740 (Q:47 V:45) short debrief and some strategies. AWA 6.0

[jeremy8]

Just took the test today.

I was hoping to score higher but I went there with only 3 hours of sleep, so I can't complain too much, I guess...
I'll give a little info on my knowledge background for those who are looking for some strategies.
It might help you determine if what helped me could help you in similar ways.

When I started reviewing, I sucked at math in a critical way. I mean I really, really, really sucked at math.
I basically couldn't solve a first degree equation, didn't know Pythagoras' theorem or anything about number properties, rules of exponents, etc...no joke.
The only thing I had going for me was that I was really good at mental calculations.
My mom had made me practice multiplication tables daily as a kid, and I sure integrated that part of arythmetics.
After that...it was pretty much a disaster.

The verbal part on the other hand, turned out to be my strong suit. As I took the diagnostic test in the OG, I got every question wrong but one on the Quant part, and all questions right on the Verbal part, so I pretty much knew what I had to study.

I used the Manhattan GMAT books. I got the 5 quant guides and eventually purchased the online OG companion, which turned out to be a great help towards the end of my study period.

[jeremy8]

I found the books to be very well organized and very well written.
All you need to know is in these books, and there's nothing you don't need to know.
I have no grounds for comparison because I initially went with MGMAT at the suggestion of one of my friends, but I only have positive things to say about their guides.
My friend had tried Kaplan before MGMAT and his opinion is that the MGMAT guides are far superior in every respect.

The approach I took was the following: I didn't want to cram formulas in my head and just hope that I would be able to plug them on test day.
The GMAT is not one of these tests. It'll test your ability to think logically much more than it'll test your ability to regurgitate knowledge committed to memory.
I think the best approach to take is to truly understand every concept you come across in these books.

I also think you gain a lot from not using a tutor and doing everything yourself.
It'll take more time but your brain will work harder to grasp the underlying essence of these concepts than if it is spoon-fed explanations by someone else.
Of course, if you are limited in your study time and think you can't afford to take this route with whatever time you have, you're better off getting help to prepare optimally for test day.

[jeremy8]

I organized my studying in a very systematic way:

I started with the first quant guide on number properties. I did every chapter of the basic section, saving the advanced section for later. I had also purachased the OG guides, all of them, and they are absolutely essential, but I did not use them in the beginning.

Because I knew so little about math, I just did the exercises in the MGMAT guides.
When I was done with the basic section of NP, I moved on to the basic section of the 2nd quant guide, FDP's.
I think the order is very important to follow. There's a reason that they organized the guides in a certain order.

You can't start word problems if you don't know anything about percentages, number properties, etc...
Every guide is an essential step you need to complete before you can deal with most of the knowledge presented to you in later guides, at the exception of the advanced sections, which I recommend you save for later.

Anyway, I just went through all the basic sections of the quant guides in order, doing all the exercises in them.
When I was done with that, I went through the same stuff over again, including the exercises!
I'm a big believer in learning by giving your brain time to digest new concepts and giving it time to truly integrate that new knowledge so that it becomes less superficial.
The best thing to do after a long study cycle like this one, is to review everything to really cement what you've learned.

[jeremy8]

By the time I was done with my first study cycle, it had been two weeks since I'd first exposed myself to a lot of new concepts about NP, FDP's, etc...
Going through all of it again (much faster the second time around of course, you don't want to make it a complete torture and drive yourself nuts), I really felt that it was the right thing to do, that it was really solidifying everything I'd learned in the past weeks.

The second time around however, I would also do all the exerices in the OG (but not in the quant and verbal OG guides, which I saved for later) mentioned in the MGMAT guides at the end of each section.

When I was done with that second cycle, I moved on to the advanced sections of the guides.
This time however, I only studied them once, doing the OG exercises at the end of each section as well as the exercises in the MGMAT guides.

At that point, I took my first practice test. I scored 690, thanks only to my performance on the verbal part of the test.
I was making a lot of mistakes.
A quick word on this: The MGMAT guides are also great because they come with practice tests that are virtually identical to what you'll experience on the real test.

[jeremy8]

These are absolutely invaluable, and I would've not scored anywhere close to what I scored without them.

Another reason they are important, in my opinion, is that they help you understand the structure of the grading of the test better.
You get to see how many mistakes you made. I was amazed at how many mistakes I made while still getting a score of 690.

I basically got 20 wrong answers out of 37 on the quant portion of the test. And that's the thing.
It puts everything in perspective. You understand that even people who score above 700 make lots of mistakes.

For me, it was definitely very reassuring. Right away, I thought, "well I can certainly cut down on the number of mistakes I'm making, this is going to be a piece of cake; of course I'm not going to end up making 20 mistakes out of 37 questions"

I have to say it again, these tests are extremely important. There is an art to taking this test.
You don't want to be surprised by anything. You want to be able to not be bothered by the clock running down in the top corner of your screen. You want to learn how to manage your time optimally, when to give up on certain questions, and most importantly, you want to develop the art of educated guessing.

[jeremy8]

You want to know when the best time to plug numbers is, what numbers are dangerous to plug

You want to be careful when choosing "smart" numbers for VIC problems. Make sure they're not too smart for your own good.
For example, a typical question about two machines running at different rates x and y to complete a certain task will lead to false positives if you're not careful about which numbers you choose.

Don't make one machine twice as fast as the other one so that they "even out" due to the information given in the question stem. You'll figure it out eventually, but learning this takes experience, and the two practice tests provided by the GMAC are in my opinion not enough in that respect.

After that, I basically took one practice test every two days. At the end of the thest, I would slowly review every question (even the ones I got right), making sure I didn't just look at the answer, but rather truly tried to understand the mistake I'd made.

The next day, I would review the questions from the day before to make sure I had really understood what I'd done wrong and I would also do some of the problems from the OG Quant and Verbal guides that I'd saved for some late practice.

[jeremy8]

In my experience, the MGMAT CAT tests were harder than the GMAC practice tests.
The tests went as follows:

MGMAT:690
M:650
GMAC:750
M:710
M:730
G:780
M:740

Given my last scores I was expecting to do better on the actual test, but my sleep schedule got all messed up a couple of days before the exam and I basically ended up going to bed not tired enough, waking up 3 hours later at 2am, not being able to go back to sleep and staying up until 12pm, the time of my exam.

This is why I'll stress the importance of being on a good schedule as well. This will be obvious to most, but just in case...don't make the same mistake I did.

[jeremy8]

I'll say one last thing. I think it's important to enjoy the study process.

If you turn this experience into a complete grind, you'll not only remember it as a horrible experience later in life, but it'll severely affect the speed at which you learn as well as how well you understand and integrate the concepts presented to you.

I was lucky in the sense that I realized I actually love math. I developed a fascination for it and I eventually found myself waking up in the morning and looking forward to the moment I would start discovering new concepts.

Not everyone is going to find math fascinating, but we have a lot more control over our emotions than we believe, and certainly a lot more than what we choose to exert in our daily lives.
Try to see the beauty in it, the way in which it is a language, just like any other, just like music, how it describes certain phenomena in your environment and helps you make sense of your surroundings, etc...

I haven't personally used any of the verbal tools beyond the exercises in the OG, but my friend was as complimentary towards the MGMAT Verbal guides as he was towards their Quant guides.
I didn't practice the AWA portion of the test at all, but that's not necessarily something I would recommend, unless you feel very comfortable with this kind of writing structure.

Good luck to all of you. I apologize for any mistakes in my posts. I've now been up for 24 hours straight on 3 hours of sleep, and I'm finally going to go to bed...
Although I don't plan to dwell for too long on this event, I'll be happy to answer some questions if I can help anyone.

PS: Although I didn't use this forum nearly as much as I should have, I definitely recommend posting any doubts or questions you have here.
People are on average very helpful and there are many official tutors from all the major companies who are always willing to help and are very clear and descriptive in their answers.

[asma101]

GOOD GOD!!!!! U have nailed it !!!! all the best for your app. process

[outreach]

wow great score

[jeremy8]

Thanks a lot.

I'm in the process of writing my essays and trying to strenghten my application any way possible.
I just got my AWA score and I'm glad I ended up doing well despite not working on that part of the test.

Looking around the forum, I also realized that 90% of those who got my score did better in math, in which I only scored in the 77% percentile, despite spending 99% of my time on it.

Since I'm not applying to be a journalist, I'm kind of worried this will negatively affect my chances of getting into certain top schools, if it happens to be the deciding factor between two similarly strong applications.
I now wish I'd worked a lot harder on my math skills.

If this can help anyone, I would say that targeting weaknesses is perhaps the single most important thing you should focus on when studying for the test.
I don't know much about the scoring algorithm, but many have mentioned that in order to score above 700, one can't rely on scoring highly on only one portion of the test.

As far as the AWA goes, I used only one example in the analysis of an issue question.
I think this is fine as long as you use it to make several points.

Another thing is that I took a middle ground stance.
The statement presented to me was very absolute, and instead of disagreeing or agreeing with it, I explained that the situation described in the statement depended on human behavioral interactions and, as such, led to infinite variations in terms of possible outcomes and could therefore not be contained in a single "rule of thumb".

I argued that the optimal response to that situation would always be contextual and had to be adapted on the spot every time it occurred.

I'm just mentioning this because it's not a line of argumentation I was very comfortable with, and I was kind of worried it would turn out to negatively affect my score; but it turns out that it was fine, so if you find yourself stuck with a certain argument or issue, try to think about other ways to approach the problem and about the fact that you have the whole spectrum of argumentation at your disposal, and not just its extremes.