About 2 months ago when I was starting my preparation for GMAT, I was clueless like many others
on how to start and also like many others i started with Beat the GMAT.
This post is not going to be about how overwhelmed I am for my achievement but it is going to be about how everyone else (including you) can beat the GMAT. Although as Buddha had once said every one follows a different path to success and each one has one's unique path but I believe knowing about other paths can certainly help.
So before I start, let me elucidate a little about my educational background. I am an engineering student from India, in my final year of college. Maths was not an issue for me as far as GMAT was concerned but verbal ability was certainly a nightmare.
So how did I do it?
First things first, I started with the official guide 12th edition (I will recommend the same for everyone else) and I must say that it is the most useful resource for one to pinpoint his or her weak areas.
By the time I finished the official guide, I realized that sentence correction and critical reasoning to some extent were my 2 problem areas.
After pinpointing the weak areas I put them under the crosshairs of Manhattan SC and CR guides, they may be quite expensive but they certainly helped me a lot and accompanying Manhattan guides was Kaplan GMAT 800, another very useful book. Completing the OG, Manhattan guides and Kaplan book took about 25 days or half of the time I had before my GMAT appointment. Finally I polished my skills by practicing with the official verbal guide which took another 5 days.
Now with 20 days left, I started with mock CAT's I did GMAT Prep, MGMAT and 800score, my opinion about the two is that MGMAT maths is way too difficult compared to the real GMAT while 800score's tests were very near to the GMAT level but 800score CAT's have very vague RC questions. In my opinion mock CAT's are very necessary for two reasons firstly to further polish your skills and secondly to get an idea of when to move forward when a question is difficult; mind it timing is extremely important in GMAT if you are not in a habit of leaving a question unsolved then you are in for a big trouble. I too had to guess a few questions in the real exam and still managed a pretty decent score.
Finally 2 days before the D-day I left everything, no revisions, no stress and no thoughts about "What if i get a bad score?".
There were butterflies in my stomach when the exam was about to start but the AWA section being an hour long, helps to calm things down before the question solving starts.
Finally, when the exam ended, I closed my eyes and just couldn't look at my score but when I opened my eyes I must say those few seconds were the happiest moments I ever had.
This is how I did it, and I believe that can score above 700 in the GMAT if they devise the correct strategy.
on how to start and also like many others i started with Beat the GMAT.
This post is not going to be about how overwhelmed I am for my achievement but it is going to be about how everyone else (including you) can beat the GMAT. Although as Buddha had once said every one follows a different path to success and each one has one's unique path but I believe knowing about other paths can certainly help.
So before I start, let me elucidate a little about my educational background. I am an engineering student from India, in my final year of college. Maths was not an issue for me as far as GMAT was concerned but verbal ability was certainly a nightmare.
So how did I do it?
First things first, I started with the official guide 12th edition (I will recommend the same for everyone else) and I must say that it is the most useful resource for one to pinpoint his or her weak areas.
By the time I finished the official guide, I realized that sentence correction and critical reasoning to some extent were my 2 problem areas.
After pinpointing the weak areas I put them under the crosshairs of Manhattan SC and CR guides, they may be quite expensive but they certainly helped me a lot and accompanying Manhattan guides was Kaplan GMAT 800, another very useful book. Completing the OG, Manhattan guides and Kaplan book took about 25 days or half of the time I had before my GMAT appointment. Finally I polished my skills by practicing with the official verbal guide which took another 5 days.
Now with 20 days left, I started with mock CAT's I did GMAT Prep, MGMAT and 800score, my opinion about the two is that MGMAT maths is way too difficult compared to the real GMAT while 800score's tests were very near to the GMAT level but 800score CAT's have very vague RC questions. In my opinion mock CAT's are very necessary for two reasons firstly to further polish your skills and secondly to get an idea of when to move forward when a question is difficult; mind it timing is extremely important in GMAT if you are not in a habit of leaving a question unsolved then you are in for a big trouble. I too had to guess a few questions in the real exam and still managed a pretty decent score.
Finally 2 days before the D-day I left everything, no revisions, no stress and no thoughts about "What if i get a bad score?".
There were butterflies in my stomach when the exam was about to start but the AWA section being an hour long, helps to calm things down before the question solving starts.
Finally, when the exam ended, I closed my eyes and just couldn't look at my score but when I opened my eyes I must say those few seconds were the happiest moments I ever had.
This is how I did it, and I believe that can score above 700 in the GMAT if they devise the correct strategy.
Last edited by himanshuag on Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
