I just Beat The GMAT!

Q 49 (89%)
V 40 (89%)
O 730 (96%)

Feels like a burden has just been lifted off of my shoulders.

Will post a a debrief soon.

congrats, thats a great score

Congrats Jennifer, am happy for you ..

Congrats Jennifer, am happy for you ..

My name isn't Jennifer. Where did u get that from? I'm a guy.

Here's my debrief.

Got a respectable 680 the first time but I was still disappointed because I didn't reach my goal of 700+. So I planned on taking the GMAT again.

The essays were easy. Just memorize an essay format and plug the information from the passage into the essay. Being mathematically inclined I despise (for lack of an even worse word) writing essays. For those of you that share a similar view, this method works wonders. I can’t stress it enough. With this method you’ll be amazed at how organized your essays become.

10 minute break. I was too anxious to spend the whole ten minutes and decided to tackle the quantitative section after about five minutes.

I've read in numerous places that it isn't true that the first ten questions in each section isn't essential; ‘it's better to pace yourself and not spend too much time on a question’ blah, blah Yeah, I know. I've tried to keep this in mind and not fall into this trap. This is difficult to overcome, especially when the PowerPrep and GMAT Prep practice exams indicate otherwise. Subsequently, I fell back into that trap.

I think it was the 8th or 9th question where I was just perplexed for what felt like an eternity. I was determined to answer that question and when I finally did, the timer read 55 minutes left. If this was verbal I would have been worried but being from an engineering background, I've learned many shortcuts when solving math problems that would significantly shorten the problem solving times. And those shortcuts have. Fortunately I've managed to catch up with time.

Overall, the math section wasn’t difficult at all. I knew that if I just avoided making careless mistakes I could get a 49 (worse case scenario would be a 47). I knew I could break the ‘40’ mark on the verbal section, but only on a good day.

The mistake that I made during the first GMAT attempt was that I was too nervous. I panicked. The simplest of questions would take me the full 2 minutes to answer, leaving me with no 'reserve' time for the more difficult questions. My methods for overcoming this problem was to stop for a few seconds and take a few deep breaths. Keep your cool.

SC is the easiest section to improve upon. The Manhattan GMAT sentence correction book is gospel. If you find yourself lacking in this regard, then I strongly advise you to get this book.

The other problem that I realized during the first attempt at the GMAT was that as I read the CR and RC passages, none of the information from the passages would process in my head and when I got to a question I found myself rereading the passage. This escalated my nervousness due to more time spent on each question, and thus tighter time constraints. To overcome this I decided to read the passage slowly , making sure to take in all the information. If I found my mind drifting I'd read that sentence again. Although this method may seem time consuming, it really isn't; what may seem like an eternity during an exam is probably 20-30 extra seconds. And that lost time can be more than recouped when answering SC questions. I found myself answering a few SC questions in ~30 seconds. How do I know this you ask? There was an overhead clock above my computer.

What surprised me was that I was pretty calm throughout the whole exam in comparison to the first time I took the GMAT. This quickly changed once I answered the final verbal question. I answered the questionnaire and then this question came up.

‘Do you want to report your scores?’

There was no way in hell that I was going to select ‘cancel’. I had nothing to lose because I didn't send the score to any schools. I wanted to see it first. I hit the next button and the pointer became an hourglass. I knew that the computer was calculating my score then and there. 20-30 seconds seemed like an eternity. My heart began beating faster. Soon it felt like it was jumping out of my chest. I knew I did better than last time but how much better? I started to fear that I would not meet my goal and have to crack those GMAT books open again. I dreaded that thought; my life was literally on hold studying for this exam. After so much studying I felt that even a 700 would have been disappointing; I wanted a 720. I couldn't bear the pressure and just closed my eyes until I was absolutely sure that my score was on the screen.

Then I opened my eyes and saw it:

Q49 (89%), V40 (89%), O 730, (96%)

I pumped my fist so hard. For a few seconds I was ecstatic. Then I fell back into my seat, slouching. It’s over…The feeling was a combination of happiness, exhaustion and relief: Happy to surpass the score that I wanted, exhausted from the exam and the many hours of studying, and relieved to finally be finished with this exam.

Also I have to give thanks to this website. Without it I don't know where I'd be (probable still studing). The resources here are just as good as those prep courses, but free!

Eric, you're the man!

congrats jrbrown2, great score , good luck for you apps.
I was motivated reading you mail for the simple reason that there were too many co-incidences. I too scored a 680 in my first attempt, I am planning to take the test again and would like to have a 720+ score. During the exam I faced the same issues as you did, got nervous and blanked out during my first few math questions. Recouped slowly though to score 49!. My verbal was abysmal at 34, pisses me off. I am facing the same issues as you did in RC and CR, lack of concentration and inability to grasp things in the first attempt.My life is also on hold until I get a good score, looks like it will be the case until then.

Can you let me know who did you approach your ACT II. How did you identify your weaknesses, what steps did you take to plug the gaps. I basically lack in verbal skills but there is no particular section I can point to as bad. One section (say CR) I would have performed badly on one test day, in the same section (say CR) I would have done well on another test day.

It was great to read your post

First here are my resources:
Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT (Good for introducing the GMAT)
GMAT Official Guide 11th Ed. (A must have)
Manhattan GMAT Series (Although I've only used the SC book)

1000 SC/CR/RC (IMO, Pretty good reflection of actual GMAT questions)
Quant Practice Problems (IMO, Pretty good reflection of actual GMAT questions)
Forums

Disclaimer: The methods employed are all individual-specific. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa. So take it in with a pinch of salt and as a guideline, not as a bible. You might have to customize the methods for yourself. I think this is true for almost all the posted debriefings.


Well I pretty much exhausted my supply of PowerPrep and Gmat Prep practice exams during the first attempt at the GMAT. Some people are able to forget the questions and retake those exams without any problem. My situation is very different. After one attempt and review I remembered almost every question and answer. To put it into perspective, I retook a practice exam, finished it in ~1 hour and scored a 760. It was pointless to even take these practice exams again. I didn't want to take any more MGMAT exams because their questions weren't a true reflection of the questions I'd see on the actual GMAT. So I had to improvise.

Being that I worked, I had to steal some time here and there to do some practice questions. At first I'd do 20 questions of CR or SC from the 1000 sets or do a passage of RC. Some days I'd do a section of DS or PS - all without time constraints; I'd record the start and end times though and then calculate my average time per question. After doing some questions I'd check my answers, but I wouldn't concentrate on the correct answer, instead I'd just concentrate on whether I got the answer correct or not. Otherwise I'd remember the correct answer when reviewing and become biased to that answer choice. I then redid the questions that I either got wrong or wasn't sure of. This method has the advantage of pounding techniques in your head that you otherwise would not have known before.

After I built up my confidence to the point where my hit rate was consistently 90-95% in each section, I'd practice a combination of quant questions or verbal questions a day to better gage how I'd function with changing question types. I'd alternate between 5 DS and 5 PS questions without any breaks in between. I'd do 45 of these questions.

On the verbal side I'd answer a combination of 15 CR, 15 SC and 2 RC passages, for a total of 45 questions. After consistently achieving a hit rate of 90-95% I felt that there was no other way to possible prepare for this exam. It was time to retake the GMAT.


P.S. Answering questions posted by other members is also a great way to study. Sometimes one's methods may be correct but someone elses might be faster. I learned this after posting solutions to the Manhattan Gmat challenge problems on this forum.

jrbrown2 wrote:

Congrats Jennifer, am happy for you ..

My name isn't Jennifer. Where did u get that from? I'm a guy.

Oh brother!! ... I guess I have lost it .. I have been studying for about 9 to 10 hrs a day for the past few days and that has clearly started affecting me ... I am really really sorry about this .. good thing you have added your name to your sig. , I vote that this should be made a standing rule on BTG ..

Good luck with your apps--looks like we'll be seeing you around the Stacy Blackman area soon.

No time soon. More like 4-5 years. I still have to build up the work experience. I've just finished undergrad and have been working for about 4 months. I decided to take the GMAT early (while my brain was still in 'student mode') since the scores were good for 5 years. I know that if I were to wait until I started applying I wouldn't have gotten as high a score as I did.

How did you identify your weaknesses, what steps did you take to plug the gaps. I basically lack in verbal skills but there is no particular section I can point to as bad. One section (say CR) I would have performed badly on one test day, in the same section (say CR) I would have done well on another test day.

I created an excel file that calculated my hit rates for quant and verbal and the hit rate for each question type. I also created a chart which shows me the questions that I got wrong/right.

Great Debriefing Jay !!! I just started gathering information for GMAT and your thread came as a great motivator.