I just Beat The GMAT!

I've finally decided to write this post to encourage others that it's possible to dramatically improve your score.

My early practice tests were in the low 600s (and even one at 540). I'm 5 years out of college and had passed out of all my college math classes from high school, so it was a lot of work re-learning the quant info. For two months I studied about 20 hours/week at night, 5-6 hours/day on the weekend.

You really have to make sacrifices if your goal is to dramatically improve your score. Bottom line - practice practice practice. In the last few weeks I was consistently scoring over 700 (710-740 range). In the last two weeks I took a FULL practice test every other night until my test. My last practice score was a 760 and I was feeling really confident on knowing the material. The day before my test I got acupuncture and a massage and went to the gym. I recommend staying active with runs, gym, etc and eating healthy during your study period - it really helps de-stress.

I was personally hoping to get a 750, but was even somewhat surprised myself with a 770 (49 Quant / 46 Verbal). I think the main difference from the 710 range to 770 was in knowing when to skip problems and learning how to make educated guesses. I probably got lucky with a couple of my guesses, but was also very strategic about when to move on. If there was a problem I knew I could solve with an additional 1-2 minutes, I usually would still skip it (based on time, of course). Time management is key!

I used BeatTheGMAT, Veritas for practice tests, Official Guide, and MBA.com for the "official" practice tests. I found Veritas scores to be accurate with the MBA.com and my official GMAT score.

Good luck!

Interesting strategy. How many questions would you say you skipped?

I didn't really "skip" any, but there were probably 3-4 quant questions that came down to 2-3 answer choices where I moved on quickly. Better to have more time to focus on questions where that extra minute will get you there right answer 100%.

On both sections I finished with ~20 seconds to spare. I had the timing down from so many practice tests.

lukedmurphy wrote:I've finally decided to write this post to encourage others that it's possible to dramatically improve your score.

My early practice tests were in the low 600s (and even one at 540). I'm 5 years out of college and had passed out of all my college math classes from high school, so it was a lot of work re-learning the quant info. For two months I studied about 20 hours/week at night, 5-6 hours/day on the weekend.

You really have to make sacrifices if your goal is to dramatically improve your score. Bottom line - practice practice practice. In the last few weeks I was consistently scoring over 700 (710-740 range). In the last two weeks I took a FULL practice test every other night until my test. My last practice score was a 760 and I was feeling really confident on knowing the material. The day before my test I got acupuncture and a massage and went to the gym. I recommend staying active with runs, gym, etc and eating healthy during your study period - it really helps de-stress.

I was personally hoping to get a 750, but was even somewhat surprised myself with a 770 (49 Quant / 46 Verbal). I think the main difference from the 710 range to 770 was in knowing when to skip problems and learning how to make educated guesses. I probably got lucky with a couple of my guesses, but was also very strategic about when to move on. If there was a problem I knew I could solve with an additional 1-2 minutes, I usually would still skip it (based on time, of course). Time management is key!

I used BeatTheGMAT, Veritas for practice tests, Official Guide, and MBA.com for the "official" practice tests. I found Veritas scores to be accurate with the MBA.com and my official GMAT score.

Good luck!

In Verbal,I have time management issues.What do you suggest?Whenever you tend to lag behind the time schedule,do you skip questions?How to formulate a strategy to tackle the CR questions?Did you divide the question types into categories and then you had a method for a particular type?Please suggest.

Hey congrats on the score! Could you elaborate a bit more on the journey from 600"s to 770? As in wat did u do or did u go bak to the basics?

Hi congrats!

What was your feeling when you were attempting Verbal section? Did you face any shock, brain freeze, for example on unfamiliar questions or something?

How did you brush up on verbal, especially CR?

Thanks

Congrats! what did you use for foundation study material?

First of all, congrats!!

I've also been using Veritas Tests and found a discrepancy between my Veritas score and my score on the tests provided on MBA.com (my Veritas score is consistently much higher). How often did you use each? Did you use one more than the other? Is it just a matter of drilling problems from the OG in between? And even just working on my test anxiety levels?

Thanks!!!

Hello,

I wonder why you choose Veritas mocks over MGMAT or Kaplan mocks? Did you try all 3? Which mocks are most realistic mocks?

Thanks, Jay

Congratulation lukedmurphy!

That is an exceptional score. I am glad that the Veritas practice tests were a part of your success.

I notice that there were a couple of questions from others about practice tests:

The Veritas practice tests use Item Response Theory, which is also the basis for the official GMAT exam as well as the GMATPrep official practice test.

The Veritas question bank now has over 7 million responses allowing for a much more realistic test experience and score.

You can try the free Veritas practice test at https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gm ... tice-test/.

Hi and congrats!! Amazing score...
I am also taking the veritas prep CATs and I wonder how accurate are they...
Can you please post your veritas CATs results? And how was your real GMAT compared to those CATs?

Thanks