I just Beat The GMAT!

I am 34 turning 35 next month. My goal is to get into UCLA Femba. Their GMAT median is 690.

Last year I scored 680 41Q and 41 V. Since then I took the GMAT 3 more times to try and break 700 and just can't do it. The reason why I didn't stop after 680 was because I was rejected with that score last year by UCLA and UC Berkeley EWMBA and USC PMBA and my college GPA is 2.15 (UPenn). Lastly, I have a bad career track, never really held down a job for longer than a couple years and never got promoted to manager level. Right now I"m unemployed (to make matters worse). Yeah, I'm hoping I am one of those late bloomers in life.

I have reasons to score 700 or higher not only to make my profile more competitive to a good MBA program, but just as a self confidence booster, and to prove myself that I'm still capable. In a way, I'm just doing it for myself as much as I want to get into a good program. I know many people might call it ridiculous to base your ability and worth on a test, but it is what it is.

Here are my breakdowns of all my GMAT results :

May 08 570 Q34 V34
Mar 09 680 Q41 V41
May 09 620 Q40 V35
June 10 660 Q44 V36
July 10 (today) 650 Q42 V38

In terms of actual test details, I made it to #30 on Quant before running out of time and blindly guessing the last 7 and made it to #39 before blindly guessing on Verbal. Both sections today were moderate level in terms of difficulty but I felt that the types of questions were not straight out of OG or GMATPrep. The testmakers are always throwing some kind of curve. But I suppose that should be expected...

As far as practice test results go, I score around 650 to 700 on MGMAT (that's just because I already took their tests before), highest score of 740 on GMATPrep everything else around 640 to 690, 660 on Knewton Practice Sample Test, and 700 on Veritas Prep sample test.

I haven't been very focused in my studying. I'm not one of those people that can shut off everything and just concentrate non stop for a few hours of concentrated studying. All of my studying for these tests has been around 1 month before each test. But those were concentrated studies. I answered problems from OG and I've already been through OG10,11,12, the OG Study guides. I did all 6 MGMAT Practice tests as well as all of their study guides. I took GMATPrep probably around 10 times. I even did other stuff like Nova Math Workbook which is pretty good and read the Powerscore CR Bible. I read the ETS Internal Quant Document. I trolled around beatthegmat.com. In many ways, I feel like I have GMAT paralysis. I'm so sick of it, but the results I have I know I will never be satisfied with.

Sometimes I just feel that in the GMAT, to get 700, either you have it or you don't. I pretty sure for those 750 scorers, they would get that kind of score regardless. In many ways, I just think the GMAT is an intelligence test and above a certain point, you really can't prepare much for it to get a good score unless you already have the genetic makeup to succeed.

Right now, I am debating whether I should just apply to UC Irvine FEMBA and call it a day, get a CPA, and just be happy with life... or to keep pushing. I have to consider my age now, and yes it does get tiring for me now, things are not the same they were even a few years ago. At the same time, I was hoping I could do so much better and the time I put into this, man I just wanted something better than this.

Can anybody offer any suggestions?

In terms of today's test, although the Q section wasn't overly difficult, I still ran out of time, and the "feel" was different from any of the prep material that GMAC provides. My advice is to just get ready for anything.

I can't obviously post any problems I encountered but I will say that today's Quant section had maybe one or two number properties, and a lot of word problems. There was not one probability or combinatorics problem. Also there were quite a few inequality DS questions.

As far as the Verbal section, the RC passages were not too dense but the SC and CR was pretty tough. Again, especially on the SC, the GMAT was throwing out concepts that weren't too emphasized in their material or even MGMAT.

On the whole, here is how I see things. There are many test prep companies who are trying to stay on top of the GMAT.

GMAC realizes this. They are not a stagnant corporation. If they just made some tests and just let people study their ass off for it and get a good score, well most people would and they wouldn't make that much money because there wouldn't be people like me that are trying to get a good score and keep trying.

They are always changing their content to keep the rest of the prep world and test takers on their toes and keep guessing. But that is just my perspective.

I am sort of drunk now as I am typing this (been a bad day), but I just want to comment about those people who have a 500 something score and want to get 750.

Man a 750 is a reallly really good score. I have a lot of respect for people who score that high. Actually, I really don't. Rather I envy them. They are outliers on a bell curve.

In all honesty, I think those people who score 750 or higher are just born that way. And this is the truth. All those MGMAT instructors, man in many ways I just think they won the genetic lottery. They probably studied around 3 months or so at the most. I do really think that is the way things are. Even if they didn't study they probably would just get 700. They studied to go from 700 to 780. MOst people study to go from 600 or less to 700.

I see so many people on this forum who say things like "I need to get 780 right away... help" It's like saying "hey I need to get a 160 IQ right away... help".

I'm just pointing out what I see is the reality of things. It's really damn hard to speed read an RC passage dealing with obscure scientific research with words most people can't pronounce, unless you read it over, and know the answer right away to all the questions.

It's ridiculous to read a guy who got a 770 post his study schedule and the materials he used for 3 months and then expect to duplicate those results. That guy was going to get that score whether he studied that way or not. And 9 out of 10 people are not going to be able to replicate that (at the least).

Heh, yes I can tell that you are drunk when you are responding to your own thread.

In all honesty, I think those people who score 750 or higher are just born that way. And this is the truth.

I disagree, and here is my reason why: a lot of these guys simply have better foundation over years of studying than those who do not. Even though on the surface one person may have only studied GMAT for 1 month to achieve 730, but in actuality, this person studied the elements of GMAT all his/her academic life.

For example, there was a tester here who scored 1500+ on the SAT. 1500+ is a damn good accomplishment, and is someone who obviously has the foundation of both English and Math. Comparing this person to someone who never had a proper course on grammar, the difference will be drastic and clear.

Born with the skill set, no, studied the whole life to have advantage over others, absolutely. So for rest of us who never had proper grammar lesson? Study like a mofo and hopefully we can pick this crap up in a few months. Btw, English is my main language, and yet, I couldn't even tell the difference between adjective/noun/pronoun/adverb/verb prior to studying GMAT. Public education in America failed a lot of people, and I consider myself to be one of them.

uwhusky wrote:Heh, yes I can tell that you are drunk when you are responding to your own thread.

In all honesty, I think those people who score 750 or higher are just born that way. And this is the truth.

I disagree, and here is my reason why: a lot of these guys simply have better foundation over years of studying than those who do not. Even though on the surface one person may have only studied GMAT for 1 month to achieve 730, but in actuality, this person studied the elements of GMAT all his/her academic life.

For example, there was a tester here who scored 1500+ on the SAT. 1500+ is a damn good accomplishment, and is someone who obviously has the foundation of both English and Math. Comparing this person to someone who never had a proper course on grammar, the difference will be drastic and clear.

Born with the skill set, no, studied the whole life to have advantage over others, absolutely. So for rest of us who never had proper grammar lesson? Study like a mofo and hopefully we can pick this crap up in a few months.

Go ahead man. If you can break 750 you will have proven me wrong and perhaps that is an incentive.

Hey there is life and then there is GMAT. Sure if you were born with the intention of breaking 750, you will compromise the other aspects of your life.

I am just going by what I see from people who for example have scored higher than 1500 on the SAT. I will consider the 1500 as a 750 on the GMAT.

Going to school with people like that and knowing them personally, I know that they were going to get that score whether they studied all their life or 2 or 3 months.

Hopefully this is just a drunk talking, because the failed mentality that you have put in your head is actually quite depressing.

Going to school with people like that and knowing them personally, I know that they were going to get that score whether they studied all their life or 2 or 3 months.

I'll use myself as an example. Long time ago (sadly), I was able to do mental math of multiplication and division in the millions within few seconds, and of addition and subtraction faster than you can punch in the numbers with calculator. To a lot of a people, I was damn good at math and some sort of a genius. In reality, my parents forced me to take these tedious math courses that teach mental math for years, hence I was so good at it.

So no, I wasn't born with better math skills, I just had better training and lots of it.

uwhusky wrote:Hopefully this is just a drunk talking, because the failed mentality that you have put in your head is actually quite depressing.

I"m just being realistic. 750 is top 1%. 99 out of 100 people are not going to get that score. I'm not saying I won't or you won't, but if at face value you won't.

Now go get the score. And it won't be a failure according to the law of averages if you don't get it anyway. Jeez.

The GMAT is like many things in life: I have had students reach 700-750 with a couple of weeks of study. Some lucky people can do a practice test, review their few mistakes and then take the GMAT and get such a score. Others have to scratch and claw their way to a great score. I have had students that have had to put in a year and 1000 hours of practice to get a 700+ score. Could they have ever reached 750? Yes, but it would have taken them another year at least.

kevincanspain wrote:The GMAT is like many things in life: I have had students reach 700-750 with a couple of weeks of study. Some lucky people can do a practice test, review their few mistakes and then take the GMAT and get such a score. Others have to scratch and claw their way to a great score. I have had students that have had to put in a year and 1000 hours of practice to get a 700+ score. Could they have ever reached 750? Yes, but it would have taken them another year at least.

So based on my scores and history, do you think I have a fair chance of breaking 700? And what would it take? For the most part, I have already exhausted all the prep materials

Update : I have decided to apply to UCI for fall 10 and hope for a scholarship. They are like the only school that still has their admissions open for this year. I think I have a decent chance of admittance but perhaps not money along with the offer. If that is the case, I would probably not take on a similar amount of debt to attend when I can take a similar amount of debt to go to UCLA, USC or Berkeley. So that means back to the ol GMAT books and study again

Concurrently, I have decided to study for the CPA as well. I think I have the foundations of GMAT down by now and studied for it for the most part long enough to know the basics and answer the 600 level questions correctly. It's just a matter of improving my speed and of course the difficult 700 level question hit rate. So I believe this will allow me the flexibility to concurrently study for the CPA as well. I have a goal by the end of the year to pass both exams (pass on GMAT is obviously 700), and then apply to MBA and start at the ripe young age of 36. There is also the option of applying to out of state programs, some such as Booth which have an intake in every quarter so that would be January 11. But for the most part I prefer not to freeze in Chicago and would like to stay in California.

Anyways if any professionals can offer some advice on what I should do to get over the 700 hump I would appreciate it.