I just Beat The GMAT!

tejuscs wrote:Hi Zivi,
My situation is same as yours, so called the "rat brain" , i would like to know which are the books to be referred at the early stage of preparation ? As in to understand the basics thoroughly! and then may be as you said jump to the higher version. Which books do u suggest me to start with ! both quant and verbal......

Thanks
Tejus

Tejus,

For quant, I picked up Kaplan and MGMAT. I don't have any particular recommendations for verbal,but I thought the MGMAT books were pretty awesome

Congrats!! for the great score. I am weak in verbal section, particularly RC. How to cope up with RCs? I feel its becoz of poor understanding of RC, In how many days its possible to improve on RCs.

on CR I make mistakes on Assumption and Bold face questions, how to tackle the same.

one more questions: how many wrong answers we can afford on Verbal and still get a score of 40+. right now my score is hovering around 30 in verbal and 46-47 in quanta.

please guide me.

regds
sachin

Hi Zivi

Congratulations on your great score, That was an awesome job you did.

You post has been the most relatable post i have read so far, I seem to be in the same boat as you are, My exam is on 1st June and the practice test scores are ranging from 540 to 600. I am pretty much ready to give a 2nd attempt, I am having the same problem as you were, I struggle at Math, I have learnt the concepts but I am having difficulty applying them on GMAT question.

What advice can you give me, What should be the next step to do in order to prepare my mind to think like a GMAT test take. Currently I am using the MGMAT and the OG13 and the Quant Review

Again thanks for the post, After reading it I feel much better and I think that I still have hope

Sanaa

Hi Sachin,

My comments below:

How to cope up with RCs? I feel its becoz of poor understanding of RC, In how many days its possible to improve on RCs.

Here's the thing about RC passages. They don't test your knowledge of a field (history, political science or art) as much as they test your ability to follow the logical flow of a passage. So don't worry if, let's say you get a passage on French literature and you're an engineering guy. When you read passages, play attention to the structure. Look out for key words like however, therefore, furthermore, in conclusion etc. This will help you get the framework and basic understanding. Once you have that, you can always go back to certain sections for specific details that the question asks you.

So practice, practice and more practice! I took 2 days off and worked on nothing but RC and I saw my proficiency go up by a lot.

on CR I make mistakes on Assumption and Bold face questions, how to tackle the same.

Ah, my memories are rusty on this. Again, the CR is all about logic and very little to do with English. Usually you need to either strengthen your basics or do more practice. MGMAT and powerscore can help you here. I remember struggling a lot with the Assumption question, but once I understood how it fits into an argument, it started to click. Ron covers CR in his 'Thursdays with Ron' series.

one more questions: how many wrong answers we can afford on Verbal and still get a score of 40+. right now my score is hovering around 30 in verbal and 46-47 in quanta.

I don't know the exact number but to score above 40, the number of wrongs has to be very small. Don't worry about how many correct you need. Trust me, been there done that, it doesn't help. Think about how you can work on your weak areas and tackle any level they throw at you. After all, you can only get to 40+ by solving questions in the 700-800 level.

Good luck with it!
Zivi

sanaa.rizwan wrote:Hi Zivi

Congratulations on your great score, That was an awesome job you did.

You post has been the most relatable post i have read so far, I seem to be in the same boat as you are, My exam is on 1st June and the practice test scores are ranging from 540 to 600. I am pretty much ready to give a 2nd attempt, I am having the same problem as you were, I struggle at Math, I have learnt the concepts but I am having difficulty applying them on GMAT question.

What advice can you give me, What should be the next step to do in order to prepare my mind to think like a GMAT test take. Currently I am using the MGMAT and the OG13 and the Quant Review

Again thanks for the post, After reading it I feel much better and I think that I still have hope

Sanaa

Hi Sanaa,

Have you considered postponing your exam by 1-2 months? It seems to me that you have some work to do on both Quant and Verbal sections. From my experience, I found that if I couldn't apply my concepts to a question, I probably didn't know my basics well enough to begin with. For this, I attacked Quant topic by topic. I practiced all kinds of questions I could find under Number properties/Geometry/CR or whatever topic that bothered me.

It took a lot of patience. But I worked on the questions everyday and didn't pay attention to my solving time. I only moved on to the next topic once I attained at least an 80% proficiency.The BTG forums helped a lot in providing ample good quality questions to practice. If you're stuck, take a break, move onto something else and come back later. But never give up on a question.

Good luck!
Zivi

Hello everyone,

For those of you still reading, I wanted to let you know that my application journey has finally come to an end. After 3 GMAT attempts, 6 applications, 2 dings, 1 waitlist and 3 admits, I'll be matriculating at Chicago Booth this fall. I feel truly blessed to have come this far and I'm excited about my life ahead as a Boothie.

I couldn't have made it this far without you guys. Thank you to everyone who has helped along the way, Eric and the team, the GMAT experts,admission consultants and of course the larger BTG community, my fellow members. To have this kind of support all the way through is a great comfort and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside

To those applying this year and after, I hope you will find it in you to go after what you want. I curled up into a ball at the sight of quant and yet I'm matriculating at Booth, one of the most quantitative programs around. Don't be afraid, just be strategic and persevere. It does happen!

I'm still going to be around, so feel free to post on this thread or elsewhere if you need my help.

All the best! Love you guys!

Zivi

Congrats !! Again.. Also thanks for guiding me. you mentioned to read Economists to have an overall good understanding on GMAT Verbal. What are the things to look for while reading, also is there any other material to read which are exactly like GMAT and will be helpful for SC, RC and CR.

regds
sachin

Hi Zivi,

Could tell which two MGMAT books did you buy for quant, because the following link consists of several but I cannot find which two you have bought.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/store.cfm

I am also on the same pace as you were.

Hi Zivi,

Thanks for such a motivating debrief.

It's inspiring for a lot of guys who get terrified by maths.

Please let me know if you solved math problems from official materials only or from any other source

Aaaah at last, a post i can completely relate too
Zivi, ur story is truly inspiring.

I have already applied for GMAT last year and managed paltry 540. While Quant has been my bane, also I am a working professional which leaves with a little less time to practise besides I am confused how to start practicing right away!

Would you suggest MGMAT foundation of maths + online practise forums like magoosh? I want overcome my fear of maths, pls guide me as to how should I go about it?

Thanks in advance,

Hi Digiboy,

Sorry, school's been hectic and I don't check in as often as I used to. I haven't tried Magoosh so I can't comment on that. But I will attest to MGMAT and it's great help to build concepts. Of course, you'll find that you also need to practice some problems once you go over the concepts. So, yes I think MGMAT is wonderful but not enough without a lot of practice.

I remember that my boss at work wasn't supportive about me doing my MBA, so I basically squeezed in practice time whenever I could. I would solve questions during my coffee break instead of chatting with my colleagues. I'd do CR and RC on the commute home. Towards the exam, I took a 2 week break to block out other distractions and do mock exams every single day. I hope that helps. Good luck and let me know how it goes!

@Pareshcs

Yup, all of the practice I did was based on published text books (Kaplan, MGMAT, BTG and GMAT club sites). At the time, I didn't find the OG particularly useful so I only used it right in the beginning to get a feel for the GMAT.

Hi Zivi, just read ur post..Its quiet similar to what has happened to u..
Same books..Same MGMAT cat score but my actual gmat its 550.
How i can improve. What mocks shall i actually give? Since doing MGMAT again will bounce me with few of the new question so m little worried about if they are true reflective of the scores.
Secondly what if i again scored low..
I am bit scared about to go again for Gmat.