I just Beat The GMAT!

Super long, rambling post: apologies!

I'm abysmal at maths. I have trouble multiplying decimals quickly, and I was amazed to discover (yes, 'discover'!) that 1/5 equals 0.2. I have friends who are true maths geniuses, and all the Econ majors had no trouble with GMAT quant. I'm an Int'l Rels major -___-;;

I took the GMAT 3 times, the 3rd time this morning. It has been an annoying, stressful path, but I hope this post along with all the other Beat the GMAT posts will encourage people to not give up.

I bought the entire Manhattan GMAT set in 2010, along with the OG 12th Ed./OG Verbal+Quant books. I had a full-time job, and studied extremely sporadically on the weekends. I didn't book a test date, and instead chose to draaaaag out the torment. Unless you're super motivated and disciplined, 'studying' for for 2 years basically turns into a couple of Saturday mornings.

I quit my job of 5 years in Nov 2011. I was feeling the inertia, the comfort of the status quo was getting dangerous, and I was also not happy with some of the arrangements in my position. I was kept pretty busy at work, and I knew that I did not have the discipline to study and work. I finally registered for the test, 8 Dec.

In Nov, I also purchased the Veritas books/online course. I tried to mix the Manhattan/Veritas strategies and tailor them to my abilities. eg. I thought the Manhattan start for RC questions, basically writing out a skeleton of the passage, took up way too much time. So I was supposed to study 'full-time' during Nov, but of course it wasn't as dedicated as it should have been. I also did NO practice tests. I think I was afraid of what score I might get. Readers: this is a mark of stupidity of the highest order.

8 Dec 11: First try - 640: Q38, V40, AWA 6.0

I was disappointed I didn't break the fabled 700 ceiling, but seriously, what did I expect? I registered for a second test date, 14 Feb (yup, for real).

Christmas and Chinese New Year certainly ate into my time. Of course I could have holed myself up away from the celebrations to study, but I didn't. I did do practice tests though, fervently.

3 Jan: Veritas #1: 690, Q42, V46
10 Jan: GMAT Prep/GMAC #1: 700, Q46, V40
18 Jan: Veritas #2: 630, Q41, V37
28 Jan: Veritas #3: 640, Q38, V43
29 Jan: Veritas #4: 650, Q44, V39
30 Jan: GMAT Prep/GMAC #2: 730, Q47, V44
31 Jan: Veritas #5: 700, Q42, V46
1 Feb: Veritas #6: 650, Q43, V39
2 Feb: Veritas #7: 680, Q48, V39
7 Feb: Veritas #8: 590, Q40, V30
8 Feb: Veritas #9: 690, Q48, V41
9 Feb: Veritas #10: 580, Q44, V24
10 Feb: 800score: 730, Q41, V49
11 Feb: 800score: 720, Q41, V46

It probably wasn't the best idea to do practice tests in consecutive days, but by then I just wanted to pound them all out. I found the quant in the Veritas tests a bit too easy vs the real test. The verbal in the Veritas tests was also kind of odd, especially the RC questions (and the passages seemed too easy). 800score was just weird, the verbal didn't seem that easy when doing it, but the score sure is warped. The 800score quant was also weirdly constructed, not real test -style.

14 Feb 12: 2nd try - 600: Q36, V35, AWA 5.5

I was so much more nervous on my second try. I think the whole 'stakes are raised' feeling skyrocketed out of control. I didn't sleep till 3am on the day of the test.

By now, I was going crazy. I didn't want to be the 65 year old rocking away in the rocking chair with old GMAT prep books gathering mold in the attic. I decided to take a week's break, visit friends, get out of my house. I registered for a third try: 22 March.

In between Feb and March: I gave up on Veritas and Manhattan. I purchased GMATPill, the videos were helpful, but I think I was expecting a magic bullet (probably due to advertising, hmm). I think GMATPill does SC best. I certainly liked the guy's point that knowing what 'past participle'/etc/etc meant was not super necessary.

I also reviewed the questions for Magoosh. This time I focused on Magoosh/Official Guide material, and did questions two or three times each. I think this helped. I didn't believe it when I first read about it, as I thought, if you've already done the question once before, you're bound to get it right. Right? But by re-doing the same questions, I picked up on a number of my weak spots, and the weird quant questions started getting a bit clearer. Especially the 'sum of x consecutive integers is y, if y is 50 and the first term is z' type questions.

I also read something on not freaking out over combinatorics and probability, and to really know number properties.

My mood was going up and down, and I must've been a pain to talk to (whinge whinge whinge).

I haven't slept well all this week, not nodding off until 2am-3am. Even the night before the test, I didn't fall asleep until 3am. And it wasn't so much that I was super freaking out, I felt kind of blank and resigned to my fate.

Test day: 22 March 12

My exam was at 9am. I got there around 8.20am, and there were already around 7 people ahead of me in the line. I was still feeling blank.

The essays were fine (I've never had much trouble with the AWA). Then I started the quant, it was going OK until Q5, when I started blanking out on a question. I ended up guessing a couple (too many, I thought) of questions, and I thought I blew it on time management as the test ended before I could hit 'confirm' for the last question. Well, there goes that, I thought. The questions felt tricker than the Official Guide ones, demanding more convoluted calculations, but maybe I just missed something.

Verbal. I got like 3 scientific RC passages. I'm usually OK with RC, but I was getting tired. SC seemed OK, about the same level of difficulty to slightly easier than the OG. I got like 8 CR questions in a row, some obscene amount. I wondered whether that was a sign I was doing well? No idea.

I had to guess the last 3-4 verbal questions in my 14 Feb test, because I was so short on time. I'm usually never short on time in verbal (never in the practice tests). This time, I had around 5 minutes for the last question, an SC question.

I thought I was screwed on the quant, since my last question might've counted as a blank. I sat there mindlessly clicking through the screens. I wondered what would happen if I got a 500-something. My parents were already in the 'don't worry, some people do fine in their careers without MBA degrees' routine, which I saw as them resigning themselves to the fact that their kid is a moron.

When the 710 popped up, I kept rubbing my eyes because I was so scared the 7 was actually a 5. I stopped breathing for a few seconds. I contained myself and quickly left. I have no idea why my quant is higher than the verbal.

Anyways, to those who are studying, keep going! Yes, three times doesn't look as elegant as getting what you want in one go, but if you don't try, you seriously will never know. Do practice tests, keep your spirits up, don't whine and whinge because it'll only make you more depressed!

Fantastic debrief ab1881, Very inspiring. And certainly you have beaten the verbal part in bang bang manner.
Again Congo on your awesome score. Can you please share some of your verbal prep strategy as in my Last attempt of GMAT I score 640 Q49 and V27

ab1881 wrote:Super long, rambling post: apologies!

I'm abysmal at maths. I have trouble multiplying decimals quickly, and I was amazed to discover (yes, 'discover'!) that 1/5 equals 0.2. I have friends who are true maths geniuses, and all the Econ majors had no trouble with GMAT quant. I'm an Int'l Rels major -___-;;

I took the GMAT 3 times, the 3rd time this morning. It has been an annoying, stressful path, but I hope this post along with all the other Beat the GMAT posts will encourage people to not give up.

I bought the entire Manhattan GMAT set in 2010, along with the OG 12th Ed./OG Verbal+Quant books. I had a full-time job, and studied extremely sporadically on the weekends. I didn't book a test date, and instead chose to draaaaag out the torment. Unless you're super motivated and disciplined, 'studying' for for 2 years basically turns into a couple of Saturday mornings.

I quit my job of 5 years in Nov 2011. I was feeling the inertia, the comfort of the status quo was getting dangerous, and I was also not happy with some of the arrangements in my position. I was kept pretty busy at work, and I knew that I did not have the discipline to study and work. I finally registered for the test, 8 Dec.

In Nov, I also purchased the Veritas books/online course. I tried to mix the Manhattan/Veritas strategies and tailor them to my abilities. eg. I thought the Manhattan start for RC questions, basically writing out a skeleton of the passage, took up way too much time. So I was supposed to study 'full-time' during Nov, but of course it wasn't as dedicated as it should have been. I also did NO practice tests. I think I was afraid of what score I might get. Readers: this is a mark of stupidity of the highest order.

8 Dec 11: First try - 640: Q38, V40, AWA 6.0

I was disappointed I didn't break the fabled 700 ceiling, but seriously, what did I expect? I registered for a second test date, 14 Feb (yup, for real).

Christmas and Chinese New Year certainly ate into my time. Of course I could have holed myself up away from the celebrations to study, but I didn't. I did do practice tests though, fervently.

3 Jan: Veritas #1: 690, Q42, V46
10 Jan: GMAT Prep/GMAC #1: 700, Q46, V40
18 Jan: Veritas #2: 630, Q41, V37
28 Jan: Veritas #3: 640, Q38, V43
29 Jan: Veritas #4: 650, Q44, V39
30 Jan: GMAT Prep/GMAC #2: 730, Q47, V44
31 Jan: Veritas #5: 700, Q42, V46
1 Feb: Veritas #6: 650, Q43, V39
2 Feb: Veritas #7: 680, Q48, V39
7 Feb: Veritas #8: 590, Q40, V30
8 Feb: Veritas #9: 690, Q48, V41
9 Feb: Veritas #10: 580, Q44, V24
10 Feb: 800score: 730, Q41, V49
11 Feb: 800score: 720, Q41, V46

It probably wasn't the best idea to do practice tests in consecutive days, but by then I just wanted to pound them all out. I found the quant in the Veritas tests a bit too easy vs the real test. The verbal in the Veritas tests was also kind of odd, especially the RC questions (and the passages seemed too easy). 800score was just weird, the verbal didn't seem that easy when doing it, but the score sure is warped. The 800score quant was also weirdly constructed, not real test -style.

14 Feb 12: 2nd try - 600: Q36, V35, AWA 5.5

I was so much more nervous on my second try. I think the whole 'stakes are raised' feeling skyrocketed out of control. I didn't sleep till 3am on the day of the test.

By now, I was going crazy. I didn't want to be the 65 year old rocking away in the rocking chair with old GMAT prep books gathering mold in the attic. I decided to take a week's break, visit friends, get out of my house. I registered for a third try: 22 March.

In between Feb and March: I gave up on Veritas and Manhattan. I purchased GMATPill, the videos were helpful, but I think I was expecting a magic bullet (probably due to advertising, hmm). I think GMATPill does SC best. I certainly liked the guy's point that knowing what 'past participle'/etc/etc meant was not super necessary.

I also reviewed the questions for Magoosh. This time I focused on Magoosh/Official Guide material, and did questions two or three times each. I think this helped. I didn't believe it when I first read about it, as I thought, if you've already done the question once before, you're bound to get it right. Right? But by re-doing the same questions, I picked up on a number of my weak spots, and the weird quant questions started getting a bit clearer. Especially the 'sum of x consecutive integers is y, if y is 50 and the first term is z' type questions.

I also read something on not freaking out over combinatorics and probability, and to really know number properties.

My mood was going up and down, and I must've been a pain to talk to (whinge whinge whinge).

I haven't slept well all this week, not nodding off until 2am-3am. Even the night before the test, I didn't fall asleep until 3am. And it wasn't so much that I was super freaking out, I felt kind of blank and resigned to my fate.

Test day: 22 March 12

My exam was at 9am. I got there around 8.20am, and there were already around 7 people ahead of me in the line. I was still feeling blank.

The essays were fine (I've never had much trouble with the AWA). Then I started the quant, it was going OK until Q5, when I started blanking out on a question. I ended up guessing a couple (too many, I thought) of questions, and I thought I blew it on time management as the test ended before I could hit 'confirm' for the last question. Well, there goes that, I thought. The questions felt tricker than the Official Guide ones, demanding more convoluted calculations, but maybe I just missed something.

Verbal. I got like 3 scientific RC passages. I'm usually OK with RC, but I was getting tired. SC seemed OK, about the same level of difficulty to slightly easier than the OG. I got like 8 CR questions in a row, some obscene amount. I wondered whether that was a sign I was doing well? No idea.

I had to guess the last 3-4 verbal questions in my 14 Feb test, because I was so short on time. I'm usually never short on time in verbal (never in the practice tests). This time, I had around 5 minutes for the last question, an SC question.

I thought I was screwed on the quant, since my last question might've counted as a blank. I sat there mindlessly clicking through the screens. I wondered what would happen if I got a 500-something. My parents were already in the 'don't worry, some people do fine in their careers without MBA degrees' routine, which I saw as them resigning themselves to the fact that their kid is a moron.

When the 710 popped up, I kept rubbing my eyes because I was so scared the 7 was actually a 5. I stopped breathing for a few seconds. I contained myself and quickly left. I have no idea why my quant is higher than the verbal.

Anyways, to those who are studying, keep going! Yes, three times doesn't look as elegant as getting what you want in one go, but if you don't try, you seriously will never know. Do practice tests, keep your spirits up, don't whine and whinge because it'll only make you more depressed!

Congrats, ab1881! That's a great score and super inspirational debrief!

ab1881...great score and inspiring debrief. I ordered books on Amazon and will be retaking for the third time. ope to ace it like you did mate. thats great!

I ordered the manhattan set of 8, powerscore CR bible, and the three OGs from the US. Am a Zimbabwean. Would you recommend starting with any particular text. Look forward to starting with quant like our fellaz on our beloved forum recommend.

Congrats ab1881...great score and nice debrief.

Congrats on the great score, I will be taking my GMAT for a 3rd time next month so this really helps motivate me to push harder! Good luck with applications!

Inspiring Story !!

ab1881 wrote:Super long, rambling post: apologies!

I'm abysmal at maths. I have trouble multiplying decimals quickly, and I was amazed to discover (yes, 'discover'!) that 1/5 equals 0.2. I have friends who are true maths geniuses, and all the Econ majors had no trouble with GMAT quant. I'm an Int'l Rels major -___-;;

I took the GMAT 3 times, the 3rd time this morning. It has been an annoying, stressful path, but I hope this post along with all the other Beat the GMAT posts will encourage people to not give up.

I bought the entire Manhattan GMAT set in 2010, along with the OG 12th Ed./OG Verbal+Quant books. I had a full-time job, and studied extremely sporadically on the weekends. I didn't book a test date, and instead chose to draaaaag out the torment. Unless you're super motivated and disciplined, 'studying' for for 2 years basically turns into a couple of Saturday mornings.

I quit my job of 5 years in Nov 2011. I was feeling the inertia, the comfort of the status quo was getting dangerous, and I was also not happy with some of the arrangements in my position. I was kept pretty busy at work, and I knew that I did not have the discipline to study and work. I finally registered for the test, 8 Dec.

In Nov, I also purchased the Veritas books/online course. I tried to mix the Manhattan/Veritas strategies and tailor them to my abilities. eg. I thought the Manhattan start for RC questions, basically writing out a skeleton of the passage, took up way too much time. So I was supposed to study 'full-time' during Nov, but of course it wasn't as dedicated as it should have been. I also did NO practice tests. I think I was afraid of what score I might get. Readers: this is a mark of stupidity of the highest order.

8 Dec 11: First try - 640: Q38, V40, AWA 6.0

I was disappointed I didn't break the fabled 700 ceiling, but seriously, what did I expect? I registered for a second test date, 14 Feb (yup, for real).

Christmas and Chinese New Year certainly ate into my time. Of course I could have holed myself up away from the celebrations to study, but I didn't. I did do practice tests though, fervently.

3 Jan: Veritas #1: 690, Q42, V46
10 Jan: GMAT Prep/GMAC #1: 700, Q46, V40
18 Jan: Veritas #2: 630, Q41, V37
28 Jan: Veritas #3: 640, Q38, V43
29 Jan: Veritas #4: 650, Q44, V39
30 Jan: GMAT Prep/GMAC #2: 730, Q47, V44
31 Jan: Veritas #5: 700, Q42, V46
1 Feb: Veritas #6: 650, Q43, V39
2 Feb: Veritas #7: 680, Q48, V39
7 Feb: Veritas #8: 590, Q40, V30
8 Feb: Veritas #9: 690, Q48, V41
9 Feb: Veritas #10: 580, Q44, V24
10 Feb: 800score: 730, Q41, V49
11 Feb: 800score: 720, Q41, V46

It probably wasn't the best idea to do practice tests in consecutive days, but by then I just wanted to pound them all out. I found the quant in the Veritas tests a bit too easy vs the real test. The verbal in the Veritas tests was also kind of odd, especially the RC questions (and the passages seemed too easy). 800score was just weird, the verbal didn't seem that easy when doing it, but the score sure is warped. The 800score quant was also weirdly constructed, not real test -style.

14 Feb 12: 2nd try - 600: Q36, V35, AWA 5.5

I was so much more nervous on my second try. I think the whole 'stakes are raised' feeling skyrocketed out of control. I didn't sleep till 3am on the day of the test.

By now, I was going crazy. I didn't want to be the 65 year old rocking away in the rocking chair with old GMAT prep books gathering mold in the attic. I decided to take a week's break, visit friends, get out of my house. I registered for a third try: 22 March.

In between Feb and March: I gave up on Veritas and Manhattan. I purchased GMATPill, the videos were helpful, but I think I was expecting a magic bullet (probably due to advertising, hmm). I think GMATPill does SC best. I certainly liked the guy's point that knowing what 'past participle'/etc/etc meant was not super necessary.

I also reviewed the questions for Magoosh. This time I focused on Magoosh/Official Guide material, and did questions two or three times each. I think this helped. I didn't believe it when I first read about it, as I thought, if you've already done the question once before, you're bound to get it right. Right? But by re-doing the same questions, I picked up on a number of my weak spots, and the weird quant questions started getting a bit clearer. Especially the 'sum of x consecutive integers is y, if y is 50 and the first term is z' type questions.

I also read something on not freaking out over combinatorics and probability, and to really know number properties.

My mood was going up and down, and I must've been a pain to talk to (whinge whinge whinge).

I haven't slept well all this week, not nodding off until 2am-3am. Even the night before the test, I didn't fall asleep until 3am. And it wasn't so much that I was super freaking out, I felt kind of blank and resigned to my fate.

Test day: 22 March 12

My exam was at 9am. I got there around 8.20am, and there were already around 7 people ahead of me in the line. I was still feeling blank.

The essays were fine (I've never had much trouble with the AWA). Then I started the quant, it was going OK until Q5, when I started blanking out on a question. I ended up guessing a couple (too many, I thought) of questions, and I thought I blew it on time management as the test ended before I could hit 'confirm' for the last question. Well, there goes that, I thought. The questions felt tricker than the Official Guide ones, demanding more convoluted calculations, but maybe I just missed something.

Verbal. I got like 3 scientific RC passages. I'm usually OK with RC, but I was getting tired. SC seemed OK, about the same level of difficulty to slightly easier than the OG. I got like 8 CR questions in a row, some obscene amount. I wondered whether that was a sign I was doing well? No idea.

I had to guess the last 3-4 verbal questions in my 14 Feb test, because I was so short on time. I'm usually never short on time in verbal (never in the practice tests). This time, I had around 5 minutes for the last question, an SC question.

I thought I was screwed on the quant, since my last question might've counted as a blank. I sat there mindlessly clicking through the screens. I wondered what would happen if I got a 500-something. My parents were already in the 'don't worry, some people do fine in their careers without MBA degrees' routine, which I saw as them resigning themselves to the fact that their kid is a moron.

When the 710 popped up, I kept rubbing my eyes because I was so scared the 7 was actually a 5. I stopped breathing for a few seconds. I contained myself and quickly left. I have no idea why my quant is higher than the verbal.

Anyways, to those who are studying, keep going! Yes, three times doesn't look as elegant as getting what you want in one go, but if you don't try, you seriously will never know. Do practice tests, keep your spirits up, don't whine and whinge because it'll only make you more depressed!

Thanks so much, guys!

I recommend starting with the OG books, then using the various prep provider books to practice on different subjects such as number properties, probability/etc (e.g. when they explain what various maths concepts mean). The OG questions should form the backbone of your studying. In the beginning I didn't pay much attention to OG ("Pshaw, just 3 books!"), but it actually takes a lot of time to do/redo/re-redo the questions and to recognize 'types' of questions. 'Types' are important, especially for CR. E.g. Country X has 100 deaths per 5000 births, Country Y has 500 per 5000 births, does this mean that Country X is safer for kids? Not necessarily, because Country Y's data involves kids between the ages of 1 and 5 - this sort of thing. Or the farmer questions, when this group of farmers adapts this strategy to increase crop yield, what's wrong with the strategy?

For SC, the Manhattan SC book helps to an extent as it lists so many idioms/grammar principles. It's useful to look over the idioms, but I don't recommend trying to memorize everything (unless you CAN at the drop of a hat!). At first, I listened to a couple of Mainland Chinese students who recommended memorizing every idiom under the sun (their school system prepares them for this kind of stuff), and then went nuts because my mind was clouding over. I think I can only say practice with as many questions as you can find: pay attention to tenses, improper subject/verb usage (e.g. you can't say "the house has many illnesses", it's "the house has many inhabitants who are ill", stuff like that), singular vs plural, etc. I got a lot of CR questions in my last exam, and not as many SC.

Try not to freak out! Yes, it's very daunting and annoying, especially if you're retaking, but I think my experience has shown that the right (or semi-healthy at least) state of mind/mood is super important. Exam #1: I was too complacent. Exam #2: I was way too anxious and in the "do well or you are WORTHLESS" mindset. Exam #3: I tried to stay calm and semi-cheerful, heck I even played video games to destress.

Good luck, everyone!

Ab1881, for the verbal section, did you receive any boldface questions, a lot of long, convoluted CR questions, and RC inference questions? On the GMAT prep software, I didn't see any of these, yet I score very high on the verbal. But on the actual gmat, unfortunately that is not the case.

Awesome buddy!! very inspirational debrief... i like the way you frame your sentences (parents thinking that their kid is a moron!!)...
All the very best for applications!!

Nice Post. I wonder though, after giving up with the veritas and manhattan tests, what kind of tests do you recommend to practice with??

I am loving it...
ThanQ and all the best..
C ya..

I did get some boldface questions, and a number of CR questions in a row. The RC this time wasn't too bad, scientific passages can take longer to read, but the questions seem more straightforward than for the artsy/cultural passages (where sometimes the author's 'intent' or 'mood' isn't very obvious).

I think the Veritas tests were good practice for getting me in test/crunch mode, but I never went over the questions in great detail as they were quite different from the GMATPrep ones. I just blew through them strength-training, you can say. Maybe you can break the OG questions into 37/41 blocks, and do them under test conditions.