GMAT Strategy

Hi everyone,

Well, I am in week 5 of my GMAT preparation. I am not taking a class. I am studying the following books/sites:
- Barrons
- Kaplan
- OC Edition 11
- Princeton
- Manhattan GMAT
- PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible
- 800score.com

I am taking the test April 3. I am freaked out because at first I was reading about all of the people here who scored over 700 (wow!) and then I read about the people scoring under 500. PANIC!

I am an older MBA applicant with significant work experience (currently at the executive level), so I know my application is very strong, but I still want to get a really good score on the GMAT just for my own peace of mind. The school I am applying to has an average score of 615.

So, I still have a month to go. I study at least 20 hours/week. Please give me your best tip for doing well on the test. I am much stronger in verbal (I am a communications professional) than I am in math. Thanks!!

I am writing my exam next Wednesday (March 5th). I have made studying for the GMAT a full time job over the last 2 months. I graduated from University 4 years ago, I have been working in Montreal as a head Chef at Joe Beef, Montreal top restaurant and decided that the constant burns and cuts plus 70 hour 5 day weeks was enough for me. As you can tell my job did not really allow me to excercise my quatitative and verbal skills all that well (I learned how to tell people off really well in French though).

As for your study guide material, everything is great except for the Barrons!! Put it down right now, leave it be, the questions are not at all representative of the real GMAT questions. Kaplan questions are fantastic for the quatitative sections but really detailed and challanging on the verbal. I highly recommend that you also take several full length practice exams through the GMATPrep Software available from MBA.com or the Manhattan GMAT exams. Be careful though with the GMATPrep if you have practiced all of the Official Review Guide Book questions you will see many repeated questions on the software exam, and this is greatly curve your mark. Manhattan GMAT gives you a really clear understanding of what you should expect to score on the real GMAT. Best of luck in April and please wish me good luck aswell.

Kaunteya

good luck!

You should have a pretty basic understanding of where you will fall based on your practice tests...

if you are scoring in the 700's on practice tests, you are not going to drop a 450 on the test.... unless you freak out on tests... haha..

Kaunteya, that's funny about the Barron's book. Actually, I think I looked at it briefly early on and haven't picked it up since. I found the Princeton Review book good -- not so much the questions, but the descriptions of how to solve problems. I finished all the Kaplans books. I'm deep into OC right now. I study about 2 hours a night and 6-10 hours each weekend. My strategy has been to spend the first 6 weeks in the books working problems. In the last 4 weeks leading up to the exam, I will start doing the practice tests on the computer. I haven't done any yet, so I don't have any scores. I start those in about a week. Given my professional background, I have the potential to score really high on the verbal section. Now, I just have to make sure I do! That should help offset a slightly lower quantitative score.

Super good luck on your test! Please come back and post how you do.

Hey Kaunteya, Best of Luck. Hit the GMAT hard, so that it has no choice except to you give best score.

Hello Black_Cat, one thing like add apart from other person comment is that although you are confident at your verbal skills but still I would like to suggest you pay attention at the minute details given in any preparation books. GMAT not generally but surely test one's minute knowledge about the subject. So, just don't be over confident during preparation.

Although I have not started my preparation as I am already doing part time MBA and have to give final in April to keep up my current managerial job. But I am good at maths and try to solve the question asked by people generally asked on this forum and will start my actual preparation from May onwards. But from the past one month what I feel that I am little over confident over my math skills and sometimes do very small mistakes on some math question. May be its because I have not touched any book since from past 4 years of my job but still this tells me that I need to brush up my skills once again, no matter how good I was during my school or college days.

I don't whether my this experience will help you even a bit or not, but I feel to share it with you, as you need to give GMAT earlier than me.

At the end I would say BEST of LUCK and hit the GMAT as hard as you can!!!

Codesnooker, don't worry. I am studying the verbal section very seriously. I am not assuming I'll just do well. Preparation is key!

I just freaked myself out again (ugh). I am starting to work the problems on the computer. I haven't done a full blown GMAT practice exam yet, but I am doing the shorter timed tests through the Kaplan CD. The good news is I've improved my understanding of the math problems considerably. The bad news is I need to move MUCH more quickly through the questions. I have been working math problems in the books slowly to ensure I understand how to do them. But, now I have to start working on speed.

According to the Widget on my desktop, only 32 more days until the GMAT. YIKES!!! :roll: