I believe that this site was an extremely invaluable resource and I want to thank all of you people who participate to make it work. I had only 2 or 3 weeks to prepare for the GMAT and in that time I also had to move and find a job. I am 22 and Just finished my undergrad and I am applying to the new Dalhousie MBA program which is for people with no work experience.
First of all, I found the actual GMAT to be much easier than the questions posted on the forums here, especially the Quantitative section. The only prep material I had was a Kaplan book on general strategies i.e. back solving etc and the disc with 4 practise CAT's and practise questions.
My test centre was terrible, it was noisy and the "soundproof" door to the testing room was hardly soundproof. My practise CAT scores were all in the 500-540 range but to be quite honest I found myself having difficulty concentrating during most of them. The most accurate practise test I found was the one you can download on MBA.com on which I scored a 630.All of the questions on the actual GMAT were so similar to the ones in the Kaplan practise tests and the ones posted on the forums it really made it quite a lot easier.
For the verbal section, I honestly thought I was doing terribly, I felt like I was just guessing for a lot of them but I believe all of the difficult practise questions I did from people posting them on here really ingrained the correct methods of solving difficult SC and reading comprehension questions. I did not study critical reasoning as I always got 95-100% of them correct on practise tests.
I do have a very strong academic background I have a philosophy and biology double major which really prepared me well for the test. I really believe I could have significantly improved my quantitative score but I am not going to take the test again as the average GMAT score for my program is a 606. My score of 660 seems to be borderline as to what people consider "Beating the GMAT" but I am satisfied with it considering the hectic preparation schedule I had. I know I could have gone into the 700's if I had more time to refine my math skills.
Admittedly, I did hardly any studying for the AWA because I have been in countless timed critical writing exams throughout my undergraduate career. What I can suggest though is that it appears that there is a 'formula' to getting a 6.0. MAKE SURE you read the sample essays in the AWA section, the night before I read all the 6's and 5-6's and used that general form with my own examples. Too be quite honest my second essay was not good by my standard but I believe that because of the way I communicated that I still got a 6.0.
I hope that I did not come off as some slacker who did decently on the test because that is not at all true. I did work hard improving my skills I just wish I had the time to learn more of the actual material. I just wanted to thank the people who participate in this forum for the excellent resource you provide to all test takers. I believe that this forum improved my score 50-100 points in about 2 weeks.
Also, kaplan CAT's and manhattan CAT's are much harder than the actual GMAT in my opinion
First of all, I found the actual GMAT to be much easier than the questions posted on the forums here, especially the Quantitative section. The only prep material I had was a Kaplan book on general strategies i.e. back solving etc and the disc with 4 practise CAT's and practise questions.
My test centre was terrible, it was noisy and the "soundproof" door to the testing room was hardly soundproof. My practise CAT scores were all in the 500-540 range but to be quite honest I found myself having difficulty concentrating during most of them. The most accurate practise test I found was the one you can download on MBA.com on which I scored a 630.All of the questions on the actual GMAT were so similar to the ones in the Kaplan practise tests and the ones posted on the forums it really made it quite a lot easier.
For the verbal section, I honestly thought I was doing terribly, I felt like I was just guessing for a lot of them but I believe all of the difficult practise questions I did from people posting them on here really ingrained the correct methods of solving difficult SC and reading comprehension questions. I did not study critical reasoning as I always got 95-100% of them correct on practise tests.
I do have a very strong academic background I have a philosophy and biology double major which really prepared me well for the test. I really believe I could have significantly improved my quantitative score but I am not going to take the test again as the average GMAT score for my program is a 606. My score of 660 seems to be borderline as to what people consider "Beating the GMAT" but I am satisfied with it considering the hectic preparation schedule I had. I know I could have gone into the 700's if I had more time to refine my math skills.
Admittedly, I did hardly any studying for the AWA because I have been in countless timed critical writing exams throughout my undergraduate career. What I can suggest though is that it appears that there is a 'formula' to getting a 6.0. MAKE SURE you read the sample essays in the AWA section, the night before I read all the 6's and 5-6's and used that general form with my own examples. Too be quite honest my second essay was not good by my standard but I believe that because of the way I communicated that I still got a 6.0.
I hope that I did not come off as some slacker who did decently on the test because that is not at all true. I did work hard improving my skills I just wish I had the time to learn more of the actual material. I just wanted to thank the people who participate in this forum for the excellent resource you provide to all test takers. I believe that this forum improved my score 50-100 points in about 2 weeks.
Also, kaplan CAT's and manhattan CAT's are much harder than the actual GMAT in my opinion
