Hi everyone, did my GMAT today, and i got 710 Q47, V41. I was disappointed with my quan score but i'm glad that it is at least over 700.
I've been lurking and reading all the valuable experiences posted by the very kind people on this forum. So i've decided to give back to the community; the community is only this good because of the people who have contributed in the past!
Background:
Currently final year student doing my undergraduate degree in Australia, but I am a Singaporean. While my native language is English, I am not exposed to it as much as some of you guys out there. I have been confident and comfortable with the quantitative sections during practice, but the data sufficiency questions were new to me.
I am considering my career options now, with Corporate Finance, Risk Management or Consulting in mind. I decided to take the GMAT now as I hope to do my masters within the next 5 years. (Looking at London Business School Masters in Finance/MBA, HBS, Wharton MBA at the moment, not sure if my profile and score can get me there tho!)
Time taken:
I started my preparation on 28th December 2009, did the GMAT prep test, scored 580 Q37 V41 (not sure if this is accurate but that's what i recorded down at the time) Didn't do well for quant as DS caught me by surprise.
I took the test on 10th Feb 2010, i studied full time, at least 5 hours everyday. Of course, i had a couple of rest days when i was just sick of doing all the exercises.
Books i used in order of usage:
Kaplan GMAT Premier - wasn't a great book for me, but i would say it was useful for refreshing quan knowledge and unorthodox tips were sometimes too much for me. (I don't like to resort to 'guessing' answers)
Princeton Review - did not like the explanations, but it was still good practice. The practice tests were way too easy in the quan section especially, and the explanations in those tests were inadequate most of the time.
GMAT OG 12th Ed - Great book, a must have for anyone. This book is emphasized by almost everyone here.
Manhattan SC - Great book for me, the 6 practice quizzes that came with it were already well worth the price of the book.
Prep:
My prep was mainly focused on practice, practice and practice. I knew i had sufficient time to do the test (almost one and a half month) so i tried to do all the questions.
Quantitative: At first, the DS questions were hard to solve but as the more i practiced the more comfortable i felt with them. Tho, i still prefer the PS questions anytime, i like the answers to be in the choice so i know when i'm correct. I guess one advice for DS is to always break down the question stem to simpler equations and try to solve it from there. Always use the elimination method taught by the books: Evaluate (1), if correct - you're left with A and D, if you're wrong - B, C or E.
Verbal: I struggled with the sentence correction. I was actually panicking when i couldn't seem to solve the questions without guessing. One valuable advice that i picked up from this forum: Buy the Manhattan SC!!! Great book to improve on SC, and i can vouch that if i didn't buy this book, i wouldn't even have hit the 700 score.
Prep tests i did:
28 Dec 09 - GMAT Prep 1 580 Q37 V41
12 Jan - Kaplan Cat 1 680 Q51 V31
13 Jan - Princeton Review 1 640 Q47 V31
(Started on OG)
16 Jan - Princeton Review 2 650 Q45 V36
19 Jan - Kaplan Cat 2 630 Q43 V32
(Started on Manhattan SC)
22 Jan - MGMAT 1 650 Q44 V35
26 Jan - MGMAT 2 680 Q46 V36
(Started reading up on AWA and doing them in the tests)
29 Jan - Princeton Review 3 660 Q48 V34
1 Feb - MGMAT 3 670 Q48 V33
3 Feb - GMAT Prep 2 680 Q49 V34
4 Feb - GMAT Prep 1 730 Q50 V39 (First 700! Excited and relieved!)
5 Feb - GMAT Prep 2 720 Q49 V39
6 Feb - MGMAT 4 700 Q49 V36
8 Feb - GMAT Prep 1 730 Q49 V41
9 Feb - GMAT Prep 2 750 Q50 V41
10 Feb - Real GMAT 710 Q47 V41
As you can see i spent alot of time on all these tests, I felt it was beneficial for me. Though I was always going through a rollercoaster of emotions when i get a good score or a bad one. My verbal improved greatly after i started going through the Manhattan SC and i knew it as i wasn't 'guessing' the answers anymore.
On the test day:
My test was at 5pm, it's in between my normal dinner time, so I felt it wasn't a really good time, but it was the only time during this date and i booked it way in advance.
I actually went to the test center 1 hour earlier. The procter was kind enough to let me take it in advance as there was a computer available.
I felt that the actual Quan section in the test i took was alot harder than the one in the GMAT Prep, it's almost to the same level as the MGMAT Quan sections. The first question I did was, to me, not even an easy - normal level question; I felt it jumped straight to a hard! The questions afterwhich maintained at that level and I was surprised by that and maybe that explains why my quan score isn't as high as i would liked it to be. It had a considerable effect on me as i was doubting myself during the test and i spent alot more time on the questions rather than using the 2 min guideline. As the clock was ticking, i was practically eliminating the impossible options and just guessing the ones that might have been right. It's not a good thing to know that you're running out of time and you're trying to play catch up for the remaining questions.
So - time management is extremely important. I'm just glad that the lack of time management did not make me pay the price in my scores.
During the break after the quan section, I went to the washroom to freshen up. Sat outside the examination room thinking about what went wrong just now. Decided that i should not bother about the previous section and that i need to step up my game to salvage anything left out of this.
The verbal was painful as i was very very careful with my choices. I was also more aware of the time and i was stricter with myself for the time spent on each question.
Finished the test and got 710!
It's not a spectacular result, but it's not a bad result either. I know i could have done better but I might not wanna go through that again as i still fall within the GMAT average in the good business schools.
Anyhow, thank you all of the people here who posted here sharing all the valuable experiences about tackling the GMAT! This community amazes me as it is so uncommon to find such a open and generous (and free too!!) community anywhere. Feel free to post any questions, i will be happy to help.
I've been lurking and reading all the valuable experiences posted by the very kind people on this forum. So i've decided to give back to the community; the community is only this good because of the people who have contributed in the past!
Background:
Currently final year student doing my undergraduate degree in Australia, but I am a Singaporean. While my native language is English, I am not exposed to it as much as some of you guys out there. I have been confident and comfortable with the quantitative sections during practice, but the data sufficiency questions were new to me.
I am considering my career options now, with Corporate Finance, Risk Management or Consulting in mind. I decided to take the GMAT now as I hope to do my masters within the next 5 years. (Looking at London Business School Masters in Finance/MBA, HBS, Wharton MBA at the moment, not sure if my profile and score can get me there tho!)
Time taken:
I started my preparation on 28th December 2009, did the GMAT prep test, scored 580 Q37 V41 (not sure if this is accurate but that's what i recorded down at the time) Didn't do well for quant as DS caught me by surprise.
I took the test on 10th Feb 2010, i studied full time, at least 5 hours everyday. Of course, i had a couple of rest days when i was just sick of doing all the exercises.
Books i used in order of usage:
Kaplan GMAT Premier - wasn't a great book for me, but i would say it was useful for refreshing quan knowledge and unorthodox tips were sometimes too much for me. (I don't like to resort to 'guessing' answers)
Princeton Review - did not like the explanations, but it was still good practice. The practice tests were way too easy in the quan section especially, and the explanations in those tests were inadequate most of the time.
GMAT OG 12th Ed - Great book, a must have for anyone. This book is emphasized by almost everyone here.
Manhattan SC - Great book for me, the 6 practice quizzes that came with it were already well worth the price of the book.
Prep:
My prep was mainly focused on practice, practice and practice. I knew i had sufficient time to do the test (almost one and a half month) so i tried to do all the questions.
Quantitative: At first, the DS questions were hard to solve but as the more i practiced the more comfortable i felt with them. Tho, i still prefer the PS questions anytime, i like the answers to be in the choice so i know when i'm correct. I guess one advice for DS is to always break down the question stem to simpler equations and try to solve it from there. Always use the elimination method taught by the books: Evaluate (1), if correct - you're left with A and D, if you're wrong - B, C or E.
Verbal: I struggled with the sentence correction. I was actually panicking when i couldn't seem to solve the questions without guessing. One valuable advice that i picked up from this forum: Buy the Manhattan SC!!! Great book to improve on SC, and i can vouch that if i didn't buy this book, i wouldn't even have hit the 700 score.
Prep tests i did:
28 Dec 09 - GMAT Prep 1 580 Q37 V41
12 Jan - Kaplan Cat 1 680 Q51 V31
13 Jan - Princeton Review 1 640 Q47 V31
(Started on OG)
16 Jan - Princeton Review 2 650 Q45 V36
19 Jan - Kaplan Cat 2 630 Q43 V32
(Started on Manhattan SC)
22 Jan - MGMAT 1 650 Q44 V35
26 Jan - MGMAT 2 680 Q46 V36
(Started reading up on AWA and doing them in the tests)
29 Jan - Princeton Review 3 660 Q48 V34
1 Feb - MGMAT 3 670 Q48 V33
3 Feb - GMAT Prep 2 680 Q49 V34
4 Feb - GMAT Prep 1 730 Q50 V39 (First 700! Excited and relieved!)
5 Feb - GMAT Prep 2 720 Q49 V39
6 Feb - MGMAT 4 700 Q49 V36
8 Feb - GMAT Prep 1 730 Q49 V41
9 Feb - GMAT Prep 2 750 Q50 V41
10 Feb - Real GMAT 710 Q47 V41
As you can see i spent alot of time on all these tests, I felt it was beneficial for me. Though I was always going through a rollercoaster of emotions when i get a good score or a bad one. My verbal improved greatly after i started going through the Manhattan SC and i knew it as i wasn't 'guessing' the answers anymore.
On the test day:
My test was at 5pm, it's in between my normal dinner time, so I felt it wasn't a really good time, but it was the only time during this date and i booked it way in advance.
I actually went to the test center 1 hour earlier. The procter was kind enough to let me take it in advance as there was a computer available.
I felt that the actual Quan section in the test i took was alot harder than the one in the GMAT Prep, it's almost to the same level as the MGMAT Quan sections. The first question I did was, to me, not even an easy - normal level question; I felt it jumped straight to a hard! The questions afterwhich maintained at that level and I was surprised by that and maybe that explains why my quan score isn't as high as i would liked it to be. It had a considerable effect on me as i was doubting myself during the test and i spent alot more time on the questions rather than using the 2 min guideline. As the clock was ticking, i was practically eliminating the impossible options and just guessing the ones that might have been right. It's not a good thing to know that you're running out of time and you're trying to play catch up for the remaining questions.
So - time management is extremely important. I'm just glad that the lack of time management did not make me pay the price in my scores.
During the break after the quan section, I went to the washroom to freshen up. Sat outside the examination room thinking about what went wrong just now. Decided that i should not bother about the previous section and that i need to step up my game to salvage anything left out of this.
The verbal was painful as i was very very careful with my choices. I was also more aware of the time and i was stricter with myself for the time spent on each question.
Finished the test and got 710!
It's not a spectacular result, but it's not a bad result either. I know i could have done better but I might not wanna go through that again as i still fall within the GMAT average in the good business schools.
Anyhow, thank you all of the people here who posted here sharing all the valuable experiences about tackling the GMAT! This community amazes me as it is so uncommon to find such a open and generous (and free too!!) community anywhere. Feel free to post any questions, i will be happy to help.
Last edited by seanw on Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
