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Starting to Get Quite Nervous

by RossMBAGoal » Mon Nov 04, 2013 1:16 pm
Somewhat of just an introduction. I graduated with my bachelors in International Business at the lowest of the job market, and as a result I didn't find a job in my field. While it is a decent paying labor job I am not happy with where I am at. I decided to get my MBA earlier then I had originally planned and start this coming fall.

If you couldn't tell by my username, My goal is to go to Ross school of Business at University of Michigan. This is really the only school I would like to go to since 2 sets of grandparents went to U of M and both parents went there as-well. My plan to specialize in Finance since through work experience I enjoy it and quite good at it if I allow myself to not be humble. Sadly my GPA for my undergraduate was .02 lower then their acceptance level so I plan on getting a high score on the GMAT to compensate for it. My target score is 720+.

I have been studying for the last 4 months but really buckled down the last 1.5-2 months. My normal day schedule is work 7-12, study at lunch 12-1, work 1-4, then study 4:30-9. On weekend I study from 9-9. Even with studying during all my free time I feel like it is going slow and wont get through all of the Manhattan guides (I have finish 4, on the 5th now). I haven't taken a practice test yet I had planned to do that 1 month before I take the practice test and use the last month to really work on my weaknesses. However I am not sure I have enough time to get all of it done, because of this I am kind of freaking out. I have lately started doing flash cards, then audio recording those flash cards and listening to them all 8 hours of work from my iPod. I am not sure where to go from here to better use my time, or more effectively use it to get everything done. Any suggestions from high scorers will help greatly. I have been looking through all posts but to be honest I feel like the more time I spend here, the less time I spend studying.

Lastly I take the Test December 14th so about 5.5 weeks from now.

Thank you,
Chris
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Mon Nov 04, 2013 1:44 pm
Hey Chris,

Welcome to BTG.

I strongly encourage you to take an official practice test: https://www.mba.com/the-gmat/download-fr ... tware.aspx
It may be the case that you're already scoring above your target score, in which case you can breathe a sigh of relief. If you're not yet at the 720+ level, you'll at least have an idea of the work ahead of you.

For more about taking a practice test early in your studies, please read my BTG article "Take a Practice Test Already" - https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2013/05/ ... st-already

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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by RossMBAGoal » Tue Nov 05, 2013 4:44 am
Brent,

Thank you for the quick response. I somewhat guessed someone was going to suggest that, and to if I am honest I know that's what I should do. I have been putting it off cause I wanted to get some base studying done before hand. It now it looks like I don't have that luxury. I also somewhat feel like the time taking a practice time is time not studying but I can see points that suggest otherwise.

I will take your advice, I happened to buy 3 practice tests when I signed up for the GMAT so I might as-well use them. I believe that it warns that the practice tests take about 4 hours? Which means this will have to get done on Saturday, since during the week my time is interrupted by family here and there for 15-20 min. During the week I will switch from the Manhattan book to OG sample questions to start getting the wording and form down.

I will update results this weekend.

Thank you,
Chris
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Tue Nov 05, 2013 8:51 am
Good to hear.

Taking a practice test early on will help build confidence as continue to practice and steadily increase your scores.

Keep in mind that you can take the GMATPrep practice tests multiple times. Yes, you will see some repeated questions, but not that many. If you're interested, I wrote an article for BTG on this topic: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... iple-times

Cheers,
Brent
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by RossMBAGoal » Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:49 am
I have decided I am also going to change the way I study for the next 5 weeks. After reading a lot of Rons's post the last 3 days I believe I am studying exactly wrong. I think I have been concentrating on memorizing too much while leaving the concepts behind.

Source:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-to-impro ... tml#405217
https://www.beatthegmat.com/710-gmatprep ... tml#420298

While going through OG I found that the CR and RC sections came quite easy for me. This leads me to believe that I don't quite need to dedicate as much time on that as I thought. Instead I plan on just casually reading the Manhattan books on those subjects. Ron also suggested directly that studying these subject WILL actually hurt scores, you more study the format and language.

I also found while I understood the way to get the answer on the geometry problems, I have forgotten the formulas from not using them in 9 years. So this might be the only thing I try to re-memorize through the use of flash cards. This too frees up some time thankfully because I did have more issues with the Quantitative and SC sections then I thought I would.

For the Quantitative section most of my problems stemmed from not quite understanding the the way the GMAT presents the information. I might re-visit the word translation portion on the Manhattan books, but mostly I plan on going through OG problems and example problems here really looking of the explanation afterwards. I also am going to start trying to solve the same problem multiple ways.

For the SC section my biggest issue was that I am able to cancel out 3 out of the 5 answers but have problems picking from the last 2. I am not too sure what my plan is for this yet, but I am going to start practicing using OG problems and really looking over each answer explanation. Reading why each one was wrong and why they choose the one that they did. I also have problems finding the Subject of the sentence on more complicated ones, the rules them selves I know instinctively. But I am also not sure if instincts alone will help me on the actual test.

My last big concern I that I am wording about the amount of time it took me to get each answer. While I haven't timed myself yet to be sure (Plan of doing that down the road), I am pretty sure it took me longer then it should.

I also think I am going to pick up the latest Economist on my way home today, so that I can have some reading time taking a break from studying while still learning how more formal business language such as this is spoken/written. I also might trying finding subjects and verbs in the articles just as more practice.

Any other suggestions, as always, would be greatly appreciated and honestly taken into consideration.

Thank you,
Chris
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by RossMBAGoal » Sun Nov 10, 2013 6:13 am
Ok, I just took my first practice test yesterday... actually it was quite depressing. Here are the results-

I took the GMAC GMAT disclosed edition code 25. The test is a paper edition of past GMAT questions. The test is broken down into 6 sections, 3 verbal and 3 quantitative. And each section is purely 1 type of question; I have no idea how closely that matches the actual format. I got a V40 and a Q32 with a total score of a 600. This is quite below my 720 goal with only 5 weeks left before the test.

What I believe are my issues,
I went back to look at all of my wrong answers and I counted what I would call all the "stupid mistakes". Where I could clearly and easily do it when not rushed, or when I didn't just assume. Of these there were...

"¢ 2 in Sentence correction
"¢ 1 in Reading Comprehension
"¢ 1 in Critical reasoning
"¢ 7 in Problem Solving (Combined of the 2 sections)
"¢ 1 in Data sufficiency

I looked back at my scoring and if I had not done these stupid mistakes my score would have been a 690, much closer to 720. So, usually I would say to fix this problem I have to take my time, and read everything with more detail... Well as you see the problem solving accounted for more then half of these stupid mistakes and in both sections of problem solving time was an issue. Actually one section I circled the last question as the buzzer rang, and on the other I guessed on 3. This leads me to believe that I need to practice, practice, practice on problem solving sections to increase my speed. Then worry about carefully reading the information.

Again as I have guessed, the sections of Problem Solving (mostly stupid mistakes), and Sentence Correction are my weakest areas. I don't quite have a plan yet that differs then before. One thing that really worried me is that the problems seemed much easier on the test then In my practice sessions and books... even the problems posted here I try to browse the 700 level question section here for practice and the test seemed not up to that par. And with still having trouble with it makes me un-easy.

Thank you,
Chris
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