I just Beat The GMAT!

I have always been stellar at math (800 math on SAT's) so the only studying that I did for the quantitative section was taking practice tests. Almost all of my studying concentrated on the verbal section and primarily with sentence correction.

The best source of information was the Manhattan SC guide. This is really helped me in being able to quickly identify errors in the passages and the appropriate rule that applied. The other guides that I used were the OG 11th edition and the OG verbal edition.

I studied about 3-4 hours a day doing practice questions and would take a practice test at the end of each week. I saved the two GMAT prep tests for the two days before the exam -> very helpful in my opinion since I found that the questions asked on the Manhattan practice CATs were not 100% consistent with the questions that I practiced in the OG.

While taking the test I was extremely nervous and had trouble concentrating in the quantitative section. I knew I missed a few questions early because I was seeing some extremely easy questions. I finished with 18 minutes to spare. My advice is to stay calm and relaxed, I thought the practice tests would help, but test day setup was completely different than the confines of my relaxed home.

My method for RC is to keep reading the passage until you have a firm grip on the content. This meant that I would re-read each paragraph about 2-3 times. I knew from the practice tests that my score on RC depended on my understanding of the passage, for me this was definitely worth the extra time. I made up the time on SC questions.

As I mentioned earlier, using the Manhattan SC guide I was able to quickly identify the errors in the passages and choose the correct answer. Before studying I would say that I missed on average half of the SC questions. After the intensive studying in that section I would miss 3-4 questions and I could finish 14 questions in 20 minutes.

In the CR section, I would read the passage read the question and then reread the passage to ensure my first instinct was correct. I would then formulate my own answer and read the questions. I could eliminate two questions right off the bat and then I would make a sound decision based on the last two answers.

Final advice -> flash cards for idioms is a must. I was looking forward to idiom test questions because I knew what to look for.

Good luck everybody.

-Aaron

awolfinwater wrote: I studied about 3-4 hours a day doing practice questions and would take a practice test at the end of each week. I saved the two GMAT prep tests for the two days before the exam -> very helpful in my opinion since I found that the questions asked on the Manhattan practice CATs were not 100% consistent with the questions that I practiced in the OG.

when you studied everyday, did you do timed practice or untimed?

I always timed myself. I feel this really helped my time management on the test. I had plenty of time when taking the actual GMAT.

..Congrats buddy ... thats a stellar performance ..

..best of luck for the next stage ( apping ) ....

regards

hi Aaron,

can u suggest ways to improve speed on verbal section? i am always pressed for time at the end of the section and end up random guessing last 3-4 questions. i also reread the RC's to get a good accuracy.