I BTG for 750!! Detailed debrief....

My score: 750 (98) Q 49 (87) V 42 (95) AWA 5.0 (58) on March 25th

Finally getting around to writing a debrief....luckily I didn't procrastinate this much when studying for the actual exam.

After telling my brother at Christmas that I was hoping to pursue my MBA, he kindly pointed out that I'd been saying this for the past two years, and in a round about way told me I was being lazy. Wanting to prove him wrong, the next week I booked my GMAT test date. That was January 5th and I'd read that it was advisable to have at least two to three months to prepare, so I booked my date for March 25th. The program I want to get into is the Penn State World Campus fully online MBA, and their deadline is May 1st, so it gave me plenty of time to send my score.

I knew that I was moving into a new apartment in February, but completely neglected to take into account how stressful, time-consuming and mentally draining a move can be, so I lost a month of study while I moved and decorated. So the most part of my preparation was done in about six or seven weeks. I work full time so I generally studied for an hour to two hours on most week nights, and about five to eight hours on the weekend, more when the test date drew near.

To prepare for my study I first downloaded the GMAT Test Prep software, read through the math and took Practice Test 1. I got 690 and found that my major weaknesses were in Data Sufficiency style questions and Sentence Correction. Unfortunately I entered the British school system at a time when they decided grammar was no longer important and although I'm okay at English in general, my formal grammar knowledge extended only as far as the definitions of a verb, an adjective and a noun. I found some information on the web just by googling sentence correction and started from scratch. Having always been strong in math, for me the quant section was simply a case of brushing up on some forgotten rules, and practicing the style of question.

I found the BTG site and read some past experiences before deciding which books to purchase. I wouldn't recommend the same set of books to everyone, it really depends where you are at with your score, and how much time you have.

I ended up getting the following:

OG 12th Edition - definitely the best, did all PS, DS and SC
OG Verbal - did all SC
OG Quantitative - did all questions
Princeton Review - did all questions
Kaplan Advanced - did all questions

Before I started any questions I printed out the EXCEL grid available on the BTG site. This was the most important thing I did!!!
The second most important thing was making flashcards.

I didn't really have a set strategy. I know myself too well; if I had said I'm going to do this on this day and this on this day, I would have found it difficult to stick to and then disappointed myself. I was lucky in the sense that I really enjoyed practicing GMAT questions, and didn't find it so much a chore, just a time-stealer.

I did the diagnostic tests in the OG and Princeton Review and confirmed that my weaknesses were in SC and DS. For the next few weeks I worked my way through the whole PR book, and did most of the OG Quant questions.

I then took a few weeks off to move and when I started studying again I incorporated some practice exams. I didn't exactly create the test situation each time but I did make sure to time myself. I think the GMAT TestPrep tests were the best indicator of what the real thing would be like. I also continued to do more quant and a lot of SC questions. I did hardly any RC and CR practice questions during the course of my study apart from those in PR and Kaplan Advanced. I decided to use the Kaplan Advanced text about two weeks before the exam and found it a good indicator of the things I had left to work on. Although it doesn't have many questions, the ones it does have are definitely the more difficult kind, and it gave me some confidence before going into my final week of preparation. It's not advanced in the sense of breaking the 750 barrier but it gives a good indication for someone like me shooting for 700 or above. After that I was still a bit weak in SC, and I will probably make mistakes with idioms for the rest of my life, but I kept plugging away.

I did no prep for AWA except the night before when I read some questions and planned in my head the kinds of things I would respond with.

My test was on a Thursday, I knew I would want to do some study in the days leading up to it, so I took a bit of a rest the weekend before, only doing a couple of hours each day. I spent the final few days going over questions I had got wrong first time around (easily found using my Excel Grids).

Practice test scores:
Jan 9th: TestPrep 1 ~ q46; v38; 690
Feb 27th: TestPrep 2 ~ q44; v41; 690 (disheartening to see no improvement)
Feb 27th: 800.com Quant test ~ q42
Mar 6th: Crack the GMAT ~ q50; v20; 620 (had difficulty focusing on the long RCs)
Mar 7th: Princeton Review ~ q47; v40; 700
Mar 13th: Manhattan ~ q49; v38; 710
Mar 14th: GMAT Live ~ q48; v53; 770-790

Test Day

The test was at 8.00. I was hoping to start early and before anyone else. I arrived before the centre was open and once someone came to open up I was able to start about 15 minutes early. I wasn't really prepared for the finger scanner process so I thought I'd mention that now. I'm not sure if it's the same in every centre, but they scanned my finger and I had to scan every time I left or entered the test room to take breaks. I brought snacks with me and ate a little and went to the washroom each break, but only used up about half of the allotted break time. There was a lot of construction going on outside the building so I had to use the big head phones. They did hurt a bit after wearing them for such a long time, but I was so into the exam I didn't notice until the very end.

The essays seemed to go okay, I wrote for the whole time, but I didn't feel like I wrote that much. I got 5.0 which I thought was okay until I saw it was only 56th percentile, but I'm hoping it won't weigh too heavily on my application. The Quant Section was a little nerve-wracking. About half way through I had a question that took me a long time to figure out, until I realized I already had the answer written down and was going further than I needed too. In my annoyance with myself I selected and confirmed the wrong answer, frustrating me even more. This threw me off a little, but I managed to compose myself and finish the section. I didn't really have enough time for the very last question, but I figured it out vaguely and selected what I thought was the right answer with two seconds to spare.

The verbal section was better than I had expected. I hate long RC questions but all but one of my passages were relatively short and I finished a few minutes ahead of time. When I saw my score was 750 I was extremely surprised and almost forgot that there was still a whole bunch of people around me doing their tests. I was very grateful at that point that I'd got there early and started first.

I have just applied to Penn State and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've only been out of school for three and a half years so I'm hoping my GMAT score makes up for my lack of managerial experience.

Sorry this has ended up being so long, but I hope it's helpful to someone. Good luck everyone!

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