This is going to be a long one! I figured I'll throw conciseness out the window now that I'm finally done with the GMAT
Like many around here, I've been a lurker. I suspect this is possibly going to be my first and last post around here. There are many posts here that have lifted my spirits during the arduous preparatory phase for the GMAT and I wanted to give back what I can to the rest of the great community out here.
My GMAT Scores:
June 5, 2010: 680 (Q 48 - 83%, V 35 - 73%) 86th percentile
July 16, 2010: 750 (Q 50 - 93%, V 42 - 95%) 98th percentile
About me:
I'm from an engineering background. I have been working for the last 5 yrs and was not really sure I had it in me to do take on GMAT.
The GMAT journey:
I decided to get an MBA around October 2009. Started preparing in earnest from December 2009. Despite my engineering background, I have always been about average at Math. For good or worse I was paranoid about quants, and concentrated heavily on it.
Study Materials Used
Quants:
- All Manhattan GMAT books (A++)
- OG 12 (A++)
- OG Quantitative Review (A++)
Verbals:
- All Manhattan GMAT books (I didn't really find them useful, More on this later)
- Power Score CR Bible and SC Bible (Worship these books!!)
- OG 12
- OG Verbal Review
A few words on the study materials I used: (Disclaimer: Its all subjective!)
Look no further than the books I've mentioned for the Quantitative part. I was bloody poor when I started out. It had been 5 yrs since I left college and it brought back some painful memories
. I spent the entire Christmas holidays going through the Manhattan GMAT books and they helped me immensely. I really can't stress how amazing they are in terms of both content and presentation. They give you all the tips and tricks required to attack all the different sub categories in the Quantitative section. The books really help you solve the questions in the shortest time possible. In addition to these you get a great set of online Prep tests and question banks that are not all that far off from the type of questions you'll find on the GMAT. As for the verbals, I used the Manhattan GMAT books along with the Power Score CR Bible for my first attempt at the GMAT. In all honesty I've got to say that in contrast to their Quant books, the Manhattan GMAT verbal books are a disappointment. While the content of these books is great, the presentation isn't as good as it can be and is in fact a bit confusing.
In my opinion, The Power Score CR and SC Bible are the Gold Standard for verbals. Get them now if you haven't already. This is all you need to get a great score on the verbals.
Finally the OG books!, What can I say, I did all the books from start to finish a million times. I have always believed that practice makes perfect and took it to the extreme in my preparation.
The First attempt
It was not until late March 2010, that I finally decided to schedule the GMAT. I booked for June 5th 2010.
It's amazing what a fixed date can do to your motivation. While I worked moderately hard given I the very little free time between my life and my job, I kicked into high gear once I booked the date. All along my aim was to get into a top 10 B school and I was aiming for 800 from the start (Aim for the stars and you will reach the roof and all that
)I did not take the GMAT prep tests from MBA.com until a month before my test. I did all the online tests (6 of them) available from Manhattan GMAT. I realized while I had become conceptually sound in Quant, my timing was very bad. Maybe it is obvious to many, but I didn't realize its good to guess a few questions here and there. I'm not exactly sure when and how I turned the corner, but I practiced like mad and got to a point where I reached a 700+ level on the quant.
As far as verbals go, I found the Power Score CR bible to be an eye opener. I got it pretty late in my preparation, with around a month and half to go before my test, but reading that gave me a lot of confidence for the CR qsns. I used the Manhattan GMAT SC guide and various online resources for the SC. In hindsight it was a mistake. I got to a point where I got 85% of my questions right on the OG and it made me over confident.
With a month to go to the test, I took the first GMAT prep test. I scored around 680 on it. Needless to say, It riled me up. I was still aiming for a 800. I had breezed through the verbals on the Manhattan GMAT tests and ran out of time on the GMAT prep. I realized the GMAT verbals was a different beast. SC was my Achilles heel. (Also, the manhattan GMAT CR qsns are not similar to the GMAT qsns). I simply practiced with the OG over and over again. I made the mistake of not really rectifying my fundamental flaws in SC and simply reached a point where I developed an "eye" for the right answer choices and got over confident.
I scored a 730 on my second GMAT prep test. I was elated. This was more like it. Overconfidence++.
I retook both the GMAT prep tests again. 760 and 770. Overconfidence++++. By this time I had overcome my time troubles on the verbals.
It was finally time for the GMAT. I went in thinking there was no way I could score less than a 700. Finished the Quant section with seconds to spare. Encountered a lot of tough questions that I had to make an educated guess on. Took the 8 minute break.
Time for the verbals. You are first presented with a screen containing the instructions for the verbal section. You have a minute to go through them. I thought for a second whether to write down the "A B C D E"'s for as many questions as I could. My overconfidence kicked in. I said screw it and clicked next. I ran into severe time trouble on the verbals section. I had to rush through the last 10 questions or so. I had made the mistake of lingering on a few questions. In hind sight having a minute more could have gotten me a 700+ score.
When I finally got my score, 680, I was crushed. It was not what I had toiled for for the last 7 months. While I had learned to let go of a few questions on the Quant section, I had not really learned to do that on the verbals. I came home beaten up and pissed at myself. I was sure I would retake the GMAT, but I wasn't sure what else I could do to improve my verbal score.
The Second attempt
A few days passed by and I was more determined than ever to do well on the GMAT. I realized it was actually a boon that I hadn't crossed 700 on my first attempt. If I had scored in the lower 700's I wouldn't have bothered to take it again and I was pretty sure It wouldn't have been enough to get me into a top B-School. I realized the Manhattan GMAT SC guide did not cut it for me. I knew how good the Power Score CR Bible was, so I decided to check out their SC Bible to see if it was as good. It was all that and MORE! The content was not all that different from the Manhattan GMAT SC guide, but the presentation was logical and beautiful. The concepts registered more easily in my mind. It was an eye opener. I completed the book in a week and was confident already. I re-booked the GMAT for July 16th. I lacked the fundamentals on the SC earlier and was attacking the questions based more on how they sounded. This book did it for me. I began to get almost all of the SC questions right. And even the one's I got wrong, made sense for the first time ever! Earlier, I couldn't really grasp why a particular answer was wrong, but this time around I had gotten better. I spent another week studying the CR Bible again.
I started out by re-taking a few of the Manhattan GMAT tests. To my surprise my Quant score had dipped to the lower 40's. My verbal scores improved dramatically. I was able to score 40+ consistently. I realized I had become rusty on the Quants. For the last 3 weeks I did both Quants and verbals on the OG guides every day. I figured all I needed was constant practice to get my quant scores back to the upper 40's.
With 3 weeks to go, I realized no matter how hard I tried, I could never get my quant scores above 48. It was then I realized that the GMAT was like a dripping bucket. The more holes you fill, the more water you gain. Identify your weaknesses and fill the holes and your score WILL improve. My main weaknesses in Quants were upper bin questions in Inequalities and Probability. I realized I consistently got these questions wrong. I decided to take a day to fix these holes. I began to hit 50 on the quants in my practice tests.
I also happened to have a lot of "Nature" scientific journals I had subscribed to years ago. I read through them to try and improve my reading comprehension skills. I'm not sure if they helped, but what the heck.
I re-took the GMAT prep tests a week before the GMAT. Scored 760 and 770. Not too different from my first attempt. But what was surprising was that I finished the verbal section with 15 minutes to spare each time. I was not sure whether this was because I had gotten better (I knew I had at least a little) or because I saw a few questions repeat. Either way, I was more tempered in my attitude this time around. I had underestimated the GMAT once, I was not gonna do it again. I pored over the Power Score books as many times as I could. They are that fun! I also made sure to do a few Quant problems each day.
Finally re-took the GMAT and scored a 750! Found the quant section to be much harder, saw a few questions that I had no clues about. I wrote down the "A B C D E's" for 18 questions during the 1 minute instructions page between the quants and the verbals. I had learnt my lesson. Verbals started out with what I thought was a tough SC question. I wasn't sure If I was doing well or not. My mind was constantly going forward to the final score page, I wanted to badly do well. By this time the questions had gotten tougher. There were some CR qsns I couldn't have figured out with infinite time. The RC questions sounded like Riddles. Jim Carrey "the Riddler" passed through my mind. I guessed through quite a few of them. I finished the section with a minute to spare.
The final score turned up and I got a 750! I was a tad disappointed, I was hoping it would be in the upper 700's. But I don't think I'm gonna take it again. The GMAT and I aren't the best of pals. I'm not gonna flirt with it any more.
Phew! That was long. I hope this helps at least a few people out here. Thanks for all your help. I would specifically like to thank the professional experts around here. Your tips and qsns on this site are invaluable and very generous. Thank you all!
