OK guys, here we go:
BACKGROUND:
Male, 27, English is a third language, Educated in top US liberal arts college. Non-traditional/non-Quant background.
PREPARATION
Kaplan Premier
Kaplan 800
Cracking the GMAT
Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction Guide.
Official Guide to GMAT
Verbal/Quant Guide to GMAT
GMAT Prep
PowerPrep
There are a number of absolutely amazing detailed posts out there so instead of boring you with a full run down, I’ll try to summarize my personal experience in a number of DO’s and DON’ts. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions I’ll be more than happy to answer any queries.
1. Don’t make the same mistake the I did: as you can see I got too many books and ended up loosing focus and stamina after a few weeks of preparation. Therefore, my suggestion is this: choose either Kaplan Premier or Princeton Review book as a warm up guide - to understand the concepts and get comfortable with the format. Once you’re done with either of those books move on to Official Guides.
2. Get help. My last attempt to take the GMAT was not my first one. At some point in my preparation process I realized that I hit the wall with a couple of algebraic concepts but hoped that it will not prevent me from getting a good score on quant. Wrong. My score improved only after I admitted that I could not make progress on my own (I had to learn it a hard way). I decided to get a couple of session with a tutor, which was expensive but not more expensive then re-taking the GMAT. I never took a course, so I cannot comment if it makes sense to register for one, but it is my understanding that most courses are overpriced, do not provide adequate personal instruction and generally aim to coach to score in mid/upper 600’s not to break the 700 barrier.
3. Take as many official tests as you can. Installing and uninstalling GMAT Prep and PowerPrep proved to an invaluable tool. There is not better way to prepare than taking tests over and over again. Some people will say that you need to study smart than to study hard: do both instead. Work over your mistakes, if necessary get a tutor (see point 2) but at the end of the day you need to build a skill set to solve the problem under 2 minutes and this will only come with practice. You will also need an almost intuitive understanding of GMAT questions are looking for, and again practice is absolutely key here.
4. Finally, keep visiting this forum. Read the posts for information, get feedback, ask questions. Read about people’s mistakes and more importantly success. This will keep you motivated.
ENDGAME:TEST DAY
My test was scheduled for 12:30pm, so I got up late, had a nice breakfast, and reviewed a few key concepts to warm up. I got to the test center in advance, registered and started the test early. AWA was OK, not my dream questions but seeing that on average people get good score on AWA, my strategy was not to do fabulously great but to get through it with a decent essay but save my mental energy for Quant section, which was always the my biggest challenge.
In a way GMAT is a like endurance running – a good result will depend as much on energy saving as on time management and good prep.
Anyway, I digress. After getting over with AWA, I took an optional break and got back to the Quant Section. This is where things started to get wrong. Despite my effort to stay on schedule I ended up running out of time and guessed on the last couple of questions. Moreover, last 7-8 questions were absolute killers, and I cannot say for sure how many mistakes I made. It could be that the algorithm is indeed designed to give more weight to earlier questions or it could be that I did answer later questions correctly – I will never know. The lesson that I took away is this – whatever happens on GMAT stay positive. It has been said before but I cannot stress this enough: GMAT is as much about composure and ability manage stress as about anything else. You might be getting horrible questions, but don’t let that bring you down - refocus and move on.
After quant I took another break and got back for the final round. I was stronger in Verbal but again I managed to run out of time and guessed on a couple of questions at the end. This mostly happened because I spent too much time on critical reasoning, which was my forte so I simply did not want to give up on questions without finding a perfect answer. I paid dearly for it – I think that it might have cost me at least 10-20 points on my total GMAT score.
FINAL WORDS:
I have taken GMAT 3 times – scoring 630, 580, and 710 respectively. My second time was the worst – and that’s despite the fact that I invested another month in preparation after scoring a (relatively) decent 630. It never made any sense to me, I guess GMAT works in mysterious ways. I am not a quant guy and I am not an English native speaker so both sections of GMAT proved to be challenging. This leads me to believe that if I scored 700+ so can most people on this forum. Don’t give up, be honest about what you don’t know and be ready to invest some time in it – and you’ll beat the GMAT. Good luck!
BACKGROUND:
Male, 27, English is a third language, Educated in top US liberal arts college. Non-traditional/non-Quant background.
PREPARATION
Kaplan Premier
Kaplan 800
Cracking the GMAT
Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction Guide.
Official Guide to GMAT
Verbal/Quant Guide to GMAT
GMAT Prep
PowerPrep
There are a number of absolutely amazing detailed posts out there so instead of boring you with a full run down, I’ll try to summarize my personal experience in a number of DO’s and DON’ts. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions I’ll be more than happy to answer any queries.
1. Don’t make the same mistake the I did: as you can see I got too many books and ended up loosing focus and stamina after a few weeks of preparation. Therefore, my suggestion is this: choose either Kaplan Premier or Princeton Review book as a warm up guide - to understand the concepts and get comfortable with the format. Once you’re done with either of those books move on to Official Guides.
2. Get help. My last attempt to take the GMAT was not my first one. At some point in my preparation process I realized that I hit the wall with a couple of algebraic concepts but hoped that it will not prevent me from getting a good score on quant. Wrong. My score improved only after I admitted that I could not make progress on my own (I had to learn it a hard way). I decided to get a couple of session with a tutor, which was expensive but not more expensive then re-taking the GMAT. I never took a course, so I cannot comment if it makes sense to register for one, but it is my understanding that most courses are overpriced, do not provide adequate personal instruction and generally aim to coach to score in mid/upper 600’s not to break the 700 barrier.
3. Take as many official tests as you can. Installing and uninstalling GMAT Prep and PowerPrep proved to an invaluable tool. There is not better way to prepare than taking tests over and over again. Some people will say that you need to study smart than to study hard: do both instead. Work over your mistakes, if necessary get a tutor (see point 2) but at the end of the day you need to build a skill set to solve the problem under 2 minutes and this will only come with practice. You will also need an almost intuitive understanding of GMAT questions are looking for, and again practice is absolutely key here.
4. Finally, keep visiting this forum. Read the posts for information, get feedback, ask questions. Read about people’s mistakes and more importantly success. This will keep you motivated.
ENDGAME:TEST DAY
My test was scheduled for 12:30pm, so I got up late, had a nice breakfast, and reviewed a few key concepts to warm up. I got to the test center in advance, registered and started the test early. AWA was OK, not my dream questions but seeing that on average people get good score on AWA, my strategy was not to do fabulously great but to get through it with a decent essay but save my mental energy for Quant section, which was always the my biggest challenge.
In a way GMAT is a like endurance running – a good result will depend as much on energy saving as on time management and good prep.
Anyway, I digress. After getting over with AWA, I took an optional break and got back to the Quant Section. This is where things started to get wrong. Despite my effort to stay on schedule I ended up running out of time and guessed on the last couple of questions. Moreover, last 7-8 questions were absolute killers, and I cannot say for sure how many mistakes I made. It could be that the algorithm is indeed designed to give more weight to earlier questions or it could be that I did answer later questions correctly – I will never know. The lesson that I took away is this – whatever happens on GMAT stay positive. It has been said before but I cannot stress this enough: GMAT is as much about composure and ability manage stress as about anything else. You might be getting horrible questions, but don’t let that bring you down - refocus and move on.
After quant I took another break and got back for the final round. I was stronger in Verbal but again I managed to run out of time and guessed on a couple of questions at the end. This mostly happened because I spent too much time on critical reasoning, which was my forte so I simply did not want to give up on questions without finding a perfect answer. I paid dearly for it – I think that it might have cost me at least 10-20 points on my total GMAT score.
FINAL WORDS:
I have taken GMAT 3 times – scoring 630, 580, and 710 respectively. My second time was the worst – and that’s despite the fact that I invested another month in preparation after scoring a (relatively) decent 630. It never made any sense to me, I guess GMAT works in mysterious ways. I am not a quant guy and I am not an English native speaker so both sections of GMAT proved to be challenging. This leads me to believe that if I scored 700+ so can most people on this forum. Don’t give up, be honest about what you don’t know and be ready to invest some time in it – and you’ll beat the GMAT. Good luck!
