I just Beat The GMAT!

I just got back. Am surprised I didn't get killed on the road considering how rattled I am right now. Have never scored this high during prep.

Detailed review coming soon. But here are the fresh in mind observations.

High-level Prep
- Took a test a year ago for fun - 600 (detailed score track below)
- Let it sit for a few months and studied a few hrs a day for two weeks in Apr
- Then didn't touch GMAT until 3 weeks ago
- Took the Veritas Weekend course (2 weekends 10 hrs a day - One weekend Verbal and another Quant) - Thanks to Tatiana on this forum for the recommendation
- Three weeks of vacation from work: approx 8 hrs a day of studying
- Lots of inconsistencies in prep (taking CATS early in the morning after sleeping little the night before etc). Test scores fluctuated greatly due to this and I let it get to me
- Last week almost entirely focused on taking CATs
- All in all I did GMAT Prep and did MGMAT tests 10 times
- As mentioned above, my confidence was very low towards the end as I was not improving as much as I had hoped for
- During the last few days I remapped a whole new study plan for the next 3 months to retake the test
- As a result, I felt little pressure today. Sad to say, I had essentially given up on this test

Test Day

1) AWA
Had prepared 22 essays over last three weeks. Did not look at other topics. Veritas scored my argument a week ago at 3.5 and my issue at 5.
Before that I was always thinking that Argument was my strong point.

Argument
The test started with the argument essay. I actually thought it was a pretty well structured argument and it was freaking me out . Then I found two points to challenge and wrote the essay. It was quite short and I had a hard time w the keyboard and monitor. (Monitor was on top of a desktop tower so was looking up - was a bit uncomfortable as I had prepared with a laptop always looking down). Anyway, the essay was not great ... but I didn't worry about it.

Issue
Killed it. Probably, wrote the best piece I have ever written. Hope that this one makes up for the weak argument.

Math
First problem was tough. I think I got it wrong after two mins of trying. What really ticked me off was that almost the same problem showed up a few questions later. I may have gotten that one right. Was progressing well at 2mins per Q until Q 15 or so. Then a really tough Geometry Q came up where if you don't see the answer you're lost. I saw it. May have missed something b/c I ended up doing quite a bit of calcs. After 3 mins or so I got my answer and was confident I got it right. Then my nightmare happened: answer choices were not showing my answer. any smart person would have taken their lumps. I started over again. After another 2 mins ... still nothing --> random guess. This one really threw me off. The rest of Q was a sprint to catch up but I was falling more behind. The Q's didn't get easier. I started to think that I am really porrly prepared since I must have gotten some wrong and because of that the Q's are actually easy but I'm just not getting them. By the end of Quant I probs had 5 or so guesses (some of which were educated guesses). Answered the last Question with one second on the clock. I was expecting a score in mid 60th percentile.

Verbal - my strong part
It was going well. I was keeping track of time well and was a bit ahead. Due to my prep I thought that my stamina was quite strong. But the last third of this section was painful. I was reading Q's over and over again (and they were tough). Started loosing the time advantage I had gained earlier. The first two RCs were short and sweet (fit into one screen). My problem with RC is on long passages ... but MGMAT CATs had trained me well I guess. Third RC passage turned out being a monster. It just would not end. I highly doubt that it was less then 450 words as they say that RC passages would be. Finished Verbal off with some difficult CR and SC.

Overall I felt good about Verbal and was quite depressed about Q.

Then moved through the screens. My score came up .. but I couldnt look at it for two mins or so. Then I looked up and there she was. Like the lottery win I never had

This post turned out much longer than intended. Later I will also post a detailed review of my prep. Like I said in another post ... lesson learned: there a lot of things I would do differently. The nature of the test questions was quite unique from MGMAT (similar to GMATPrep). All in all I have to admit that some of this score must be due to some luck on Q ... but hey, I'll still take it.

Thank you guys for all the great questions and answers you post in the V and Q sections of the forum. Thanks to Sudhir for the PM yesterday and to all the instructors who are on this forum. Eric - the forum is simply awesome.

LSB ===============

Date / CAT Source / Total Score / V Score / V% / Q Score / Q%
Nov-07 Kaplan Free CAT 600 (no V / Q split)
Nov-07 MGMAT CAT 600 V32/64% Q42/63%
Apr-08 GMAC CAT 1 640 V38/83% Q39/55%
Apr-08 MGMAT CAT 600 V32/64% Q41/61%
Aug-08 VP CAT 730 V42/95% Q54/99%
Aug-08 MGMATCAT 640 V39/87% Q38/53%
Aug-08 MGMAT CAT 670 V38/83% Q43/68%
Aug-08 GMAC CAT 2 740 V47/99% Q45/75%
Aug-08 MGMAT CAT 610 V38/83% Q35/42%
Aug-08 MGMAT CAT 580 V45/98% Q28/24%
Aug-08 GMAC CAT 1 skipped test portion skipped/skipped Q45/75%
Aug-08 GMAC CAT (repeat)skipped test portionskipped/skipped 45/75%
Aug-08 MGMAT CAT (repeat)68036/78%47/79%
Aug-08 GMAC CAT (repeat)70045/98%41/61%
Aug-08 MGMAT (repeat)skipped test portion37/81%skipped/skipped
Aug-08 GMAC CAT (repeat)skipped test portionskipped/skipped 47/79%
Aug-08 MGMAT (repeat)71038/83%48/84%
Sep-08 MGMAT (repeat)skipped test portion44/97%skipped/skipped
Sep-08 GMAC CAT (repeat)skipped test portionskipped/skipped 49/88%

congratulations !!

750 is indeed a great score !

Great score, congrats.
I have a question, how do you rate Veritas weekend prep?. Did it make a big difference in your prep?. Do you suggest it?

Congratulations! it's indeed a great score....

Hei I have a question: where can I find some of these tests?

arvindm07 wrote:Great score, congrats.
I have a question, how do you rate Veritas weekend prep?. Did it make a big difference in your prep?. Do you suggest it?

Hi arvindm07

Thank you. I did not take the full course as I was quite rushed to do this in three weeks. I found the weekend course very valuable for my specific circumstance, which was brushing up on things I already knew, and finetuning my strategy towards GMAT questions.

If you want to build fundamentals you should definitely stay away from the weekend course and consider the full course as it allows more time for practice and homework. I can imagine the 7 day boot camps that MGMAT and VP offer are quite similar in that they are a sledgehammer approach. As I said this is not for everybody.

As far as Veritas is concerned. I was extremely impressed with the instructors. They knew their stuff and could explain things very well. Could I have done it by myself? probably ... but as I was rushed I did not want to waste time.

When selecting a course I find three things are important (in no particular order):

1) Instructors
2) Timing of the course ... they say you should complete the course a few weeks before test date. I agree
3) Often forgotten but very important: your classmates. You want to be in a class that is close to your skill level. I went to a Kaplan and Princeton class and found that there were many undergrads who were lacking some fundamentals. I decided that I would be ahead of the class and opted for VP. However, if you are still building fundamentals a class with people who are farther in their prep may be too fast-paced for you.

Hope this helps. Good Luck

anju wrote:Congratulations! it's indeed a great score....

Hei I have a question: where can I find some of these tests?

Hi anju

If you are referring to the practice tests, then here it goes ... by the way these tests are crucial to any preparation for the GMAT. I had access to Manhattan GMAT tests (MGMAT) and the GMATPrep.

Google "Manhattan GMAT" and you can buy their tests. They are quite cheap at 50 bucks or so and you can retake them as often as you want for a year. Invaluable resource. It's almost irresponsible to write the GMAT without having practiced on MGMAT tests (and No .. I don't get paid for this endorsement)

GMAT Prep - this is the most important practice you can get (more important than MGMAT). You can download the "GMATPrep" software for free on mba.com. The test is created by the makers of the GMAT and has retired test questions. There are two tests. But you can reinstall the software and do the tests as many times as you want. (I did each three times). Be careful how you use these. I would suggest you save one for the late stages in your prep. I used them up quite early and was seeing many questions again later (this is the reason I could not rely on my scores towards the end and had confidence issues - i.e I was getting anxious about poor scores ... but brushed good scores off as I said to myself that they were caused by me having seen the questions).

There is a lot of info on these tests within this forum. Just do a search on the terms I mentioned above.

Good Luck and Happy Studying

right back at you. great score.

haha, Manhattan GMAT CATs can be had for the lower price of around $20 by buying any of their books. very weird, gives you the same access, but somehow they price the exams at $40. Anyone in their right mind would pay the lower price and get a book along the way.

Guys, there are a lot of free resources on the web, look around. Try to keep it legal.

Whoa, way to kill it! Nice job.

My MGMAT scores are similar to yours, and I noticed that your V score ranged from V38 to V47... any tips on such a huge improvement? I'm fluctuating between V40 and V44... would love to push that up some. Native English speaker, and I do fairly well with most things language-related. Advice much appreciated; I'm appearing this weekend

Hi foobarnull

My practice track is distorted a bit since I was struggling to get a routine going. My test today was at 8am. So I desperately tried to wake up at 5 to write those sample tests at 8. It didn't always go well since I didnt seem to have the discipline to go to bed early for the longest time.

Key tips for Verbal:
- The test is long. If you are writing this weekend I would suggest you do full sample tests at least every other day. This includes the AWA. Stick to the 10 mins break limit. Keep in mind that the 10mins are only 8 after you take the check-in and check-out times from the testing room into account.
Even though I thought I had the stamina side covered, I realized during the second half of the V section that my brain was starting to go blurry on me. It is crucial to stay fit right till the end.
- RC - Try to speed up reading as much as you can. Easier said than done. But crucial
- SC - there are some weird choices at the more difficult level. Keep an open mind and do not rush into a decision. Try to step back from the sentence mumble jumble (i.e. a gazillion dependent / descriptive clauses) and look at the bigger sentence structure. That's how you will be able to catch parallelism and antedecent issues. Additionally, when you find an obvious error, noun verb matching, then skim through the choices right away to eliminate the ones that contain the error. Helped me hugely on time and allowed me to gain a significant time advantage on the earlier Q's (which I needed towards the end)
- RC - I found that even though these weren't easy they were quite different from MGMAT. Primarily, this was due to the answer choices. There were no extreme toss up answers where you needed to split hairs in order to find the right answer. What really helped me was to look at the question first: If it is a weaken or strengthen question I looked for the conclusion. As you probably know, oftentimes the question asks for a weakening statement and then one answer choice gives you a perfect supporting statement. It is important to not fall for that and remember what is being asked.
- Another thing: During the instructions I took a minute to make myself a quick abcde grid for all 40 questions. I find verbal is very much based on process of elimination ... so having a grid ready that allows you to cross wrong asnwers out helps a lot.

Good luck on the weekend. Hope this helped

thanks !

LSB wrote:My practice track is distorted a bit since I was struggling to get a routine going. My test today was at 8am. So I desperately tried to wake up at 5 to write those sample tests at 8. It didn't always go well since I didnt seem to have the discipline to go to bed early for the longest time.

Big ups to you... thanks a ton. My original plan was to live 4 days like the real thing, so 3 practice tests in a row and then the real deal. I've changed from that, since I noticed that my scores weren't improving as much as I'd like. Part of this, of course, is MGMAT's ridiculous Q, but I like training at altitude.

So my deal with V is that I always end up with 15-20 minutes left over, even when I slow down my reading to take more in (and I'm not a very fast reader) and double-check all my answers. Still, I'm showing precious few signs of improvement. I'll definitely try the grid method... tried it before and found it cumbersome, but I've got time to kill on each Q so elimination might help.

What materials did you find most representative of the harder V questions on the real thing? Anything that helped to train "at altitude" for V like MGMAT Q does? I was saving my GMATPrep CAT2 for the day before, but considering doing 1 pass tomorrow and 1 more on Fri to maximize exposure to the "right" kind of problems.

LSB wrote:

anju wrote:Congratulations! it's indeed a great score....

Hei I have a question: where can I find some of these tests?

Hi anju

If you are referring to the practice tests, then here it goes ... by the way these tests are crucial to any preparation for the GMAT. I had access to Manhattan GMAT tests (MGMAT) and the GMATPrep.

Google "Manhattan GMAT" and you can buy their tests. They are quite cheap at 50 bucks or so and you can retake them as often as you want for a year. Invaluable resource. It's almost irresponsible to write the GMAT without having practiced on MGMAT tests (and No .. I don't get paid for this endorsement)

GMAT Prep - this is the most important practice you can get (more important than MGMAT). You can download the "GMATPrep" software for free on mba.com. The test is created by the makers of the GMAT and has retired test questions. There are two tests. But you can reinstall the software and do the tests as many times as you want. (I did each three times). Be careful how you use these. I would suggest you save one for the late stages in your prep. I used them up quite early and was seeing many questions again later (this is the reason I could not rely on my scores towards the end and had confidence issues - i.e I was getting anxious about poor scores ... but brushed good scores off as I said to myself that they were caused by me having seen the questions).

There is a lot of info on these tests within this forum. Just do a search on the terms I mentioned above.

Good Luck and Happy Studying

Hei thanks so much for your advice.
I'll buy purchase the book so that i get access to their free test.
All the best for your admission

foobarnull wrote:

LSB wrote:My practice track is distorted a bit since I was struggling to get a routine going. My test today was at 8am. So I desperately tried to wake up at 5 to write those sample tests at 8. It didn't always go well since I didnt seem to have the discipline to go to bed early for the longest time.

Big ups to you... thanks a ton. My original plan was to live 4 days like the real thing, so 3 practice tests in a row and then the real deal. I've changed from that, since I noticed that my scores weren't improving as much as I'd like. Part of this, of course, is MGMAT's ridiculous Q, but I like training at altitude.

So my deal with V is that I always end up with 15-20 minutes left over, even when I slow down my reading to take more in (and I'm not a very fast reader) and double-check all my answers. Still, I'm showing precious few signs of improvement. I'll definitely try the grid method... tried it before and found it cumbersome, but I've got time to kill on each Q so elimination might help.

What materials did you find most representative of the harder V questions on the real thing? Anything that helped to train "at altitude" for V like MGMAT Q does? I was saving my GMATPrep CAT2 for the day before, but considering doing 1 pass tomorrow and 1 more on Fri to maximize exposure to the "right" kind of problems.

A few interesting points:

Even though I am not an authority in Q by any means I would like to comment on your altitude point.

I found MGMAT (edit) question sto be significantly different than GMAC. They test the same concepts. But the real deal is really heavy on traps and trying to test whether you see the shortcuts. On the other hand, the majority of MGMAT Q's focus on your ability to hammer the problem throuhg by using heavy arithmetic. I found that this conditioned me the wrong way. During my last 4 days I only did GMAT Prep math sections ... and MGMAT verbal sections (I found that GMATPrep did not have many Q's for verbal and I was seeing the same paragraphs over and over again.

As far as altitude and verbal is concerned, my biggest focus were MGMAT CATs (I wouldn't say they are more difficult than the real deal ... but they are just right to push you). I found the explanations on SC Q's invaluable (often read the explanations for wrong choices as well to get a better appreciation for the rules that were involved) and the long RC passages really helped me condition myself to read faster.

You also have an interesting point on the fact that you finish so early on V section. I would highly recommend slowing down to increase accuracy. If you have the time read all answer choices that's amazing. In SC some of the weirdest choices turn out to be correct at the 7-800 levels. The right answer is not always the intuitive one. I only skipped SC options if I knew 100% that the choice must be wrong based on a rule I knew (say verb noun matching). And if you have extra time: It really helped me to step away from the computer for 30 secs. Just look at something else and empty your brain.

Finally, on the grid: I'm not talking about a fancy grid where you have the 41 questions lined up with numbers and a full-fledged grid. All I did was write " abcde" 20 times on the each of the first two pages of my notepad (took 60 seconds during the instruction phase, which is not deducted from your 75 mins). I could then just pick any abcde combination to start eliminating as I read through the choices. I would read choice 1, if wrong I would cross it out - if potentially right, I would underline and come back to it after I finish reading the other choices. Some of the choices in CR and RC are long reads. Once you have eliminated them you don't want to go back and reread them.

If you're gonna do this make sure you do it in your practice tests before the weekend. Otherwise you'll just confuse yourself during test day.

Anyway - I gotta get back to work now Good Luck Buddy

LSB wrote:A few interesting points:

Even though I am not an authority in Q by any means I would like to comment on your altitude point.

I found GMAT question sto be significantly different than GMAC. They test the same concepts. But the real deal is really heavy on traps and trying to test whether you see the shortcuts. On the other hand, the majority of MGMAT Q's focus on your ability to hammer the problem throuhg by using heavy arithmetic. I found that this conditioned me the wrong way. During my last 4 days I only did GMAT Prep math sections ... and MGMAT verbal sections (I found that GMATPrep did not have many Q's for verbal and I was seeing the same paragraphs over and over again.

As far as altitude and verbal is concerned, my biggest focus were MGMAT CATs (I wouldn't say they are more difficult than the real deal ... but they are just right to push you). I found the explanations on SC Q's invaluable (often read the explanations for wrong choices as well to get a better appreciation for the rules that were involved) and the long RC passages really helped me condition myself to read faster.

You also have an interesting point on the fact that you finish so early on V section. I would highly recommend slowing down to increase accuracy. If you have the time read all answer choices that's amazing. In SC some of the weirdest choices turn out to be correct at the 7-800 levels. The right answer is not always the intuitive one. I only skipped SC options if I knew 100% that the choice must be wrong based on a rule I knew (say verb noun matching). And if you have extra time: It really helped me to step away from the computer for 30 secs. Just look at something else and empty your brain.

Finally, on the grid: I'm not talking about a fancy grid where you have the 41 questions lined up with numbers and a full-fledged grid. All I did was write " abcde" 20 times on the each of the first two pages of my notepad (took 60 seconds during the instruction phase, which is not deducted from your 75 mins). I could then just pick any abcde combination to start eliminating as I read through the choices. I would read choice 1, if wrong I would cross it out - if potentially right, I would underline and come back to it after I finish reading the other choices. Some of the choices in CR and RC are long reads. Once you have eliminated them you don't want to go back and reread them.

If you're gonna do this make sure you do it in your practice tests before the weekend. Otherwise you'll just confuse yourself during test day.

Anyway - I gotta get back to work now Good Luck Buddy

I used the grid method for GMAT Prep CAT 2 today. Still had time left over for V, but only about 3-4 minutes, which I'm comfortable with. Looks like either it helped my accuracy greatly or I prefer the V on the official CAT over the MGMAT stuff. I sometimes feel that the MGMAT questions are awkwardly/ambiguously worded or that the questions themselves use improper English... not sure if that's just me or if anyone else has noticed this too. I'm going back to OG11 for recalibration on Q & V for a coupla days.

Scary thing is, 50% of my Q mistakes were careless errors on things I knew & saw while taking the test! Really need to watch out for those traps. Any notable ones from your test?

Oh, and thanks for all your input... you'll be getting a HUGE shout out on my debrief this weekend!

foobarnull: glad to see you posting and chugging along the preparation. Good luck!