My GMAT Experience
Dear BtGMAT community:
I would like to share my experience with you guys so as to share advice with those who come from similar situations to my own. That is: those with minimal time to prepare for the exam--in my case: just over one month.
First up, my actual score:
Total: 700 Percentile: 90
Quant: 44 / 68
Verbal: 41 / 92
--
Key advice:
1) In the first few weeks: take a prognostic, analyze your weaknesses and focus on them appropriately
2) If quant is your weaker area (as it was mine): first shore up on the general aspects--memorize formulas, familiarize yourself with DS, etc.
3) Again on quant: drill deeper into your personal weaknesses--mine was number properties--and tackle lots of advanced questions
3) This is a no-brainer, but do lots and lots of questions! The more you do, the clearer the test's patterns and style become.
--
Some personal background: I'm a 26 year-old male from Australia/USA currently working for an NGO in Beijing. I am applying for fall 2011 to Haas, Fuqua and potentially Columbia, NYU and Booth. I have a 3.82 GPA with a B.A. in political science from a big US state school and scored a 1410 on my GREs five years ago. I was always good at maths in high school, up to AP Calculus I.
I stumbled into the GMAT out of a combination of misguided belief and fortune. I'd thought I could get by on my GRE scores alone, but only while at a Haas info session did I realize this to not be the case! I then found out that Fuqua--another school that I am applying to--required the GMAT as well. At the time, I had about five weeks to go and found this post by Eric (founder of this site) to be very useful for allocating my resources and time: https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-to-study ... h-t98.html
This Business Week guide was also very useful: https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/gm ... index.html
I was scouring the net for study resources and was considering Knewton's online course. For those looking for a good comparison article regarding online programs, consider: https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/co ... collection
I downloaded MBA.com's practice software and took the first prognostic, scoring a 650. My math in particular--isn't everyone's?--was very rusty, and I decided to focus my efforts on shoring up my quant. I found the verbal much easier.
For my purposes, I decided to study independently and purchased the following books:
1) GMAT official review: total no-brainer - https://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-GM ... 674&sr=8-1
2) GMAT additional math: not necessary unless you've gotten through all the official questions: https://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-GM ... 674&sr=8-2
3) Kaplan quant review: not recommended - https://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-GMAT-Math- ... 74&sr=8-11
4) MGMAT word translations - very good, recommended - https://www.amazon.com/Word-Translations ... 74&sr=8-16
5) MGMAT number properties - excellent, best one I used - https://www.amazon.com/Number-Properties ... 74&sr=8-13
In addition, my former instructor at the small Washington DC-located company Sherpa Prep (https://sherpaprep.com/), with whom I'd prepped for the GRE, sent me some useful study guides.
--
Over the next month, I studied regularly but not obsessively. I put in on average one to two hours per day, going through the Sherpa guides, then the MGMAT books and the Kaplan review, while also doing some of the actual GMAT problems. From these books, I'd strongly recommend the MGMAT ones, and not recommend the Kaplan quant review. It offers very little in the way of detailed explanations and shortcuts/techniques, and the organization of the book is absolutely terrible.
My main regret is that I believe I should have spent more time on the GRE standard book questions. In particular, for those with decent basics who are finding the first section of questions easy, I suggest skimming and going straight to the harder problems. Eric lists the more challenging ones in his Amazon reviews. I lulled myself into a sense of false security in a way by spending time doing plenty of easier problems, when I should have been pushing myself--on both quant and verbal--with the harder questions.
I took two MGMAT quants and scored 650 and 720, then a 690 on the second MBA.com test.
On the actual exam, I found that despite all of the extra review I'd been doing in the previous few days, my final performance was very similar to that on my past prognostics. On quant, I could feel myself hitting that '700 question' wall, following which an easier question would come.
Overall, I'm reasonably satisfied with my score, though I was hoping to get up to 720. In order to do so, I would have needed to spend more time really mastering advanced number properties, which I found to be my major weakness. For those curious, I'd say the GMAT math is quite a bit harder than that on the GRE.
I wish all of you on this forum the best of luck! It has been a wonderful resource to be and I appreciate the positive, supportive community that it provides.
Warmly,
Mark
Dear BtGMAT community:
I would like to share my experience with you guys so as to share advice with those who come from similar situations to my own. That is: those with minimal time to prepare for the exam--in my case: just over one month.
First up, my actual score:
Total: 700 Percentile: 90
Quant: 44 / 68
Verbal: 41 / 92
--
Key advice:
1) In the first few weeks: take a prognostic, analyze your weaknesses and focus on them appropriately
2) If quant is your weaker area (as it was mine): first shore up on the general aspects--memorize formulas, familiarize yourself with DS, etc.
3) Again on quant: drill deeper into your personal weaknesses--mine was number properties--and tackle lots of advanced questions
3) This is a no-brainer, but do lots and lots of questions! The more you do, the clearer the test's patterns and style become.
--
Some personal background: I'm a 26 year-old male from Australia/USA currently working for an NGO in Beijing. I am applying for fall 2011 to Haas, Fuqua and potentially Columbia, NYU and Booth. I have a 3.82 GPA with a B.A. in political science from a big US state school and scored a 1410 on my GREs five years ago. I was always good at maths in high school, up to AP Calculus I.
I stumbled into the GMAT out of a combination of misguided belief and fortune. I'd thought I could get by on my GRE scores alone, but only while at a Haas info session did I realize this to not be the case! I then found out that Fuqua--another school that I am applying to--required the GMAT as well. At the time, I had about five weeks to go and found this post by Eric (founder of this site) to be very useful for allocating my resources and time: https://www.beatthegmat.com/how-to-study ... h-t98.html
This Business Week guide was also very useful: https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/gm ... index.html
I was scouring the net for study resources and was considering Knewton's online course. For those looking for a good comparison article regarding online programs, consider: https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/co ... collection
I downloaded MBA.com's practice software and took the first prognostic, scoring a 650. My math in particular--isn't everyone's?--was very rusty, and I decided to focus my efforts on shoring up my quant. I found the verbal much easier.
For my purposes, I decided to study independently and purchased the following books:
1) GMAT official review: total no-brainer - https://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-GM ... 674&sr=8-1
2) GMAT additional math: not necessary unless you've gotten through all the official questions: https://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-GM ... 674&sr=8-2
3) Kaplan quant review: not recommended - https://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-GMAT-Math- ... 74&sr=8-11
4) MGMAT word translations - very good, recommended - https://www.amazon.com/Word-Translations ... 74&sr=8-16
5) MGMAT number properties - excellent, best one I used - https://www.amazon.com/Number-Properties ... 74&sr=8-13
In addition, my former instructor at the small Washington DC-located company Sherpa Prep (https://sherpaprep.com/), with whom I'd prepped for the GRE, sent me some useful study guides.
--
Over the next month, I studied regularly but not obsessively. I put in on average one to two hours per day, going through the Sherpa guides, then the MGMAT books and the Kaplan review, while also doing some of the actual GMAT problems. From these books, I'd strongly recommend the MGMAT ones, and not recommend the Kaplan quant review. It offers very little in the way of detailed explanations and shortcuts/techniques, and the organization of the book is absolutely terrible.
My main regret is that I believe I should have spent more time on the GRE standard book questions. In particular, for those with decent basics who are finding the first section of questions easy, I suggest skimming and going straight to the harder problems. Eric lists the more challenging ones in his Amazon reviews. I lulled myself into a sense of false security in a way by spending time doing plenty of easier problems, when I should have been pushing myself--on both quant and verbal--with the harder questions.
I took two MGMAT quants and scored 650 and 720, then a 690 on the second MBA.com test.
On the actual exam, I found that despite all of the extra review I'd been doing in the previous few days, my final performance was very similar to that on my past prognostics. On quant, I could feel myself hitting that '700 question' wall, following which an easier question would come.
Overall, I'm reasonably satisfied with my score, though I was hoping to get up to 720. In order to do so, I would have needed to spend more time really mastering advanced number properties, which I found to be my major weakness. For those curious, I'd say the GMAT math is quite a bit harder than that on the GRE.
I wish all of you on this forum the best of luck! It has been a wonderful resource to be and I appreciate the positive, supportive community that it provides.
Warmly,
Mark
