Beat the GMAT, 750 (47Q,46V), 6.0 AWA

[Don Wrigley]

Beat the GMAT...750 (98th percentile) and 6.0 AWA.

Started studying about 3 months before the test, did every problem from 2 years of OG (including supplemental books), and in addition did every practice test I could find online (GMATPrep, ManhattanGMAT, PowerPrep).

Was pleasantly surprised at how much I improved my verbal score; I went from being the guy who never did will in English/Writing classes to achieving 99th percentile on the Verbal section.

In my opinion, that's some heavy inspiration--if I can get the 99th percentile on verbal, I would think a lot of people can improve their scores. Verbal seems to be where everybody has problems on the GMAT, and it's where I've always had problems on standardized tests.

[batman73]

You definitely beat the gmat. Congrats on your score. Can you post the raw score for Quant and Verbal? Do you know what scores your were getting on the practice test when you started studying?

[Don Wrigley]

Quant 47 (79th percentile) Verbal 46 (99th percentile). Funny that the higher score in quant is 20 less in percentile

I started taking full length tests once a week starting about 6 weeks before the exam, though I didn't take one the week before the exam.

week 1: 720, powerprep
week 2: 730, powerprep
week 3: 660, manhattan gmat (i didn't like the manhattan gmat test at all, i thought it must've been too hard to properly gauge the score)
week 4: 710, gmatprep
week 5: 740, gmatprep

I don't recall scores for quant/verbal on the practice, though I generally was in the high 40s for quant and low 40s for verbal.

I guess it was a little bit of luck that on test day I outperformed all of the tests, specifically in verbal, I think that's the first time I got the 46 on the verbal section, while my highest score on the quant was I believe either 49 or 50.

If I had to do it again I'd take a "fresh" test so I know what I improved from -> to, but with the score I ended up with, I'm not going to say that my strategy was ineffective.

edit: as far as AWA (which nobody cares about apparently), I think I just got lucky...the only practice I ever did was writing the ones before the practice test, and maybe 20-30 minutes reading over what the section was from the OG book. Nobody seems to care, but I guess the 6.0 at least can't hurt.

[chicks]

I'm about to begin studying for the GMAT. Does anyone have any comments about MGMAT books/course?

[ken3233]

I'm about to begin studying for the GMAT. Does anyone have any comments about MGMAT books/course?

MGMAT seem excellent. I'm starting with SC and next month I'll be moving to their math books. The only drawback with MGMAT books is that they only give about 20 practice problems at the end of each chapter. I'm not sure that's enough practice to enable students to work through the concepts.

[BlindVision]

Just wanted to chime in that the MGMAT strategy guides do reference pertaining OG11 questions after each chapter lesson or at the end of the book. Once all the strategy guides are completed... one would have completed every OG11 question!

[BlueDragon2010]

Congrats Don

[chicks]

Don,
Congratulations on your accomplishment. Can you share your strategy? I also have 3 months to prepare and would like to know what your strategy was. Did you study on your own or did you take a prep course along with the resources you already referenced. I seem to have problems with DS on the quant side and CR and RC on the verbal. I'm curious to hear how you started and progressed to the point at which you felt ready to take the est and were confident that you would score well.
Thanks,

[Don Wrigley]

I had originally planned on taking a course, but ended up not. I told myself I may as well study on my own and see what kind of score I get, if I do poorly I can always go back and take the course later.

Turns out I ended up saving $1500 by not taking a course and just studying on my own.

I would generally study for about 2 hours after work every day, about 6-8PM. The first 3-4 days, this consisted of reading and maybe 5 or 6 practice problems. I just got a feel for all types of questions that would be thrown at me.

After I was done reading, it was practice problem practice problem practice problem. I did as much as 50 a night for 6 weeks. I basically alternated, whatever I felt like doing that night, and probably studied Sentence Correction the most...since it was what I had the most trouble with. Critical Reasoning and regular quant. I studied the least, because I found these to be by far the easiest (on the test itself, I don't think I got a single CR question incorrect).

And that's basically it. From what I hear, don't take a course unless you don't trust yourself to study. Even taking a course, you're not going to get the result you want if you don't do the work (which will most likely be given as homework from the class). I would think that the biggest downfall is _not_ putting in the effort.

As far as the AWA, I don't know what to make of the top score...the only time I ever looked at AWA was on the practice exams that I took weekly. All I could say is I think my CS background helped me, since I looked at the question from a logical standpoint rather than from an essay standpoint. I simply looked at the question and broke it down into a logical statement (kind of like open-endedly answering a CR question).

[Don Wrigley]

I don't know if this is the proper place to ask--but does anyone know what my AWA score could mean?

I know it can't hurt and generally what I hear is that it doesn't really matter, but will my 6.0 AWA be helpful at all for applications to top MBA schools?

[canada_sms]

Assuming you're a native english speaker your AWA score won't mean much. A low AWA score might cause the adcom to raise an eyebrow but a high AWA score just means you know how to do a simple writing task. The adcom knows that given the time constraints the AWA is just an exercise in bullsh*t.