How do I beat the gmat?

Hi Mahesh,

First, on what are you basing your goal of 750? Lots of top schools accept students with scores at and below 700.

From what I've heard around the forums, reviewing your practice is extremely important. You've already done lots of practice problems. If you're running out of time or feeling uncertain during the test, it can either be 1) material, 2) test nerves/environment/lifestyle, or both.

Look at the practice problems you've completed. Do you understand the correct answer? Are you making silly mistakes? Do you have a hard time understanding the questions. Review your practice and find out what you are doing incorrectly. Once you find this out, you can plan your practice to eliminate your weaknesses and correct your tendencies for error. For example, I'm the type of person that usually "reads too much" into a problem, which killed me in RC and CR passages. Now, however, I get more than 90% of the verbal problems I practice correct because I planned my practice so that I could correct my tendency for errors.

On the other hand, it could just be test environment/lifestyle stuff. Do you have a daily routine, or does your schedule fluctuate in an extreme manner? Consistency is key -- sleep, good eating, etc... can make a huge difference.

I'd post more, but I have to leave for work now! Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tim

Truthfully, maybe I'm putting too much stock in Manhattan, but I believe that if you are currently scoring 650 if you just go through each Manhattan book and make sure you don't just go through it, but really know the material (so go through each book more than once), I think a 750 will be doable.

Tim has given you some excellent advice. The most important thing to keep in mind is that no one NEEDS a 750. That score is 98th percentile. Most top business schools have average GMAT scores of around 700. I've had students get into Harvard, Michigan, and other top programs with 650s. So, take some pressure off yourself.

It scares me that you say you're "done" with the OG. I can tell you that after four years of teaching the GMAT, I'm still not "done" with the OG. There is always more to learn: more efficient ways to solve math problems, better ways to reason through verbal problems, and more memorization to do so that you know every single problem in that book as if you wrote it yourself.

I highly recommend going through the problems that you've done to ensure that you truly understand them. You need to know why the right answer is right AND why the wrong answers are wrong. For math, you need to know that the way you solved the problem is the "best" (and this may not be the way the OG explains it). If you cracked open a fresh copy of the OG tomorrow, would you get every single problem right and be able to explain them? If not, then you have more studying to do!

Good luck!

hi

Thanks for the advice. I did go through OG and do understand all the solutions and can get most of the quant questions right now. I am not very strong in Verbal and I don't know if I can ever get all the OG verbal questions right even if I do it N times because the explanations are poor. But I will be happy to get 49 or 50 in Q and anything above 44 in verbal.

I want to get 750 because of an unusual background that I have. I want to compensate with a higher GMAT score and better essays/recos.

What is your advise to improve by 100 points in 8 weeks?

Thanks
mahesh.