GMAT Strategy

Hi, my name is Sonny, I'm a Marine Officer and a 2009 alumnus of the University of Illinois. I've been trolling this forum and receiving the emails for a while now, and a common theme I've noticed was that "just take one of two CATs, especially ones from GMATPrep to see where you're at, but don't bother taking CATs over and over again".

Here I would like to respectfully beg to differ. I've taken approximately 8-10 CATs now, and each time after I take one, I would go back and review the questions I struggled with and read the explanation until I understand what I did wrong.

It's trial and error, and sheer determination. It's like running the Iso over and over again for 4 yards at a time, you're eventually bound to reach the endzone.

The first timed CAT I ever took was the one that came with Peterson's GMAT book. I scored a 610, which was very demoralizing to me. However, I went online and did some research, and the consensus seems to be that the scoring algorithm and the accuracy of the question type may be of dubious quality in Petersons' product, so I switched over to doing the Manhattan GMAT CATs.

I haven't taken the real GMAT yet, because I want this to be a 1 shot, 1 kill deal. I don't have an endless supply of $250 to pour down the drain, but the following are my results in chronological order:

Petersons': 610 (sorry, can't find my scores)
MGMAT1: 43Q 35V, 640
MGMAT2: 43Q 36V, 650
MGMAT3: 48Q 34V, 680
GMATPrep: 680 (forgot the Q and V subscores, it's on my government computer at work)
MGMAT4: 45Q 39V, 690
MGMAT5: 47Q 35V, 680
MGMAT6: 45Q 41V, 710 (finally broke the 700 barrier)

And the coup de grace:

GMATPrep2: 48Q 42V, 730

Of course, I didn't reply solely on the CATs and reviewing wrong questions. I used MGMAT's sentence correction strategy guide to address my critical vulnerability in sentence correction (as evidenced by my extremely weak initial verbal score gradually improving to the 95th percentile of 42), I have also completed about 8-10 GMAT Prep workbooks from various companies, but as of a month ago, my modus operandi has been taking CATs and addressing questions I don't understand, especially from the quantitative section.

The added dimension of timed stress, and the reward of being able to see how I did at the end provides the double benefit of simulating actual test conditions and the incentive to work through 37 Q and 41 V problems in one sitting instead of doing them piecemeal from a book and being distracted or getting lazy. If you take a CAT, you're guaranteed to invest 3 hours in "studying". It's a good way to force yourself.

Lastly, one thing I've noticed from workbooks is that only a small part of it is usable to me (the part with the most difficult questions), so it's kind of a waste of money when I'm only going to use 25% of the book. If you study with a CAT, they'll be spitting their toughest questions at you as soon as you start getting a few right.

Anyway, I hope this helps!

Very Respectfully,

Sonny

Well,

Took the 800score CATs, don't know how accurate they are...but:

800score CAT1: 720 (47Q, 41V)
800score CAT2: N/A (43Q, got discouraged due to struggling on the quant section and quit...I know, bad)
800score CAT3: 770 (50Q, 46V)

GMATPrep1 (Retake, last took it about 6 weeks or so ago, actually only saw 4-5 questions that I recognize): 770 (50Q, 46V)

I think I'm ready for gameday. I've been blowing off the AWAs, but I might start focusing on those.

If I have a good day, I should do well. I've been working way too hard to blow this.

Game day is 11/04/2011.

I'll be deploying to Afghanistan in 02/2012, so if I don't like what I scored, I'll probably retake it before then.

Hey Sonny,

Great stuff here, and I apologize that no one has responded! With the service you're providing both our country and this community someone should at least chime in to say thank you! (I also love the sports analogies and the "one shot, one kill" mentality that has to come straight out of basic training).

Just a couple things to add here to justify the word "expert" in my profile to the left:

-I love that you mentioned that after your tests you go back to analyze them. My fear with the "take lots of CATs" mentality is that people think that you improve simply by "doing" the tests, when a huge component (and probably the far-bigger component) of your improvement is that hindsight analysis. What did you do wrong? How did you pace yourself? Which questions gave you the most trouble? Etc.

-It looks like you're pretty good at this stuff given your scores; one thing I'd add for the masses is that most of us will likely find some patterns of mistakes/weaknesses whether it's conceptual (e.g. Algebra) or based on question type (e.g. Critical Reasoning). When you identify those areas, the ROI comes from digging back into specific study materials for those items so that you use the CATs for progress checks (not just score but feel/timing/etc.), more diagnosis, timed/stamina practice, etc.

-In your specific case, I'd definitely recommend doing at least 1-2 practice tests with the essays just so that you know how well you can stay focused when the test is 3:30 and not just 2:30. My guess is that you'll be fine but that extra hour does affect people.

Thanks for the valuable advice to everyone and congratulations on your improvement and current performance level! Keep us all posted...

Thanks Brian!

I did find that I struggled greatly with combinatorics. I'll be reviewing the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) videos again, but the GMAT phrases combinatorics questions in a way that is exceptionally challenging.

I actually met up with a tutor at Panera Bread, only to find that the questions that I presented her were just as difficult for her as they were for me. So really, she had to look at the answer explanation each and every time as well. Didn't help much.

Another thing I struggled with is the combination of multiple variables and absolute values in Data Sufficiency.

I feel that if I can survive the quantitative section (survive being the key word...since it seems like I never know if I will be getting a challenging set of quant questions that absolutely stump me, which will result in a 43-45 sub score, or I'll breeze right through them as I have on several CATs, resulting in a 47-50 score), then I should be able to do fairly well. Verbal is challenging but it doesn't make me nervous, because I usually finish with 20+ minutes to spare as opposed to the constant, stressful time crunch of quant.

Well, game day is in 18 days. I've been preparing for months and months and months for this. My advice to everyone is this:

Don't settle for second best.

Practice, practice, and practice again. I told people when I first started that I wasn't going to take the GMAT until I did 10+ books. I did 8 books, then running out of challenging material, I switched over to CATs, but the result is the same. $250 doesn't grow on trees, and Wharton, Darden, and Columbia don't need to see a subpar score on my transcript and give them a reason to believe that my subsequent better score was a fluke.

In the Marines, we have a philosophy called: "the more you train in peace, the less you bleed in war", and studying for the GMAT is the same concept. Since business school admissions officers place such a heavy weight on GMAT scores, this is the one opportunity for us average folk to compete with the best and the brightest for a spot in the elite institutions of the world by sheer determination alone.

Don't quit. I will persist until I succeed.

Very Respectfully,

Sonny