I started studing for the GMAT in Jan/Feb 2013 with the goal of taking the GMAT at the end of April.
To get me on the right track, I signed up for the Princeton Review classes and got the following books:
1. OG 12 & 13
2. The Math Bible - Jeff Sackman
3. The manhattan guides - all of them
4. The PR guides - these came with the course (but I've forgotten the offical name)
For Quant - I started by reading the math bible, it gave me a good refresher on all the key concepts. Then I did all the practice questions in the OGs and I used the Manhanttan guides to brush up on the areas in which I was weak.
For Verbal - I used manhattan guide for sentence correction, the PR guide for critical reasoning and Reading comprehension. To be honest, I didn't spend too much time on CR or RC.
I was studying about a chapter or two a day from whatever book I was on and doing all the questions in that book. I would supplement this with questions about that topic from the OGs as well.
About 8 days before the test, I bought the MGMAT practice tests and started doing those.
MGMAT 1 - 590
MGMAT 2 - 640
MGMAT 3 - 670
MGMAT 4 - didn't complete
MGMAT 5 - 570 (yikes!)
MGMAT 6 - 640 (recovered!)
Official practice Test 1 - 680 (did this about a month into starting to study)
Official practice Test 2 - 640 (did this a couple days before the test)
Come the day of the test, I ended up getting a 660. I was pretty disappointed, because I really thought I would get atleast 680 (despite my erratic scores on practice tests). I can't remember my break down exactly but I think it was V37, Q42.
I couldn't muster the motivation to start studying immediately to retake the test. In the end, I took nearly a 3 month break and started in late July. This time i changed how I studied and only did the following:
1. Focused only on practice tests and OG questions. I re-used the official tests & MGMAT tests I had as well as free one off the net, which I found links too on this site.
2. I catalogued all my mistakes and the questions I found tough (thanks to EVERNOTE!)
3. I went over the questions with a friend rather than just reading the explanations. Actually, he probably played the biggest part in helping me improve.
My study habits were still not great, however with this approach I was at least focusing on the right stuff. My scores on the practice tests were still in the range of 590-670 on the MGMAT and 720, 680 on the official practice test. I was in the mid 600s on most of the other practice tests. It was all a bit demoralizing. Come the day of the test all I wanted to do was get it over with and get a score that was no lower than my old score.
I started the test pretty slowly, my AWA was not as good as on my previous test. I definitely messed up the IR sections. However during the quant sections, I found most questions pretty mangeable. I was pretty confident I was answering the questions correctly but I was getting worried because the questions were not getting harder. In the end, I did not manage to complete this section. I think I guessed the last 3 answers and the last answer I couldn't submit in time.
On the verbal, I had a similar experience to the quant section. I was pretty confident that I was answering questions correctly, and eventually the questions were getting harder. Again, I guessed the last 2 questions. By this point I didn't know what to expect, but the pessimist in me was expecting the worst. When I saw my score for 710 (38V, 48Q) I was very happy, it was close to my target score of 720 but it certainly wasn't what I was expecting, especially because of how poorly I approached this test.
Here are my take-aways and lessons from this experience:
- The PR course really wasn't too helpful to me. I felt that the course enriched me with the knowledge to go from a 500 to a 600, but not really break the 700 barrier.
Do as many practice tests as possible. Focus on questions structed similar to the questions on the GMAT. Unless you are particularly weak in a certain area, don't waste time doing questions in the guides that are not in the GMAT format.
Doing the tests is not enough, make sure you analyze your mistakes, identify weak points. MGMAT can present an analysis of all the practice tests. Use this! Find out where you are weak and make sure to focus on improving those areas.
Catalogue questions you find difficult and make sure to review them periodically.
On PS and DS, write out the information from the question, this helped make sure that I read the question entirely.
For SC just learn the rules, there is no other way around it.
For CR - read the question before the passage
For RC - I took notes while I read the passages. It helped me stay focus while reading.
Have a strategy to pace yourself - but don't panic if you fall behind your targets. I intended to spend half the time on the first 15 questions and the rest on the remaining 22 for quant. In the end I was ahead of schedule.
It is ok to guess on a question - don't dwell on a question for over 3.5 mins, by that time, its probably better to guess.
Finally, I believe that as much as the GMAT tests concepts, it also tests how good you are at taking tests. Use the practice tests to perfect your technique, find out what works for you. Although I didn't study too well, this time around I had a better test taking strategy and at the end of the day, I believe this is what boosted my score.
Now I'm done, so happy never to do this test again! I hope you guys all get there soon too, its such an awesome feeling but until then GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR GMAT JOURNEY!
