Okay, so I don't consider myself above average in Q or V, or what happened special. I'm a native English speaker with one year work experience. I got a C- and a D in Highschool algebra 1 and 2. How I got 48Q, not quite sure. I'm not a math whiz and am not one of those who whines when they get a 730.
I took the gmat the first time at the end of May after studying for 3 weeks. My study material consisted of a few 'all in one' books. They were good to an extent, but not to where I needed to be.
I started studying again on July 4th and had been getting Very mixed results on my practice tests. My MGMAT scores, spaced about a week apart went like this:
1)620
2)630
3)580
4)580
5)640
6)650
GMATPREP1) 580
GMATPREP2) 600 <=====1 week before d-day!!!
I was consistently scoring 38-42 on Quant and 30-35 on Verbal. I was hoping at my best I could get a 640, barely good enough to get into my alma mater's MBA program.
On my last GmatPrep, I was devastated. I was hoping to get at least 650. That would at least reassure me. With all the rumors going around of an impossible verbal section I freaked. One week to go and I was getting a 600. Yikes.
After getting my thoughts together I assessed what I was doing wrong. I realized that some SC's were Very hard. No matter how much I studied grammar, an odd SC would pop up that would be just a little off of anything I had studied.
I began to analyze my verbal weakness as much as possible. The most important thing I realized is that I was spending entirely TOO much time on SC and trying to hurry through long RC and CR passages. BAD IDEA!!!
I found that taking my time on each RC passage helped me answer more accurately answer questions, I credit this with boosting my verbal to 35, without doing this it could have been much lower. I don't know the scoring algorithm for verbal, but I think too many people focus solely on SC while RC and CR are just as important.
I became exceedingly paranoid about verbal, after hearing numerous reports of its new level of difficulty. I found it somewhat harder than that found on GMATprep and Manhattan GMAT. The RC and CR were a little harder, but SC was TOUGH!!! It felt like all those hours of studying only helped a little. I went through hundreds of SC problems and found it very hard to apply techniques to the problems. ManHattan Gmat SC guide was good, but I could not put my finger on more than a few problems. In the end I was MORE than happy to get 35 in Verbal.
The magic came during Quant. The first problem was not bad, on a scale of 1-10 I would rate its difficulty at 6. I don't know if I was lucky, smooth or just got the right questions, but I managed to smoke the first 10 problems in the first 10 minutes. This was AMAZING. I was able to devote more time to the harder problems and spend up to 7 minutes on the Really hard problems. I COULD NOT BELIEVE I scored a 48 in quant when I had never gotten over a 42 on a practice test. My average is around 40. Luck, fate or a skill? I think a combination of all three.
My studying advice:
As everyone else has mentioned, OG's ARE THE BIBLE!! Practice CATS are essential. I studied for months to get into law school before and took an expensive $1,300 LSAT class through Kaplan. WAISTE of time. STAY AWAY FROM KAPLAN!!!!!!!!! I scored a 148, which is horrible. Their teaching strategy is horrible and if your halfway motivated to do good then buy Manhattan GMAT books and study. All my friends who took the pricey Kaplan class for GMAT told me the exact same thing. BOYCOTT Kaplan!
But MORE importantly, I credit beatthegmat.com with my success.
This is a great online forum to discuss EVERYTHING GMAT. Dedicated professionals post many questions and you can work on these for hours, at all difficultly levels and argue your logic behind the answer. However, Most of the questions people post are above average difficulty, so I was exposed to harder questions than most of those found on the GMAT. This IS the best prep one can have! I also found that almost any difficult problem I found in OG and GMATPREP was already posted multiple times. Its like one giant studygroup. BEATTHEGMAT.COM=PRICELESS.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
-M
I took the gmat the first time at the end of May after studying for 3 weeks. My study material consisted of a few 'all in one' books. They were good to an extent, but not to where I needed to be.
I started studying again on July 4th and had been getting Very mixed results on my practice tests. My MGMAT scores, spaced about a week apart went like this:
1)620
2)630
3)580
4)580
5)640
6)650
GMATPREP1) 580
GMATPREP2) 600 <=====1 week before d-day!!!
I was consistently scoring 38-42 on Quant and 30-35 on Verbal. I was hoping at my best I could get a 640, barely good enough to get into my alma mater's MBA program.
On my last GmatPrep, I was devastated. I was hoping to get at least 650. That would at least reassure me. With all the rumors going around of an impossible verbal section I freaked. One week to go and I was getting a 600. Yikes.
After getting my thoughts together I assessed what I was doing wrong. I realized that some SC's were Very hard. No matter how much I studied grammar, an odd SC would pop up that would be just a little off of anything I had studied.
I began to analyze my verbal weakness as much as possible. The most important thing I realized is that I was spending entirely TOO much time on SC and trying to hurry through long RC and CR passages. BAD IDEA!!!
I found that taking my time on each RC passage helped me answer more accurately answer questions, I credit this with boosting my verbal to 35, without doing this it could have been much lower. I don't know the scoring algorithm for verbal, but I think too many people focus solely on SC while RC and CR are just as important.
I became exceedingly paranoid about verbal, after hearing numerous reports of its new level of difficulty. I found it somewhat harder than that found on GMATprep and Manhattan GMAT. The RC and CR were a little harder, but SC was TOUGH!!! It felt like all those hours of studying only helped a little. I went through hundreds of SC problems and found it very hard to apply techniques to the problems. ManHattan Gmat SC guide was good, but I could not put my finger on more than a few problems. In the end I was MORE than happy to get 35 in Verbal.
The magic came during Quant. The first problem was not bad, on a scale of 1-10 I would rate its difficulty at 6. I don't know if I was lucky, smooth or just got the right questions, but I managed to smoke the first 10 problems in the first 10 minutes. This was AMAZING. I was able to devote more time to the harder problems and spend up to 7 minutes on the Really hard problems. I COULD NOT BELIEVE I scored a 48 in quant when I had never gotten over a 42 on a practice test. My average is around 40. Luck, fate or a skill? I think a combination of all three.
My studying advice:
As everyone else has mentioned, OG's ARE THE BIBLE!! Practice CATS are essential. I studied for months to get into law school before and took an expensive $1,300 LSAT class through Kaplan. WAISTE of time. STAY AWAY FROM KAPLAN!!!!!!!!! I scored a 148, which is horrible. Their teaching strategy is horrible and if your halfway motivated to do good then buy Manhattan GMAT books and study. All my friends who took the pricey Kaplan class for GMAT told me the exact same thing. BOYCOTT Kaplan!
But MORE importantly, I credit beatthegmat.com with my success.
This is a great online forum to discuss EVERYTHING GMAT. Dedicated professionals post many questions and you can work on these for hours, at all difficultly levels and argue your logic behind the answer. However, Most of the questions people post are above average difficulty, so I was exposed to harder questions than most of those found on the GMAT. This IS the best prep one can have! I also found that almost any difficult problem I found in OG and GMATPREP was already posted multiple times. Its like one giant studygroup. BEATTHEGMAT.COM=PRICELESS.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
-M
Last edited by samesame on Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
