulate/compute with. This was largely due to MGMAT's intensive Q. It wasn't ridiculous, like many say, but I feel it emphasizes the wrong aspects of GMAT Q: the real thing is more about concepts (which, I imagine, are very difficult to write hundreds of fresh questions for) rather than hard math. When I was taking the GMATPrep CAT2 for the first time, I decided to spend at least 25 seconds thinking about the problem before than writing something down: I scored a Q50 that time. On subsequent re-takes, I actually forced myself not to write anything down at all. Scored a Q49 and found myself much less mentally exhausted for V. I am not advising this approach for everyone, but if you have more than a month until the test, try it out. See how much it hurts your Q score and whether it improves your V score. Keep the big picture in mind.
- Don't worry about room to write -- the official booklet had lots of room. I needlessly condensed my scratch paper habits due to people hyping this up.
V
- If you're aiming at V46+, do not trust 3rd party materials. My own experience was with MGMAT, whose verbal section was riddled with unintentional nuances that made answers much more ambiguous than those on both GMATPrep and the GMAT.
- If you're a native speaker, trust your ear only as much as how properly you speak in everyday conversation. For most people, this means almost never.
- I'm not a fast reader, but I feel the V section has a generous allotment of time per question as long as you read deliberately. Needless to say, I didn't try the skim-first, re-read later strategy.
- As long as you're not pressed for time, draw a grid and use elimination. Just do it.
Overall
- Realize that the test is a psychological game. The more relaxed you are and the less you let it get to you, the better you'll likely do. It's just a test, life goes on, put things in perspective and try not to freak out.
- Caveat to the above: don't overdo it and lower your score. I'm a good example: I was waaay too relaxed during Q, and ended with 6 minutes to spare. I consider finishing early on Q bad time management, but far less detrimental than taking too long.
- On V, I went as slowly and thoroughly as I deemed safe and was left with 18 mins. This is after evaluating each response and eliminating until I was confident of one answer. Again, you don't have to be a very fast reader... just be deliberate. Maybe a (relatively) relaxed Q section had something to do with this?
Here are my prep scores:
TEST | Q | V | SCORE (latest on top)
GMATPrep CAT 2 50 47 770
MGMAT CAT 4 48 40 710
MGMAT CAT 3 47 37 690
MGMAT CAT 2 44 40 700
GMATPrep CAT 1 49 41 730
Closing
All in all, I might have overdone the "don't sweat details; just see the big picture" bit on Q (worked well on V), but it's a much less taxing approach. By the end of the test, I felt ready for another V section or two. I can't stress the importance of attitude enough: at the end of the day, it's just you and a computer that's trying to gauge you. Give it a relaxed, collected you and it'll probably do a better job of seeing how smart you are.
The GMAT isn't a sprint. Like all things in life, it's about balance, endurance, and tradeoffs.
Cheers.
Last edited by foobarnull on Thu Sep 25, 2008 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
