Just my experience, happy although low score :)

Find out how Beat The GMAT members tackled GMAT test prep with positive results. Get tips on GMAT test prep materials, online courses, study tips, and more.
This topic has expert replies
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:32 am
Hi guys,
I just wanted to share my experiences with you and get some advice. I'm 23 years old, from Netherlands, have a bachelor degree in business administration and want to take a master degree in business at a european university. The minimum entry requirement for the program I aim to get in is a GMAT score of 550 or higher.
That's why I just took the GMAT last week.
Two month ago I had never heard of the GMAT and had no idea what kind of questions I have to expect on the Test. So I bought the first book I found on amazon, "the official guide for GMAT review". This book was the only one I used to prepare myself for the test... Quite soon I found out that my quantitive skills are satisfactory but my verbal skills are weak. I even had major difficulties just to understand the questions in CR and answered almost all questions in RC wrong. I was quite depressed. I prepared myself for 6-7 weeks, spend 3 hours on weekdays and 8-9 hours on weekends, basically trying to answer the questions in the book.
I was disappointed not to find any theory about the verbal part in this book, thats why I just could read myself through the answer explanations given and hope to apply those rules to new questions.
One week before the exam I took the example tests on the CD I received after I scheduled the exam appointment.
First Test Q49, V35, my second one a day later a similar score Q48, V34. I was happy as hell ;)
The day before the exam I couldn't sleep at all. But the people in test center were quite kind to us and managed to take away my fears. The final result was 680, Q49, V33. I'm so happy :)
However I would like to retake the test in 6-9 month for two reasons:
-I want to proof myself that I can score above 700
-In the end I enjoyed preparing myself for the GMAT, especially I liked the quantitive questions.

What do you think, can I manage to improve my quantitive skills to lets say 50 and verbal to 37? If yes what book to you recommend to read? Until now, in SC, I just took the answer that sounded most plausible to me. That's why I answered most question in this section wrong and got texts in RC that weren't too difficult. Most of the time I got the basic idea - at least. Is it that I should learn vocabularies? Should I read more english texts in my leisure time? How can I improve RC and SC? My CR skills are okay.

Thanks in advance :)
Source: — I just Beat The GMAT! |

User avatar
Community Manager
Posts: 1048
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:26 am
Location: India
Thanked: 51 times
Followed by:27 members
GMAT Score:670

by arora007 » Sat Apr 02, 2011 10:42 am
hey LuckyStrike,

welcome to the forum, Congratulations on your great score. It was not just a luckystrike,your efforts have paid off and the best part is one can always improve! Your motives of improving on the GMAT score intrigue me....

To answer your specific question
The Manhattan GMAT SC guide is a standard book is excellent to improve on Sentence Correction basics.
Another very important thing would be to practice from good material and keep a Error log.
Review your mistakes as often as possible. Actively participate in the forums, and slowly collect pearls of wisdom from experts.

As for RCs.... well try reading articles from economist, FT, ,scientificamerican, newscientist,newyorker or wsj. Practice quick reading & Victory shall be yours!!
https://www.skiponemeal.org/
https://twitter.com/skiponemeal
Few things are impossible to diligence & skill.Great works are performed not by strength,but by perseverance

pm me if you find junk/spam/abusive language, Lets keep our community clean!!