I have just took the GMAT (700 Q48(84%)\V38(83%)) and I am writing you to thank all of you.
I am a native of France (Is it english ?
) and I have not studied for 12 years.
I had 3 months full time to prepare the GMAT.
1) TESTS
I did an assessment test at the beginning on GMAT Prep and got 620. I did also some mock exams twice a week for 10 weeks. My results are in average as follows :
Gmat prep official software : 710 (Q50\V33) (max 740 with a lot of questions already seen before)
Manhattan GMAT : 680 (Q49\V34)
I tried gmat800 and powerprep but I didnot find them very usefull.
I bought GMATfocus bundle of 3 and I found it very good to train when you are at the Q46\51 level. This was a good advice of Ian (Gmat instructor on this site)
2) LEARNING PROCESS
I bought the 8 books from Manhattan and I found them essential to get the mathematics theory and technics and very good for sentence corrections. I read them and did some flashcards that I tried to learn by heart. I learnt also by heart all idioms given in SC book.
In top of these readings I took a excellent semi intensive course with MBA Center in London (twice a week for 8 weeks) who gave me guidance.
I have choosen not to focus on any books from Princeton or Kaplan, which are very good for lower level training apparently. So I cannot say much about it.
I did roughly 10 hours a day for 2 months and 5 hours a day after.
I think that I was globally too tired after this preparation but on the other hand I was OK with any mathematics technics or SC technics.
3) THE BIG DAY
I checked out the center before.
I was a bit surprised that, unless the TOEFL, the first arrived starts first !
So I started at 9 instead of 9 30 officially.
I am not a morning guy ( I discovered that again...) and I trained to be alert and focus around 9 30 every morning, so with the adrelanine it was ok the day of the exam.
The awa went well (waiting for results) ( I used a template), even if my english is fairly weak.
The first question of mathematics: I panicked !! and I believe was slightly too difficult for a first question ! i hopefully managed to get it right but in 4 minutes ! my hands were checking and my heart beat was pretty high.
For the rest of the questions, I spent no more than 2 minutes per question and guessed when I ran out of time even if I knew how to do the exercice. But of course, when it is too time consuming it is better to guess than to run out of time at the end. In fact when you are at the Q46\51 level you can virtually always find the good answer but it is a matter of assessing if it is worth to spend 4 times 4 minutes and to have 5 wrong answers at the end of the maths ? I read a lot about the additional time you can spend to answer correctly a question but I still don t know if it is better to answer all questions well and get then some easy questions time to time in order to have some time back ????
By guessing a bit more than normal I then get 3 minutes for the last questions that was a big algebra time consumming one ! I think that some parameters of the soft are taking the time you take to answer each question ?
The only conclusion is that I did comparably a bit less that I used to do (Q50 on Gmat prep, best 51).
For the English I did very well (Q38) and it is my best score ever ! so I was very happy to have done the maths lightly... in order to get some mental ressources for the Verbal.
I have to say that just 7 minutes at the end, a nice worker started to hammer something in the slab and It was extremely annoying.
I asked for an incident report to be issued even if my score is ok.
My conclusion : don t be too tired ! be relaxed.
4) What kind of school can i get with that ?
I will apply to INSEAD, HEC and LBS. Any more ideas, as my score seems pretty balanced (84%,83%) ?
In conclusion, to get 700 took me such energy that I have now only three weeks to prepare my application to INSEAD...and I have been told that GMAT is just 10% of the application, is it correct ? (I should have asked that a the beginning
)
A last question, what is the best site for applications and tips on schools ? is it clearadmit only ?
MANY THANKS to all people on this site (Logitech,...)
I am a native of France (Is it english ?
) and I have not studied for 12 years.I had 3 months full time to prepare the GMAT.
1) TESTS
I did an assessment test at the beginning on GMAT Prep and got 620. I did also some mock exams twice a week for 10 weeks. My results are in average as follows :
Gmat prep official software : 710 (Q50\V33) (max 740 with a lot of questions already seen before)
Manhattan GMAT : 680 (Q49\V34)
I tried gmat800 and powerprep but I didnot find them very usefull.
I bought GMATfocus bundle of 3 and I found it very good to train when you are at the Q46\51 level. This was a good advice of Ian (Gmat instructor on this site)
2) LEARNING PROCESS
I bought the 8 books from Manhattan and I found them essential to get the mathematics theory and technics and very good for sentence corrections. I read them and did some flashcards that I tried to learn by heart. I learnt also by heart all idioms given in SC book.
In top of these readings I took a excellent semi intensive course with MBA Center in London (twice a week for 8 weeks) who gave me guidance.
I have choosen not to focus on any books from Princeton or Kaplan, which are very good for lower level training apparently. So I cannot say much about it.
I did roughly 10 hours a day for 2 months and 5 hours a day after.
I think that I was globally too tired after this preparation but on the other hand I was OK with any mathematics technics or SC technics.
3) THE BIG DAY
I checked out the center before.
I was a bit surprised that, unless the TOEFL, the first arrived starts first !
So I started at 9 instead of 9 30 officially.
I am not a morning guy ( I discovered that again...) and I trained to be alert and focus around 9 30 every morning, so with the adrelanine it was ok the day of the exam.
The awa went well (waiting for results) ( I used a template), even if my english is fairly weak.
The first question of mathematics: I panicked !! and I believe was slightly too difficult for a first question ! i hopefully managed to get it right but in 4 minutes ! my hands were checking and my heart beat was pretty high.
For the rest of the questions, I spent no more than 2 minutes per question and guessed when I ran out of time even if I knew how to do the exercice. But of course, when it is too time consuming it is better to guess than to run out of time at the end. In fact when you are at the Q46\51 level you can virtually always find the good answer but it is a matter of assessing if it is worth to spend 4 times 4 minutes and to have 5 wrong answers at the end of the maths ? I read a lot about the additional time you can spend to answer correctly a question but I still don t know if it is better to answer all questions well and get then some easy questions time to time in order to have some time back ????
By guessing a bit more than normal I then get 3 minutes for the last questions that was a big algebra time consumming one ! I think that some parameters of the soft are taking the time you take to answer each question ?
The only conclusion is that I did comparably a bit less that I used to do (Q50 on Gmat prep, best 51).
For the English I did very well (Q38) and it is my best score ever ! so I was very happy to have done the maths lightly... in order to get some mental ressources for the Verbal.
I have to say that just 7 minutes at the end, a nice worker started to hammer something in the slab and It was extremely annoying.
I asked for an incident report to be issued even if my score is ok.
My conclusion : don t be too tired ! be relaxed.
4) What kind of school can i get with that ?
I will apply to INSEAD, HEC and LBS. Any more ideas, as my score seems pretty balanced (84%,83%) ?
In conclusion, to get 700 took me such energy that I have now only three weeks to prepare my application to INSEAD...and I have been told that GMAT is just 10% of the application, is it correct ? (I should have asked that a the beginning
)A last question, what is the best site for applications and tips on schools ? is it clearadmit only ?
MANY THANKS to all people on this site (Logitech,...)
