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gravlax
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:26 am
- Thanked: 1 times
- Followed by:1 members
Hooray!
I am more of a lurker than a poster, so first off, I want to thank everybody at BTG. This is my first post, but I have been reading the site for several months ... it has been worth a lot in my prep.
I will try to hit all the important points so maybe this will help you too. I had no idea I was even capable of a 780 ... I would have been thrilled to score 720.
TEST CENTER --- I have read all the horror stories ... but the center, computer, etc. was all exactly as expected. I had a bit of an advantage here since I have taken a few professional licensing tests at the same place so it was very familiar to me. No complaints.
THE TEST --- Nothing unexpected here either ... I suppose I deserve that since I think I looked at about ten thousand practice questions! I had a bit of a rough start in the quant ... I spent five minutes or so on the third or fourth question, still not sure if I got it right ... but a couple of DS questions after that were very quick so I was back on track by #10.
Verbal was easier than expected ... again, maybe because I did so much practice. I finished with more than 10 minutes to spare.
MY PREP --- Started around the beginning of the year with a Kaplan class offered by my employer. I was not able to go to all of the sessions or do all of the homework so when I finished the class I was scoring around 650. The class was fine ... nothing spectacular ... looking back, I think it helped me in terms of getting used to the question formats and just spending a few months with the GMAT on the brain.
Some crazy stuff at work forced me to take a month or more off after that ... so I did not take the test right after the class. Finally got back at it about two months ago ... that is when I started really improving.
I was always confident with the Verbal, so aside from reviewing some verbal in the Kaplan books, most of that time I spent on Quant. I only used two materials:
- OG12
- GMAT Hacks Challenge Questions
I probably spent a full month doing nothing but OG12 quant, just reviewing and reviewing and reviewing. I took a GMATPREP test around that time and scored 680, so I found the GMAT Hacks sets to try and really learn the concepts behind the tough Quant questions that I had not figured out. Apparently it worked ... those sets are just about all I did for the last month. I would recommend them to anyone who wants to score 700 or higher.
I don't think I did anything very unique ... so not sure if I can give very much advice beyond the description. As you can see, I was very focused on one thing at a time ... that was easy for me since I knew the Quant was going to make or break my score. There were days that I probably spent an hour or more on three or four questions to make absolutely sure I understood it. Maybe this was not the best way ... it worked for me though.
Anyway ... thank you again for the community and the motivation and I hope this helps some people!
I am more of a lurker than a poster, so first off, I want to thank everybody at BTG. This is my first post, but I have been reading the site for several months ... it has been worth a lot in my prep.
I will try to hit all the important points so maybe this will help you too. I had no idea I was even capable of a 780 ... I would have been thrilled to score 720.
TEST CENTER --- I have read all the horror stories ... but the center, computer, etc. was all exactly as expected. I had a bit of an advantage here since I have taken a few professional licensing tests at the same place so it was very familiar to me. No complaints.
THE TEST --- Nothing unexpected here either ... I suppose I deserve that since I think I looked at about ten thousand practice questions! I had a bit of a rough start in the quant ... I spent five minutes or so on the third or fourth question, still not sure if I got it right ... but a couple of DS questions after that were very quick so I was back on track by #10.
Verbal was easier than expected ... again, maybe because I did so much practice. I finished with more than 10 minutes to spare.
MY PREP --- Started around the beginning of the year with a Kaplan class offered by my employer. I was not able to go to all of the sessions or do all of the homework so when I finished the class I was scoring around 650. The class was fine ... nothing spectacular ... looking back, I think it helped me in terms of getting used to the question formats and just spending a few months with the GMAT on the brain.
Some crazy stuff at work forced me to take a month or more off after that ... so I did not take the test right after the class. Finally got back at it about two months ago ... that is when I started really improving.
I was always confident with the Verbal, so aside from reviewing some verbal in the Kaplan books, most of that time I spent on Quant. I only used two materials:
- OG12
- GMAT Hacks Challenge Questions
I probably spent a full month doing nothing but OG12 quant, just reviewing and reviewing and reviewing. I took a GMATPREP test around that time and scored 680, so I found the GMAT Hacks sets to try and really learn the concepts behind the tough Quant questions that I had not figured out. Apparently it worked ... those sets are just about all I did for the last month. I would recommend them to anyone who wants to score 700 or higher.
I don't think I did anything very unique ... so not sure if I can give very much advice beyond the description. As you can see, I was very focused on one thing at a time ... that was easy for me since I knew the Quant was going to make or break my score. There were days that I probably spent an hour or more on three or four questions to make absolutely sure I understood it. Maybe this was not the best way ... it worked for me though.
Anyway ... thank you again for the community and the motivation and I hope this helps some people!
