GMAT Strategy

Hello world!

I plan to log my GMAT path here; a digital journal (read: blog), if you will. If you have any tips, recommendations, or even words of encouragement, please feel free to drop me a message here. I'll be checking and updating this thread often.

My name is Dave, and I'm a 22 year old senior Accounting major. The CPA regulations are changing in my state next year, and I will essentially need a master's degree to become licensed. I'm still looking around at programs (see my MAcc thread), so if you have any recommendations for me in that regard, I'm all ears.

To start this thing off, I've done some reading over the past few days about the exam itself, such as how it's structured and how the scoring works, the different sections, etc. I have gone through a couple practice questions, but I haven't started "studying" yet. I plan to study from the OG12 and MGMAT set, and I have not yet scheduled an exam date.

Day 1: Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
Today I took the first GMATPrep exam, to get an initial benchmark. To my pleasant surprise, the machine spit out a 620 total score: 39Q 37V, composed of 16/37 incorrect in Quant and 11/41 incorrect in Verbal. It is probably important to note that I finished the Quant and Verbal sections with 32 and 16 minutes to spare, respectively. Keep in mind, I am an Accounting major. I have not had geometry in nearly 7 years (since freshman year of high school), and my undergrad-level math courses have always had a business focus. Honestly, I was surprised I did that well in Quant. I feel that I have always had strong writing skills, so I plan to focus more of my studies in the Quant section than Verbal.

The programs I have been looking at have quoted around 600-700 as "typical" scores as far as admissions is concerned. With this in mind, how far do you think I can go from a 620, and in what time frame? I would like to take the exam sometime this summer, but I am undecided if I will try it at the end of July or the end of August (those are the two best testing dates for me in my area). So considering a one-month scale, can you give me a ballpark score estimate? ...and likewise if I decide on a two-month study period?

Thank you for reading and following along with me. I'm excited to see what the next few months have in store!

Welcome to BeattheGMAT, Dave, and to the GMAT world in general.

Reading your post, I came up with the following insights:

1) A 620 is a great starting point. Your verbal score is the main contributor here: A 37V is in the 87th percentile of the population, whereas a 39Q is only in the 55 percentile. Most test takers get a higher score in quantitative than in verbal (read "most test takers score lower on verbal than on quant).

2) The 100 point improvement you're looking for translates into ~10 point improvement in raw scores - +5 in each section should do the trick.
Quantitative: Brush up on the quantitative concepts involved so that you're able to tackle each question topic without any chinks in your armor. If you can do a 39 as a standing leap with no prep, you should be able to generate at least a 45 with proper prep. The more you score here, the less you need to advance in verbal to get the same score.

Verbal: A 37 with no prep tells me that you're a natural - your mind is (probably) wired to think in the same reasoning paths that this test uses (mostly in reading comprehension and critical reasoning). You can benefit from a workup of the grammar/style issues in sentence correction, but mostly I think you need to just practice as much as possible on official materials (Official Guide books, GMATPREPs) to learn the ins and outs and particular idiosyncrasies of this section.

3) 32 minutes and 16 minutes to spare are ALOT. I'm not a fan of trying to review the first simulation test - there are some questions that you still don't have the material and background at your fingertips to tackle, so there's not alot you can learn from them at this early stage - but I'm sure that if you were to review your mistakes, you'll find that a large number of them were careless errors due to not reading the question correctly, answering the wrong question, or not thinking it through all the way. This test punishes people who rush through it (especially on quant). This lesson will have to be relearned once you start working on sim tests towards your actual test date, but remember it until then: slow down, score more. The goal is to reach the last question with approximately two minutes to spare - no more, no less.

4) whether you need one month or two is really up to your availability during that month, and on your method of learning. Most of our students spend an average of 80-120 hours on the Master GMAT adaptive system, to which you need to tack on an extra 40-50 hours of doing and reviewing ~10 simulation tests. I believe that your verbal studies should take less time than they do for most people, so your estimate of the time needed is on the lower end of the scale. Having said that, a month isn't really that long a period of time. Some concepts, methods, etc. need time to sink in and become second nature, and rushing through your prep tends to generate suboptimal results. It's really up to you to decide, as you are aware of your schedule and limitations.

Day 5: Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
Sorry for the lack of updates! My summer class ended this past week, so now I will hopefully be able to put more time into my studies during the weekdays.

@Geva: Thanks huge for your response! I agree strongly with your thoughts about where I am and where I likely will need to focus, and I will certainly take your tips into consideration over the coming weeks!

Today, I took the Diagnostic Test in the OG12. I should note that I still have not started any formal studying/reviewing of the GMAT material, so the results of this test should still be considered very baseline figures. The results further confirmed my thoughts that Quant is where I need to do the most work. My numbers correct by section, as well as the result from the included Interpretive Guide, are as follows:

PS: 16/24 "Above Average" (range 16-18)
DS: 16/24 "Above Average" (range 16-18)
RC: 15/17 "Above Average" (range 14-15)
CR: 14/17 "Excellent" (range 14-17)
SC: 18/18 "Excellent" (range 16-18)

I found it interesting that I scored exactly the same in both Quant areas. Perhaps my preparation would have been easier if I had a more specific area that I needed to work on, but I don't think anybody would argue that Quant is what's holding me back currently.

As I said in my first post, I hope to find the time to work through the MGMAT series, as I have heard nothing but solid reviews about their program. The only drawback I have come across is the time factor; apparently it is very thorough and thus can take a while to complete. I am considering just going through the Quant sections in the MGMAT program and skipping their Verbal sections to save time. I will of course use the OG12 for practice problems in both Quant and Verbal, but it seems that I need some concept review in Quant, and I will use the MGMAT for that.

This just about wraps up my progress since my last post. Like I said, I hope to have more time available during the week now that my night class has ended, so I will try to pick up the pace and post more frequent status updates on here.

Thank you for reading, and I welcome your feedback!

Posting largely to keep up with this thread because I'm also better at verbal than quant...though your first diagnostic is higher than mine was (590, and later on I got a 640 on my first actual GMAT).

So good luck, I'm interested in seeing where you go from here!

Day 12: Saturday, July 9th, 2011
Hi again! How are you? Fantastic, I'm sure! Enough small talk, let's get on with the show!

I've made some more progress with the MGMAT set. Pro tip: If you're going to use the MGMAT set, you'd better make sure you have access to the OG12 as well. The MGMAT set has SOME practice questions, but it also refers you to customized lists of questions from the OG12 for more thorough review (it gives you a list of problem numbers based on what category of question it is), so it's unlikely that you will be able to get a good, solid review with just the MGMAT. With that said, my experience with the first book in the series has been positive so far. Some of the material seems extremely elementary, but I would certainly prefer that it cover all bases rather than assume too much knowledge of the reader.

As for errors I'm making during practice, I think the most common takeaway I'm getting is that I'm just making stupid mistakes from misreading the question or one of the answers. More than once I've found myself reading a "<" sign as "greater than" in easy questions. The question will ask for the order of a set of numbers, and I'll (erroneously) assume that they mean greatest to smallest. So I'll see an answer like 3<2<1 and read it as "3 is greater than 2 is greater than 1". I'm really starting to understand what many of you mean when you say the GMAT is intentionally out to trick you! READ THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS METICULOUSLY! The smallest details are the ones that will make you mark the wrong answer!

Other than that, I feel like I'm making very good progress in regards to reviewing material that I was rusty on. Unfortunately I'm still not completely done with the first book in the series (3 chapters left), but I should be able to easily finish that tomorrow and get moving on the second book.

In other news, I did a bunch more reading about the pros and cons of MAcc/MAC/MSA versus MBA, and based on my findings, I'm going the MAcc/MAC/MSA route. As an undergrad Accounting major, the Master's in Accounting programs will theoretically be more helpful in preparing for the CPA exam than an MBA program would be, and they also tend to be shorter overall than MBA programs (one year full time versus two years). Of course I'm not totally ruling out the MBA as a future venture, but as for my next step right now, MAcc appears to be my best bet.

Thank you for reading!

Day 34: Sunday, July 31st, 2011: 27 Days Out

Hah! Been a while since I've posted on here... So much for doing regular updates, eh?

Firstly, I scheduled my GMAT exam for Saturday, August 27th. I am up to book 4 in the MGMAT series, and still chugging along. I've hit some speedbumps along the way; the end of book 3 was a little messy. Looks like I'll have to spend some more time on VICs after I finish this first round. The rest of the material is going fairly smoothly though. I feel like I'm getting a pretty good review... many of the topics that I was rusty on quickly fell back together as I went through a few problems and followed the solutions.

Now that I have an official date set, I'm getting more anxious about it. I'm definitely getting eager to take the next GMATPrep practice exam because I want to get a gauge for the progress I've made so far. One thing I know I have been stressing about is how accurate my first GMATPrep score was. I keep having feelings that I may have gotten lucky on that exam and had an inflated score. After I finish this first run through the books I'll take the next practice test, and that will hopefully put me at ease.

You may be saying "wait a minute... you're already past the halfway point in time, but you're not quite halfway yet through the books?" You are correct! The reason that this is not a huge concern of mine is that I did a lot better in the verbal section than quant in my practice test, so I'm not expecting to put as much time into the last 3 books in the set. Of course I wish I was a little further along than I am, but I feel that I'm making good progress. After all, I don't want to finish too early and let my brain go soft between then and the time of my exam.

Summer is flying by! My fall semester starts on August 22nd, so by taking the GMAT the first weekend of the semester, I should still be at a low stress point as far as school is concerned.

That's all for now, folks! Enjoy the rest of your summer!!

Day 48: Sunday, August 14th, 2011: 13 Days Out

Hey all! Time is flying by, I can't believe I'm already under the two-week mark for the GMAT!

I finished book 5 of the MGMAT series yesterday, which concluded the Quant series of MGMAT. My fall classes begin on the 22nd, so I am going to quickly run short on time for studying. Seeing this time shortage, I am considering skipping the last 3 books of MGMAT (the Verbal books) so that I can do a couple quick cycles through the Quant material to make sure I'm fresh on that for the exam. Keep in mind that Verbal is my strong point; in all of my practice exams so far I have fared much better in Verbal than in Quant.

This brings me to my next point: I took the second GMATPrep exam today so I could see how things are going. Most of the way through I felt it was going well, up until about the midway point of the Verbal section (the last section of the exam). About that point, I began to find it very difficult to focus, and it seemed like the questions were requiring much more mental capacity than I could seem to muster. I think the problem here could have been my eating situation. I ate breakfast this morning around 9AM, and started the exam at about 10:30AM. Needless to say, I finished the exam around 2:30PM, having nothing to eat from start to finish. If the tank runs out of fuel, the car isn't going to make it very far. My scheduled GMAT exam is for 12:00 noon, so I will definitely make sure that I have some sort of lunch before the exam, and I will take a small food item with me to eat during a break.

As far as my senses during the exam, it felt pretty similar to the first GMATPrep I took. Throughout the Quant section I felt like the questions were fairly easy which concerned me, and throughout Verbal I felt that the questions were reasonably difficult. I became stressed towards the end of the Verbal section due to my loss of attention span and due moreso to my eagerness to see how I had progressed in Quant.

I improved my ability to gauge time and not rush through the exam. Unlike my first GMATPrep, this time I finished both the Quant and Verbal sections with only seconds to spare. I take this to indicate that I'm being more careful when reading questions and answers and making sure I understand what I'm being asked before selecting an answer.

Now for my score... drumroll please? After finishing Verbal, I eagerly clicked through the remaining screens to get to my score: 710! A very pleasant surprise! My individual scores were 47Q and 41V, a dual improvement from my first-time scores of 39Q and 37V. In Quant I had 12/37 incorrect and 8/41 incorrect in Verbal; down from 16/37 and 11/41, respectively.

Given my results on this second GMATPrep exam and my time left for studying, do you have any suggestions for how I can maintain my score over the next 2 weeks? Do you have any comments in regard to me skipping the Verbal books and cycling back through Quant instead? To review Quant I think I will go back through and do the "Challenge Short Set" from each of the 5 books and then look over the topics that I get wrong; do you think this would be a good use of my time?

Thank you all for reading, and thank you for all of your help in preparing for this exam!

Day 54: Saturday, August 20th, 2011: 7 Days Out

Finally down to the seven day mark! In exactly one week I'll be taking the GMAT exam. My fall classes start this week, so I will have to spend some time reviewing material for those, which will give me a little bit of a breather on GMAT material, leading up to the exam.

Based on the MGMAT Challenge Short Sets, the two Quant areas I needed to review were Word Translations and Geometry. I suspect that these are common weak areas among GMAT takers, since these topics come off as more advanced than Number Properties, Fractions, and/or Equations. I skimmed back through those two books this past week and reviewed some of the topics I knew I was struggling with.

Combinatorics is one area I seriously struggle to grasp. This was never covered in my math classes at school, so I have had to start from the ground up in trying to pick up this topic. It has been a big source of frustration for me, because the problems depend heavily on interpretation, and for some reason I have trouble determining the difference between permutations and combinations. I understand the difference between the two in a general sense, but when you give me a problem where you have to determine whether it's one or the other or a combination of both, I get confused really easily.

After finishing that review last night, I reset my GMATPrep Practice Test 1 exam this morning and took it again, in hopes of solidifying my expectations in score range. This time I scored a 720: 48Q 40V, with 10/37 Quant incorrect, and 9/41 Verbal incorrect. There were definitely some repeated questions in both sections from the first time I took the exam, but since I first took it almost 2 months ago, I really felt blank going into those repeated questions. I don't believe that they would have skewed my score by a large proportion; I certainly didn't have any of the answers memorized.

Considering my base score of 620, last week's score of 710, and today's score of 720, what do you think is a reasonable score range for me on the GMAT? I remember reading somewhere that +/-30pts is a fair assumption going from GMATPrep to the real GMAT... do you agree with this?

Do you have any tips for me, going into my last week before the exam? I know I should really take it easy for a couple days before the exam so that I'm not burned out going into it, but is there anything else? Are there any short reviews you think I should look over this week, just to keep things fresh?

Thank you for following me to this point! In case I don't get a chance to post another update before next Saturday, wish me luck on the GMAT, and I'll definitely report back here right afterwards to let you know how it went!

Hey,

All the very best.. it has been a pleasure following your journey!!
Hope you do great!!
And plz get back to us after your GMAT.. would really like to kno how it ends.. your story that is!!

Cheers!!

Hi

Well the improvemnt can be seen....Well you did not mention your MGMAT scores.....Anh How about studying MGMAT SC .Presently i am reading it.. nice book

@akhilsuhag: Thank you! I'll definitely report back here after the exam!

@prateek_guy2004: Thank you for your response! I agree I'm definitely feeling much better than I did when I started. For the most part I was just out of practice with the material, so I needed some refresher to stir up my brain and bring those old skills back into useable territory.

I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow these study materials, but the obvious downside to that is I did not have access to the practice tests. So that is the reason I didn't report any MGMAT scores lol.

As far as the verbal sections go, I think SC would be the least of my concerns anyway. One thing I did not mention earlier is that I used to work as a writing tutor, so I'm quite familiar with grammatical rules, and I have a definite knack for being able to "hear" when a sentence just doesn't flow correctly. With that said, perhaps I will spend some time this week doing quick review of Verbal, just to see if I can squeeze another point or two into my verbal score.

Thanks all for your support!

dmf5238 wrote:@akhilsuhag: Thank you! I'll definitely report back here after the exam!

@prateek_guy2004: Thank you for your response! I agree I'm definitely feeling much better than I did when I started. For the most part I was just out of practice with the material, so I needed some refresher to stir up my brain and bring those old skills back into useable territory.

I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow these study materials, but the obvious downside to that is I did not have access to the practice tests. So that is the reason I didn't report any MGMAT scores lol.

As far as the verbal sections go, I think SC would be the least of my concerns anyway. One thing I did not mention earlier is that I used to work as a writing tutor, so I'm quite familiar with grammatical rules, and I have a definite knack for being able to "hear" when a sentence just doesn't flow correctly. With that said, perhaps I will spend some time this week doing quick review of Verbal, just to see if I can squeeze another point or two into my verbal score.

Thanks all for your support!

No wonder your scores are touching sky....Good work keep it up...let me know whats with the actual exam.

Chaw

Day 60: Friday, August 26th, 2011: 24 Hours Out

In exactly 24 hours I will be sitting down, getting ready to start the GMAT!

Monday through Wednesday of this week I did some very light reviewing of the Word Translations and Geometry books, I did a quick skim of the Verbal books, and I also looked at a template for the AWA essays. I plan to mostly relax tonight and leave about an hour before the exam tomorrow so I'll have plenty of time to get to the testing center and get situated.

I am feeling optimistic about it; I would be quite excited to break 700, but the minimum score I really hope to achieve is 650.

Before going into the exam, I just wanted to post one more thank you note to express my gratitude to the owners of the forum, to the experts who share their advice here, and to the supportive community that all of you have helped to create. Thank you!

Wish me luck, keep your fingers crossed for me, and I will post again tomorrow with how it turned out!

Thanks again!
Dave

All the very best!!
Relax you will easily break the 700 barrier!!
Just don't worry too much about it. Eagerly awaiting your result!!