I just Beat The GMAT!

Hey all, long time lurker and fan, but decided to participate in the forum as I continue my journey with GMAT!

Background: B. Comm (Marketing major / MIS minor from an average-tier Canadian university) w/ 2 yrs of work exp in Marketing & Advertising. Late 20s.

While I don't have any immediate plans to go back to school, I've been working on getting GMAT out of the way. I just don't feel I have the experience that would benefit from an MBA yet, and as long as I'm back in school by say, when I'm around 30, I'll have followed my '5-year plan.' I'm looking at tier-1 Canadian universities, while going to Haas would be like my 'unicorn.'

My self-study has included the OG + supplements, Kaplan 2010 premier, and all MGMT books. I've been consistent for the last 4 months (began Nov 1): usually about an hour a weeknight (more for the past 2 weeks), and about 3-4 hours / day on weekends.

Previous prep tests scores have been:

660 Dec 28 Gmat Prep 1 (44/38)
590 Jan 10 Mgmt 1 (42/31)
660 Jan 17 Mgmt 2 (43/37)
680 Jan 24 Mgmt 3 (45/37)
610 Jan 31 Mgmt 4 (35/38)
700 Feb 7 Mgmt 5 (43/41)
660 Feb 14 Mgmt 6 (44/36)
690 Feb 21 PR Cat 1 - Free (47/39)
650 Feb 28 Gmat Prep 2 (42/38)
660 Mar 4 Kaplan 1 (43/41)
720 Mar 5 Gmat Prep 1 Repeat (44/44)

(OK, maybe i'm a bit cat'd out)

Given my prep test performance, my expectation was 650 on the lower end (would've re-written), 680 (happy with), and 700 (would be ecstatic). Let me know if you think this is unrealistic.

Just wrote the first real test today - 610 (44/31). While quant score I can live with, as it falls in my usual range, I'm definitely disappointed with the verbal. A couple buddies have also seen this - actual verbal being much lower than prep tests (it seems it's common on the forum as well). I'm disappointed, but given that I'm not in a hurry, and that I was/am definitely open to re-writing, I'm down but not out.

So I shall continue my journey... I won't be looking at it for the next two weeks, but after will be re-formulating my strategy. I would imagine it would be good to get back into it relatively soon - perhaps by a re-write by June?

I'm sure others re-writing have run into the problem of having no 'new' material to work with. How do you overcome this issue?

Any suggestions will be greatly welcomed!

Word up,

First and foremost, congratulations on your evident dedication while embarking on this test prep journey. A 610's nothing to shy at and your Quant score's where you want it from what you wrote in your post. As far as your verbal score, I've got a couple of questions for you and then I'll lay down some advice:

1) When you study for the Verbal, how do you go about your actual reviews? Do you strive to "study smart" or "study hard"? Success on the GMAT requires both: on the one hand, you've got to put in the hours, and it definitely looks like you do. Moreover, it seems that you do so consistently judging by your GMAT practice dates. As importantly, do you ever monitor the quality of your study? Do you make an effort to go over the practice problems you're getting wrong? Do you have a sense of where your strengths are?

2) When you study, do you learn (and then apply) strategy or do you go about doing things in your own way? Either one is acceptable provided that you're systematic about your test-taking habits. I know some folks who hate strategy but it turns out that when they go through Sentence Correction questions, for example, they've got a few key error types they look for and they run through that paradigm for themselves every single time.

3) I've heard a lot of people say they read The Economist to prepare for the Reading Comprehension. I'm starting to think this is sort of a useless habit. If you're reading to practice for the GMAT, underline, take notes, process information. Constantly ask "Why?" and make sure you can differentiate between the "factual details" of a passage and "why they're important".

4) Did you ever purchase the GMAT Offiicial Guide version 12? I made it a point to study the questions featured in the OG first only to give myself a sense of how these questions actually look and then get a sense of what I need to study thereafter. For me, it became apparent that I'm a disaster with critical reasoning, so I spent extra effort working on those problems. But the more important thing is that the GMAT test-makers really do have a specific manner in which they ask questions, organize their tests, etc, and so it's very beneficial to be aware of how they do it, not just how test prep companies do it.

5) How is your stamina on these tests? Do you feel fairly fresh at the end of them? Or are you dog-tired by the last set of questions?

My advice is the following:

1) Read academic articles found on JStor and Project Muse. And don't just read, but parse things out, underline, analyze. Be an active reader. I'm sure you take notes when you're doing the Reading Comp, but are you taking notes for main ideas or for facts?

2) Do you find that you read problems carefully and effectively? Are you making careless mistakes on the problems you're getting wrong? This is really easy to spot on Manhattan GMAT's tests and what I recommend is going through them and seeing what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong, and what you know you can do but aren't getting right the first time around. I've found it was much more effective for me to go over things I didn't get the first time then to take practice tests over and over again.

3) How is your emotional self during the exam? Do you get flustered/annoyed/distracted/worried? Are you steady as a rock during the exam itself? If not, see what you're being distracted by and always remember, the most important thing going on in that test is the question you're working on at that exact moment. It doesn't matter if the guy sitting next to you has terrible body odor, an annoying habit of clacking at the keyboard, and keeps burping.

Let me know what your study habits are like and then develop a plan of action. Set a schedule. Work with that schedule.

Good luck!

Michal

Michal, thanks for your detailed advice.

1) It seems quality of study is where I was probably lacking - although I made sure to review the questions through, I wasn't really taking any notes. Of course, it might be a little difficult to take CR notes, but I could've certainly taken notes for SC. Also, although the MGMT CR book recommends taking notes on individual CR questions, I could never get myself to put it to use.

2) I think with SC, my strategy was to build enough familiarity with the rules, that the answers would seem obvious to me. And certainly, I was comfortable with SC - it's just my test day performance fell apart.

3) RC - it came down to timing for me. I did not enjoy seeing a science passage within my last 10 questions, with 11 minutes to go!

4) Yep - definitely tackled the OG12 enough to a point where repeating the questions was pretty much useless to me... I think one of the issue was because I had repeated so many questions, gotten them right, I began to underestimate verbal overall.

5) I think this is where my biggest weakness was - stamina and anxiety level. I tried to get as much sleep as possible the night before, but that didn't work out. Plus, I was very scatter-brained from coffee (and burning out from caffeine in the 4 hour period towards the end). I'm somewhat sensitive to caffeine, so I've actually started to stop drinking coffee to round out my energy level and lessen the anxiety. The 2nd test I'm going to go without coffee.

I'm generally a pretty anxious person, and with the anxiety comes the carelessness. It's easy to know that I shouldn't be, but very hard to do!

Also I know I've read countless suggestions about exercising - I hadn't done that at all for the last prep, and I will be changing things around (I know doing the same thing is not going to improve my score).

I'll be picking up the PowerScore Critical Reasoning book. Other than that, I plan on repeating the MGMT books so it becomes more internalized, and then using the discussion boards / notes made by others to get exposure to more problems. Going to stay off the OG until it gets much closer to the exam (to make it seem more fresh). Thanks for those 2 sources, I'm sure it'll be good practice.

Here we go again... Looking at late May for the 2nd run

Heyo,

It's really great that you're up front about what you do right and wrong with regard to your preparations for the test. A lot of people either give themselves too much or too little credit for their efforts and it always bites them hard the second time around.

As far as anxiety, you're absolutely right--it's very difficult to work carefully when you're not feeling settled. That's one reason that test strategy is so important to have a handle on: strategy's a lot like using a handrail when going down a set of stairs. Sure, you can run down the steps without it, but you're much more likely to take a nasty spill along the journey. And if you're caffeine sensitive, mos def stay away from coffee. I did a little carb loading the morning of my test and that seemed to help (egg and cheese on a bagel with a cinnamon bun) but I only had water. It kept me from having to go to the bathroom, too, which can be a huge distraction during the test.

Definitely go with PowerScore's Crit Reasoning text--I hear it's ridiculously comprehensive and really great for helping test takers work through that question type.

Beyond that, make yourself a steady work schedule and stick to it. That'll definitely help you work through anxiety if you've got a routine. And more importantly, whenever you take a practice test, create some habits that let your brain/body know, "It's game time" and that'll help too. If part of that routine is exercise, awesome--but also, give yourself time to settle into your test when you arrive at the test center. I showed up to mine 90 minutes early to eat a slow breakfast, listen to some music, and get registered comfortably.

Anyways, good luck and stay focused!

Michal