My goal was to score above a 700 on the GMAT, and on November 28, 2009 I scored a 710. My strategy was to never expend any amount of energy wondering whether or not I was taking the right approach. So, I decided to take a Kaplan course.
Breakdown
- Q46 (76th percentile) (Finished with 5 minutes to go)
- V42 (95th percentile) (Finished with 10 minutes to go)
Approach
- Took a 9-week Kaplan GMAT course
- Studied every week day for 2 hours, every weekend day for 6 hours for 3 months (total ~ 200 hrs)
Tools
- Kaplan book and online lessons
- The Official Guide: v12
- Beat the GMAT Notecards & Articles
- The support of my very awesome coworkers and incredibly accomodating supervisor
Advice
- Get good at guessing. I took several CAT's in which I allowed myself only to guess. Any questions I didn't fully understand on test day I took 30 seconds to re-read, and then made an educated guess.
- When studying for verbal, understand why each wrong answer is wrong. Be able to say, "this is wrong because _____." Come test day most, if not all verbal questions were answered by process of elimination.
- Time yourself. I didn't look at the clock once during the exam.
Final Thoughts
Treat your study approach as seriously as you would a b-school class. Evidence of the correlation exists in that "the exam is intended to predict academic success in a graduate." Business schools want to know if you will do well. The GMAT is one way to prove it.
Good luck everyone! You truly get out what you put in. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I have a lot more free time now
710 (92nd percentile) on 11/28/2009
This topic has expert replies
- Ludacrispat26
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Awesome job!
I'm in a similar area in quant, so I'd love to know what you did for the 46.
Congrats again! Celebrate it!
I'm in a similar area in quant, so I'd love to know what you did for the 46.
Congrats again! Celebrate it!
Don't stop believin'...
- mbamaverick
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