I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi guys!

Before I dwell into details of my strategy, I sincerely want to thank the whole Beatthegmat community for comments, help, support. I found this community amazing, and it has contributed to my success incredibly. The following post is going to be looong so... I am not sure if everyone will be interested in reading it, but most helpful to me were the long posts so I want to do the same

From profs I want to thank Stacey Koprince, whose advices on strategy are the best thing I came across on the net, they are really correct, look them up and do them! They are really amazing.
Ok now let's get to business. Little about me : I am 23, female, from Tbilisi, Georgia
(not a U.S. State! copy paste the link into your browser: https://bit.ly/7ShDnc)

I would say my math skills are OK but not great really, my command of English is advanced but u know Gmat needs a very specific knowledge. In a nutshell I would consider myself as a average Gmat student - nothing brilliant really. (sad to say that though!:)

I took Gmat first this summer in June 2009 the score was disappointing 680 (70%) (Q44 70%, V 40 -89%) AWA 5. This score was more than a disaster for me, I was depressed as hell, right away I need to retake so I started thinking of what I did wrong and what I could do better. I took the second exam on 28th of November I scored 730 (96%) (Q 49, 87%, V 41 92%,)

Why 680

Rule 1: Just studying hard does not lead to great results, only studying with right strategy leads to great results. Yes, quality over quantity!

My very first attemt at home to gmat was 480 or smth like that (low huh!?:). I took private lessons with a teacher twice in a week for 3 months. The first month was the most effective I understood the ABC and what was it all about, but after that I kind of froze, I did not improve my score much after 1, 1,5 month of studying because I used to do A LOT of tests - timed untimed both, but what I never took time enoguth to review my mistakes thoroughly. This was partly because I used to have a lot of Homework to do and if i spent time on the revision I would not have time for Homework. (I worked during the day and had only evening for studies). I tried this couple of times but it simply didn't work out, and I thought it would be really irresponsible to not do the homework... this was my greatest mistake and I don't know how to underscore this enough... Take a moment and think about the time you are spending on doing tests and the value they bring if you do not study very very carefully your mistakes - believe me the value of doing that is sth like 0.00000000000001. What I would do is make same and the same mistakes all the time with my tests, just because I did not study them.

Rule 2: Don't drive yourself crazy, believe in yourself
My second mistake was that I was so obsessed with it I would not sleep for a month or so. I just knew I needed great score so much I felt a huge responsibility on me. I would think about failing and feel the fear creep in me �. (btw I was so nervous even had hallucinations at night lol ), then I asked for help and my friend advised me to drink some pills that calm you down and it helped really. But still as the exam approached I was tired and I kind of did not believe that I could do well... maybe because I felt I was not doing something well with my studies.

I would not say my scores were bad really, I did Powerprep before the exam like 1-1.5 week before and took 730 then I took second one and got 700 just before exam. I practiced Manhattan Gmat and would never reach 700 really, it was always like 640-650 - I found test kind of hard. I'll talk about Manhattan test later.
Anyways I am sure that my self-esteem was one of the main reasons I did not do well on exam.

Rule 3: Know the content well.
My scores with math during practice was O.K. I would receive 45 and more most of the time. But I always felt that I did not have good knowledge of the content. Like when I did the problem, I did not know right away how to do it... I mean I first spent lots of time thinking how to do it and then I did the job. However, on the test, u must be trained to such a degree that the moment u look at the problem u should know how to do that - that should be kind of standard that u follow. During my preparation I did not pay attention to that, I could do the very same kind of problem differently and would never stick to one strategy.

Rule 4. Don't invent things on the Test Day

Just before the test, I started thinking what if I run out of time? And I read somewhere that some people right down the time and the No of problem they should be on at that time. I thought it would be great. So on the test day I tried to do that... but bcs it was the first time it made me more nervous it had bad effect on my attention... In actuality I had very very bad time management at the Test, worse than at home. So don't do things that u didn't do during the preparation on the Test Day, that's really silly u know �

Rule 5. If some part of the gmat makes u uncomfortable just deal with it.

Well the 'uncomfortable part' with me was the problems with probabilities, permutations combinations - I just didn't have the grasp of the subject. Yes, I knew it would be like no more than 2 this kind of questions during the test, but somehow it made me anxious and that's bad. Even if it is a tiny part, just deal with it, try hard - this will keep your self-esteem in better shape.



Why 730

Rule 6: Back to basics

I read this amazing debrief by one guy that had 750 or higher and his rule was Content First (I am sorry I don't remember the address of his debrief:( . I followed this rule and bought the books recommended by him:

Manhattan Number properties THE MUST
Manhattan Word Translations THE MUST
Manhattan Geometry I found that it was too easy for me, so not really helpful.
I also had Manhattan SC . THIS is Must of course! I won't spend time explaining that, if you read the posts on this forum u should already know its really great.

I purchased Powerscore CR bible- Great book indeed.
I purchased Manhattan online tests , I found them really valuable, bcs although they are kind of harder than the real test they teach u a lot, bcs they have very good explanations. and I would advise u to do and redo it over and over again just for the study purposes, I did it this way.

I also purchased 800socre online tests DO NOT do that!, their verbal is something totally wrong.... don't spend ur time or money on that.
Ok, so I spend time reading closely this books and practicing couple of tests,

Rule 7: Practice! and Note down everything important!

I did my practise next - I started with OG 11 then did part of OG 12. Thanks to Stacey, I knew by that time that u should spent almost twice as much time reviewing problems than it takes u to do them. I practiced this as a religion. I would do 20 min of Quant and then start reviewing, I kept a note-book and I would write down every single important concept and important mistake I have made - the notebook became my companion - I would take it to work and review stuff when I had a minute. And it was really helpful as exam approached - I just looked through it and that was enough to remember everything important. U may have better memory, but for those with average... when u do lots of stuff however, even if u review them later u might forget so why not write it down, yes! i know it takes time - but it's worth it! give it a try! (I did the same thing with Verbal)

Rule 8: Concentrate well as u practice.

This time I also did tried to be more attentive when doing practice. I kind of forced myself to use 100% of my resources to do the stuff well - this helped with endurance during the exam. Before I would be like starting with enthusiasm but at the end be like 'oh whatever, I am tired!' and stop being attentive so I changed that.

Rule 9: On the test day

On my second test date I would say my score could have been better if I did not freak out bcs the problems of quant seemed way to easy to me...I was like, what's wrong? I thought I was doing very bad, and that was why easy problems showed up - remember that is misleading. What I did though I spent little bit more time on easy problems - bcs I was looking for sth that wasn't really there and ended up running out of time - I guessed the last 7 problems at Quant! do not repeat my mistake. Yes, at the exam problems of Quant may seem very easy but don't freak out. Verbal was pretty much the same as in OGs and PowerPrep.

That's it I guess. U are welcome to ask me any questions and I would answer them gladly.

Final note: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! IF U TRY HARD U CAN DO IT!


Cheers,
Ket

People that think that 680 (that is, 86%ile) is a disaster make me a bit sad... but congratulations on your score and welcome on the 7xx club!!

mjjking wrote:People that think that 680 (that is, 86%ile) is a disaster make me a bit sad... but congratulations on your score and welcome on the 7xx club!!

mjjking, I may agree disaster may not be the correct word for many, but I guess this kind of things subjective, u know my 730 may be as well disaster for smn aiming for 780!:) Anywayz that's how I felt with it.

But it surprising me to hear this from u, cause u have retaken ur exam too after 680 :S

Thanks for congratulation and congrats on ur score too!

Congratulations, I too on a similar boat as you. Your quant improvement is great, from 44 to 49. I got 47 the last time and If I can make 4 point difference in math and keep my last verbal of 37 a bit up like 38-40 I will be done too.

maihuna wrote:Congratulations, I too on a similar boat as you. Your quant improvement is great, from 44 to 49. I got 47 the last time and If I can make 4 point difference in math and keep my last verbal of 37 a bit up like 38-40 I will be done too.

Keep it up Maihuna, as I said I am very average, if I can do it, you can do it too! Believe in yourself!!!
Best of Luck!

Thank you for the encouragement KET, what about the RC, I was all set to write this exam the last week but the last moment realize the rc's are causing issue, particularly the small one that densely written.

How did you find RC's please elaborate.

ket, big congrats to u on your great score!!

i guess the GOLDEN post were talking about is, https://www.beatthegmat.com/770-50-q-46- ... 40093.html

please i have some questions for you.please is it proper to just focus on the last 100 questions of quant section? since

everybody is saying quality over quantity.

secondly,how does one make notes on quant ?
thanks for the anticipated reply

i mean the last 100 questions of quant section in OG 11

xela760 wrote:ket, big congrats to u on your great score!!

i guess the GOLDEN post were talking about is, https://www.beatthegmat.com/770-50-q-46- ... 40093.html

please i have some questions for you.please is it proper to just focus on the last 100 questions of quant section? since

everybody is saying quality over quantity.

secondly,how does one make notes on quant ?
thanks for the anticipated reply

Hey xela760!, thanks for congrat, Yes! that's the post, I am so thankful to the author

well, I do have noticed that last questions in Quant are more difficult than those in the beginning.. however I am not sure if you should focus only on the last 100 problem.. try to do it all of it, really u know OG is everything! when u are doing real test, u are like I have seen this problem somewhere! bcs it is SO MUCH like OG!... but well, if you are very very short of time, I guess I would recommend doing problems randomly... not only last 100 - bcs sometimes u might not be aware but very easy problems might be confusing... (simply bcs u haven't done it before) so on the real test if u screw up on the easy one that aint gonna be a good thing...

OK now about notes: Well I would write down the problem but not the whole sentences and stuff, I would shorten it so that it was still possible to understand the content (just to reduce time, something like this: Speed 54m per h Distance 3 500 m find out time...) then I would write the correct solution - very carefully and clearly step by step. And if this was a problem I did wrong during test, I would write the wrong solution too, shortly, and make a note that this is NOT correct, so that I could remember what my mistake was. I also would write down 'rules' something like this 'when comparing numbers - draw a number line' ( I used to make A LOT of mistakes with this type of problems, so I made this rule for me).

You can ask me any other question C'mon Beat the Gmat!:)

maihuna wrote:Thank you for the encouragement KET, what about the RC, I was all set to write this exam the last week but the last moment realize the rc's are causing issue, particularly the small one that densely written.

How did you find RC's please elaborate.

OK with RC my strategy was - 1. understand the text 2. deal with questions. U know some people just skim the text and then do the questions, I found that wrong for me I would do A LOT of mistakes. so I changed it and concentrated very hard to grasp the subject - I would also write down stuff and sometimes kind of speak to myself retelling the passage shortly (so that I could follow the logic of the author) - that takes times... but this was the best way for me... but I would not write u know ALL the stuff - I made short comments ( I think it is absolutely MUST to write down cause-effect relationships - if there are such in the text, bcs its hard to remember them later) . And also make sure u understand the type of questions and how to deal with them- like if the question is about 'inference' - this is something like MUST BE TRUE question in CR... u know this is the type of question that u can find answer right there in the text... In the beginning I would not pay attention to it, once I grasped it.. I would just skim through the text and I knew the answer...So when working on RC jot down type of question that come up frequently and make your own strategy for dealing with them and stick to it.

On the test date well I don't exactly remember but I had I think 3 passages, 2 out of them were OK but last one was OMG perplexing really! I could not understand the stuff! - but remember never spend on questions more time than u should! u must train yourself to get over it, if you aint doing it in 2 seconds - u aint doing it at all! move! (I would repeat this to myself during the test Move! Move! :) I think I had very good time management for Verbal unlike Quant) - I finished just in time and I did not guess any of the questions.

In case u have other questions u are welcome to ask me Maihuna.

Ket

Thanks ket for detailed response. Thank you. Should you think doing a lot of lsat rc's will help. From where else to practice rc's?

maihuna wrote:Thanks ket for detailed response. Thank you. Should you think doing a lot of lsat rc's will help. From where else to practice rc's?

maihuna, LSAT should be fine I guess, I have heard they are good. But I haven't done them myself. I did only OGs and Manhattan RC.

ket ,did you read the explanations in OG Quant to learn the concepts? or you only solved the questions and did your own
analysis?

xela760 wrote:ket ,did you read the explanations in OG Quant to learn the concepts? or you only solved the questions and did your own
analysis?

Sure xela760, I read the explanations. Sometimes when I could not understand the explanation or I didn't like it I would search for the solutions right here on the forum, in many cases u will find better explanations on this forum than in OG - so I really used forum for that purposes a lot.

And one more thing, before looking into the answers, after the test I knew which problems were difficult, problematic for me, so I would try again to solve them myself - no timing involved this time - and I tried varied ways of solving it. Only after this kind of analysis I would look in the answers. (Of course there were problems I had no idea how to approach in this case I would just jump to the explanations)

Let me ask another clarification, did u picked all the RC options after being sure, not something like 90% sure or so, how did u managed that, under time pressure I am seeing that as a great issue.