GMAT Strategy

I'm very depressed.

I got tired during my last exam.

This is my 5th time writing this year.

I scored 380, then 400, then 460, then 390 and now back to 450.


I really want to get a higher score as an MBA program is waiting for me right now. They told me to just get a 550 and i'm good.

I've been dealing with this GMAT beast for more than a yr now. I work a full time job. First 4 attempts, I did self studying using OG 11 and various books...then for the 5th attempt I took a PR course and still using OG.

What am i doing wrong?

mjoeb wrote:I'm very depressed.

I got tired during my last exam.

This is my 5th time writing this year.

I scored 380, then 400, then 460, then 390 and now back to 450.


I really want to get a higher score as an MBA program is waiting for me right now. They told me to just get a 550 and i'm good.

I've been dealing with this GMAT beast for more than a yr now. I work a full time job. First 4 attempts, I did self studying using OG 11 and various books...then for the 5th attempt I took a PR course and still using OG.

What am i doing wrong?

Welcome to my club. I took first time 3 years ago with no prep and got 510.

Took it with one month of prep, answered all the OG material, but no practice tests, totally ran out of time on both sections, answered only 75% of the questions and got a 570.

What my strategy now is to to take a two practice tests every week between now and end August when I plan to retake the test. This and I'm gonna solve OG 10, PR, Manhattan GMAT stuff, do some quant refreshers and flash cards, Kaplan 800 (both books), and other Kaplan and PR stuff I can get my hands on.

My plan is to solve every kind of sentence completion and DS and PS kind of problems out there in existence so I can know ALL OF THE CONTENT.

The two practice tests I plan to take are going to help me with time management as that is the main thing for me.

On top of doing all of this, I"m gonna watch Rocky and Rocky 4 every week.

Especially the sequence when he's running through the streets of Philadelphia, he is clobbered by Apollo at the end and manages to get up before the 10 count, and his sequence of training in the mountains of Russia where he climbs the top of that snowy mountain and screams out "DRAGO!"

Think of you as little 5'10" Sly Stallone and the GMAT as 6'5" 275 lbs Ivan Drago.

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

This is what I'm gonna do and I know it's gonna work.

I'm gonna tear the GMAT a new bunghole come August.

WERD TO THE MOTHER.

Great job for not giving up trying! Taking the test 5 times takes courage and effort, it only shows your determination to improve your rating. It is an accomplishment itself, so hats off to you.

PNAT
from Chicago

Skang,

I love your strategy of pumping yourself up through visualization. That is a great technique for managing test anxiety and for boosting confidence. I hope you don't mind if I share it with my students!

Mjoeb, I also commend you for your preserverence. If the issue during the test is endurance, I think it may help you to practice taking the whole test in one sitting until you don't find youself getting tired. If the issue is having to do difficult problems in the morning, I would suggest shifting your study time more to those hours.

Since your score has stayed in a pretty narrow range, not showing much of an upward trend, it seems like you need to do something for try #6. Without working with you directly, it is hard for me to troubleshoot what might be going wrong. Maybe you are missing questions early on due to stress or hurry? Maybe you are missing questions closer to the end, because you are fatigued. Maybe you are missing questions of a certain type. I recommend that as you take your practice tests, you focus not just on your overall score, but when and why you are missing questions.

Best wishes,

Tatiana

I was just browsing this Forum and ran into your post(s). You guys are getting together and talking about a common problem, which I do not share. However, I thought it might be useful to share an outsider's perspective, with the hope that it might help.

One thing that strikes me in all of the info on this forum, is that you can get swamped easily. There is a lot to absorb here, however, even after a short time on here I have noticed some trends of the top performers.

Each one of those top performer's focuses on OG and sometimes Kaplan. Fine. They tend to review ALL the answers that they got right and especially the ones that they got wrong in detail. Fine. They also tend to study for something in the range of 2-3 hours per day, and 4-5 hours per day on the weekends, for about 2-3 months on average I would say. FINE!

Well, these are just pretest strategies, that work for incredibly confident standardized test takers and/or high achievers who may not start out strong, but do gain the confidence during the study process itself, and end up scoring well. So clearly, there is an element that is key for most of these top performers that is not directly addressed for the most part. And this is usually true of many top performers in any field.

I guess what it boils down to is one word: CONFIDENCE. Once you get hammered by the GMAT a few times (eg. 5 times!), then you are bound to form patterns of thought and behavior that reinforce the failures. What needs to happen is a sort of reconditioning.

Embedded in the hardwire of our brains are unconscious patterns and associations that may very well be sabotaging the intentions of our conscious minds. I propose that some tools outside of these study forums may be more useful than any study techniques for particular individuals unable to break cycles. Our schools teach us that learning is a process of reinforcement and rote memory, but we need to start looking at learning in a different way.

Our brains process information differently than a computer does. We are open systems that must learn adapt to new inputs in order to deal with environmental changes. We are forced under these circumstances to build new neural pathways, to bypass old blockages.

So sometimes we need new tools, outside of the norm. The tools of which I speak could include any of the following: self-hypnosis, visualization, meditation, brainwave entrainment (very useful), and many other tools. So guys, I suggest having a look at what's out there besides OG and Kaplan, and follow-the-leader methodologies, as useful as they have proved to be for some individuals.

A great book on visualization is Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. I recommend it to anyone who is open to new ideas. The idea behind visualization is that the conscious mind does not know the difference between a memory and visualization. Once you begin to visualize yourself a certain way, and doing certain things, your behavior will begin to adjust and guide you toward how you see yourself in those visualizations.

hi mjoeb. I know how you feel! I just finished my 3rd attempt at the GMAT this morning and still no luck. I scored a measly 490 and have been at this thing since the beginning of the year. I work full time and had to allocate time in my busy schedule to tackle this one week at time. I took this past week off from work to refresh and review all my material in hopes that I could improve my score. A 480, 490 and now a 490 in all 3 attempts respectively, is nothing to show for my efforts and long hours put in over the past few months.

I've used Kaplan Higher Score, GMAT Prep, OG11 as well as the supplementary Verbal and Quantitative Books from GMAC. I've done paper tests of older versions of the GMAT and have completed all Kaplan CATs and GMAT Prep CATs, scoring between 540-580 in the Kaplans and 610 and 620 on the GMAT Prep CATs.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong as my goal here was to get above a 600 which I can clearly do in practice, but when time comes to show for the hardwork I've done, I still end up with such disappointing scores.

I've narrowed down my weaknesses to CR and DS but always have room for improvement in all sections (although my SC skills are much better than before! )

I will definitely be retaking the GMAT until I get my score gets above 600, as this is what my program requires.

I used your visulazation strategy today. It helped with the nerves and I was much calmer this time around but that still didn't reflect in my score.

Any advice as to how I should approach my next attempt? I doubt I'll be able to get in for Fall Admission but I'll keep at it!!!

And so the battle continues...

Friends,

Though I am still in the GMAT preparation mode, I can suggest few tips which I have learned during my preparations for the various Software Specialization computer adaptive test (i.e. Professional certifications from Microsoft and Sun Microsystems).

1. Don't rush for the Practice Tests - If you do so, you may end up exhausing all the available questions.

2. Focus on the basics - Attack section by section. - Don't rush, take your time. Learning skills varies from person to person, so If someone has finished GMAT with one month preparation, It is not necessary that you also should do in the same way. What matters in the end is your score and not your duration of preparation.

3. Slow down, Take a break, Think where you went wrong. Keep asking yourself "WHY?", I am sure you will get the answer.

Personally, I found GMAT to be a different animal. To be successful in GMAT, one needs to harness different kinds of skills (Quant, English, Comphrension, Critical Thinking) so it needs to be handled with patience.

Good Luck with your preparations and don't rush for your Exam.

Here goes my favourite quote from Oliver Goldsmith


"Our Greatest Glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall"


Good Luck to all of us !!!