GMAT Strategy

When I took my first dry CAT exam about six months ago, I scored a dismal 530. The program I'm applying to is a dual program offered in a distance learning environment, but 530 simply would not cut it. My preparations were done using the 15 book set of Veritas Prep books, and while my verbal has always been much stronger than my quantitative, I did still utilize the written topics offered. After a quick run through of the Arguments and Math Essentials books, I tested at 540--I realized at that point I wasn't taking things seriously enough. Allowing the kids to climb on me like a jungle gym, and not deciding to test until about 20 minutes before testing, beer in hand....just didn't add up.

At that point I shifted gears, hit the Veritas prep hard for about two months, and then I picked it up to gazelle like intensity for the past month, taking three CAT exams during that time span. I'm happy to say that for my past three CAT exams my scores were 620, 620, and 630.

Tomorrow morning I'm sitting for the exam at 8am, and I am feeling quite confident, though not cocky. I'll report my results afterward. I credit where I'm at to the Veritas books and a lot of discipline and hard work. I get annoyed when I see people write about wanting to jump 100 points in a week thanks to some miracle. If you want to jump 100 points, you need to bust your butt and invest a lot of time.