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stewartmcm
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I've been wanting to write this post for a while now, and after 18 months of ups and downs, I can finally write my victory cigar post (got my official GMAC score report yesterday with IR and AWA scores). I took away a lot of advice and inspiration from this forum, and I believe reading this forum led to a turning point in my prep, so I'll do my best to describe my process - the good and the bad. This will probably be most helpful to those struggling to get their quant scores in the 80th percentile range (from the 60s or low 70s) - that was my major battle.
My Prep Courses and Materials
Manhattan GMAT Online Course and Textbooks (4th Ed.)
The OG
Manhattan GMAT: Advanced Quant
Thursdays with Ron (Manhattan GMAT Free Online Resource)
My Approach (Round One)
School and these kinds of tests have never come easy to me. I've always had to put in way more hours than the average person to get the good grade, good test score, whatever. I had a few good friends that took the GMAT without any Kaplan or Manhattan GMAT classes, and they did okay, so I thought if I paid up for Manhattan GMAT, I'd be able to get a decent score. I'm shooting for a part-time program too, so I figured achieving a 700+ score wasn't crucial for my applications.
In January 2011, I started my first go round with the Manhattan Online courses and readings. At times, my job was too intense to study consistently, but I can say I safely completed all of the lectures, workout sets, and OG problems within 5 months. I took one full CAT halfway through the MGMAT course, and just 1 full CAT after the course, prior to test day. This was a huge mistake. I rushed the test. Work was busy, so I decided to take shortcuts to make sure I could take the test the morning of July 5th (I was leaving for my first vacation in years the afternoon of the 5th). I got a 690 on one CAT, but still didn't know realistically where I would score, especially since I wasn't taking the practice CATs like you should (skipping the essays, then not completing the verbal). Also my quant score was 70th percentile, so it was a superficial 690.
So...here comes test day on July 5th - a poorly chosen test date. I live in a major US city, and obviously there was going to be a lot of noise on July 4th, so I booked a hotel room in the business district where there wouldn't be as much partying. There wasn't any noise, but I still couldn't sleep, not even for a minute. I was wired, my heart wouldn't stop pounding, wasn't sleepy at all. I thought I'd taken proper precautions - I even ran 6 miles earlier that day to make sure I'd pass out the moment I hit the bed. A pretty miserable night. Of course I had nothing to blame except for my own anxiety. If I was better prepared, had taken the CATs, booked a better test date, etc, I suspect I would have slept fine. In retrospect, I was hopelessly ill-prepared. So, at around 5am(appointment was for 8am) I started looking into what happens when you cancel your GMAT test the day of the appointment. Luckily, it wouldn't count against me (only my wallet), so I canceled the exam...to fight another day I suppose... went back to my apt where of course I fell asleep right away, and then left later that afternoon for the airport. I felt like such a loser. Here I was about to go on vacation, but I didn't deserve it. Sure, I hadn't gotten a terrible score, and I could get back to studying after vacation, but I knew it would be tough to get back into studying after a 2 week break.
Anyways, I came back from vacation, I picked up the books again, but then my work situation started to change fast, so I put the books aside to focus on my new job. This was a positive - it helped me to get over my GMAT flop, but I knew that the test would be hanging over my head for the foreseeable future.
My Approach (Round Two)
By January 2012, I'd settled into my new job enough to start putting some time towards the GMAT again. Since I'd already been through the MGMAT lectures and Quant was my weakness area, I decided to just take a run through the Quant textbooks and Quant OG problems before I got into the practice CATs. 2 key differences this time around though: after getting through every textbook, as I continued through the next textbook, I doubled back to the previous textbook and made flashcards for everything I had highlighted. I repeated this process for every textbook (it took about 3 months). Manhattan GMAT provides flashcards, but the process of actually making the postcards had worked for me in the past with the CFA. The second difference this time around was MGMAT's Advanced Quant book. Keep in mind that at this point I knew of BeattheGMAT, but I wasn't coming here regularly. I was still winging it with my preparation, I lacked discipline, and I didn't fully appreciate the dedication one needs to get a high score...so I got a wake up call with my first CAT.
Like I said earlier, I focused on Quant this 2nd time around, so you can predict pretty easily what happened w my first CAT score. 660. Not terrible, but my Verbal had dropped substantially, and I was managing time terribly. On the other hand, my quant improved, so I couldn't consider the past 3 months a complete waste of time. I'd just have to refresh my Verbal, right? Not so easy. My Verbal scores stayed down stubbornly in the 70s percentiles (they were in the high 80s during last year's prep, granted I only took 2 full CATs).
Enter Beat the GMAT
I felt like I'd hit a wall at this point and was starting to feel some burnout, so that's when I turned to this forum. A complete gamechanger for me. I probably spent 4 hours in one day reading through everyone's success stories and the obstacles they had to deal with on the way to their 700 scores. My number one takeaway from all of the stories? Watch Ron Purewal's "Thursdays with Ron" lectures. Ron - if you read this - THANK YOU. Something I didn't respect enough up until this point were some of the more psychological elements of the exam. In addition to covering advanced topics, Ron frequently explains the test from the testmakers' perspective which for me was huge in developing time management and other test-taking strategies. Once I'd found this forum, and Ron's lectures, I decided to push my exam date back a few more months to early July even though IR was being introduced to the test format. Prep for IR was a minor annoyance, the important thing to me was to not make the same mistake I made last year - rushing the exam before I was 100% ready.
Now, here's a little bit of a curveball, and this is going to sound stupid to a lot of you, but I think it really helped with my decision-making and speed on the test. About a month before I pushed back my exam date to July, I came across a WSJ article linking fast-paced action video games to faster decision-making skills. https://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 83932.html I played a lot of video games when I was a kid, and I had a ps3, but hadn't played it in years - it was just my Blu-Ray player before I read the WSJ article. I figured what the heck, it would be fun, and I paid $10 for a used copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops. I played it for 1 hour, every other day. (Kind of hooked now to be honest, I still play a few times a week. Don't judge.) I sucked at first, but got better and better, hoping that my brain was learning to make decisions faster, and that this would pay dividends after a few months combined with my other studying. You should play online multiplayer, it's way harder than one-player story mode.
Over the next 2 months, while I burned through Ron's lectures, reviewed my flashcards(repeatedly), and climbed the CoD:Black Ops leaderboard, I continued to work with the MGMAT Advanced Quant book - that book is amazing, I didn't achieve the quant score I wanted in the end, but it helped me to get closer to that 80/80 Q/V percentiles goal that many seem to have. The OG quant questions were frustrating to me, they're way easier than the Quant questions in the MGMAT. I've heard it explained that the OG isn't going to have as many 700-800 level quant questions because not everybody is shooting for 700. That makes sense, so if I was going to get good advanced practice in, the Advanced Quant book was crucial. Lastly, I stopped pulling 3-4 hour study days. I ratcheted my studying back to 2 hours per day, and 1 day off per week. There were 2 reasons for this: (1) to avoid burnout and (2) to not overfeed my brain new information, decreasing the pressure on my brain to internalize too much information at once (very hackish, and pseudo-sciencey strategy, but it seemed to work for me). This was inspired by Ron. In one of his lectures he mentioned that the GMAT is an exam that rewards quick insights that you can only make if your brain has internalized the necessary information and if you've seen lots and lots of practice questions. It doesn't matter if you know all the math, or grammar, or whatever - you need to give your brain as many at-bats as possible so it's familiar with all the tricks and hints the testmakers throw at you.
Halfway through May, I started taking practice tests again. I planned to take practice tests every other week (I hoarded them, didn't want to burn through them too quickly, and especially hoarded the GMATPrep CATs since everyone on this forum said they were the best), but I suppose life happens, and I wasn't able to get to all of the practice tests I'd wanted to (especially disappointed I didn't get to the GMATprep software). The results: 3 different MGMAT CATs with scores from 680-690(but time ran out on me a few times on the very last ?, obviously still needed to fine-tune my time management).
I was very happy with the improvement, i was hitting my target score range consistently, maybe even tapping 700 if I'd been able to be a little quicker at clicking through the last questions at the end of the exam. More importantly, my quant had improved: my lowest quant score was 78th percentile. Despite not finishing a few of the exams, I noticed that my time management was much improved. Time seemed to move slower and I wasn't having those panic moments when you look up and realize you're way behind your timing benchmarks. I don't know whether to credit the improvement to my overall prep over the past few months with "Thursdays with Ron" and the MGMAT Advanced Quant book, or to credit the videogames. It didn't matter though, the important thing was that I'd improved.
Like I said, I wasn't able to get through all of the MGMAT practice CATs or the GMATprep software, but the 4th of July was approaching (not this again) and I was standing in a wedding the following weekend, so I decided to stick with my July 3rd test date - I was comfortable with scoring in the high 600s, I'm not going for HBS or Stanford, so a 670-700 would be fine.
The day before the exam, after work, I ran a sprint-distance triathlon (to make sure I'd be able to go to sleep) and went out for sushi with a friend (to keep my mind off the exam, and to keep anxiety down). I slept like a champ this time. I took the test day off from work, so I woke up at my liesure, had the same breakfast as always, and drank two cups of coffee 3 hours before my test appointment (noon) so I wouldn't have any jitters(or unexpected bathroom breaks). For my breaks, I packed 2 bananas, 2 granola bars, and water. (A good friend of mine had a GMAT nightmare because he drank too much water and coffee and had to raise his hand for two additional breaks, so I was careful with the liquids).
Once I was in the test center, nothing happened that hasn't happened to anybody else on this forum. Like most, I felt a little worried after quant, but reminded myself that's how everyone feels. When I finally saw my score I was blown away. A 720!? I honestly felt like I stole my score, was NOT expecting above 700. The Gods were favoring me that day or something, I don't know. I even victoriously threw my fists up in the air - stupid, but it was my impulse, thankfully i didn't make a sound and bother anybody else in the test center.
My official results:
Verbal: 40 / 90%
Quantitative: 48 / 78%
Total: 720 / 94%
Analytical Writing: 5.0 / 57%
Integrated Reasoning: 6 / 70%
My Verbal was higher than I expected, but I'm a little annoyed at the 78th percentile quant(the unofficial score they gave me after the test said my quant was 80th percentile, oh well). I was in the 80s in my MGMAT CATs, and I hear MGMAT quant is tougher - probably test-day nerves and not taking the GMATprep CATs. That's splitting hairs though, overall I'm ecstatic with the result.
To wrap up, I want to list what I thought were gamechangers for me:
- Making flashcards after reading MGMAT textbooks
- Manhattan GMAT Advanced Quant book
- Thursdays with Ron lectures
- Call of Duty (online multiplayer)
- Don't study too much, you'll burn out. Better to spread the same amount of study hours over more months, than to cram too many hours into too few months.
- Reading BeatTheGMAT success stories - you guys are obviously already doing that, but this is what I believe sparked my turnaround.
And don't freak out if you hit a wall and can't break above a certain score. Be patient, and don't be afraid to change your studying approach. Your test score is good for 5 years, so what's the rush, if you have to pay $50 to change your exam date, just think about the payoff after you graduate from your dream school. I felt really stupid every time I told somebody I still hadn't taken the GMAT and pushed my exam date back, who cares what others think though, what matters is doing the best you can do.
I hope this helps some of you out - I had to at least try to give back to the forum, it's made such a difference for me. Even though I set out only wanting to apply to part-time programs, given my score, I've decided to apply to some top 25 "dream school" full-time programs. I only have a 3.1 gpa, and I know the gmat only counts for so much, but I figure why not.
Last thing: I know people like to see the practice test scores so here you go:
Practice CATs
Round One:
MGMAT1: 610
MGMAT2: 690
I only took the Quant sections of the remaining CATs because I scored way higher on verbal on the first two.
Round Two:
MGMAT CAT1: 660
MGMAT CAT2: 680(but didn't answer last verbal ?, so was prob closer to 700)
MGMAT CAT3: 690
MGMAT CAT4: 680(same problem as above, didn't answer last ?)
My Prep Courses and Materials
Manhattan GMAT Online Course and Textbooks (4th Ed.)
The OG
Manhattan GMAT: Advanced Quant
Thursdays with Ron (Manhattan GMAT Free Online Resource)
My Approach (Round One)
School and these kinds of tests have never come easy to me. I've always had to put in way more hours than the average person to get the good grade, good test score, whatever. I had a few good friends that took the GMAT without any Kaplan or Manhattan GMAT classes, and they did okay, so I thought if I paid up for Manhattan GMAT, I'd be able to get a decent score. I'm shooting for a part-time program too, so I figured achieving a 700+ score wasn't crucial for my applications.
In January 2011, I started my first go round with the Manhattan Online courses and readings. At times, my job was too intense to study consistently, but I can say I safely completed all of the lectures, workout sets, and OG problems within 5 months. I took one full CAT halfway through the MGMAT course, and just 1 full CAT after the course, prior to test day. This was a huge mistake. I rushed the test. Work was busy, so I decided to take shortcuts to make sure I could take the test the morning of July 5th (I was leaving for my first vacation in years the afternoon of the 5th). I got a 690 on one CAT, but still didn't know realistically where I would score, especially since I wasn't taking the practice CATs like you should (skipping the essays, then not completing the verbal). Also my quant score was 70th percentile, so it was a superficial 690.
So...here comes test day on July 5th - a poorly chosen test date. I live in a major US city, and obviously there was going to be a lot of noise on July 4th, so I booked a hotel room in the business district where there wouldn't be as much partying. There wasn't any noise, but I still couldn't sleep, not even for a minute. I was wired, my heart wouldn't stop pounding, wasn't sleepy at all. I thought I'd taken proper precautions - I even ran 6 miles earlier that day to make sure I'd pass out the moment I hit the bed. A pretty miserable night. Of course I had nothing to blame except for my own anxiety. If I was better prepared, had taken the CATs, booked a better test date, etc, I suspect I would have slept fine. In retrospect, I was hopelessly ill-prepared. So, at around 5am(appointment was for 8am) I started looking into what happens when you cancel your GMAT test the day of the appointment. Luckily, it wouldn't count against me (only my wallet), so I canceled the exam...to fight another day I suppose... went back to my apt where of course I fell asleep right away, and then left later that afternoon for the airport. I felt like such a loser. Here I was about to go on vacation, but I didn't deserve it. Sure, I hadn't gotten a terrible score, and I could get back to studying after vacation, but I knew it would be tough to get back into studying after a 2 week break.
Anyways, I came back from vacation, I picked up the books again, but then my work situation started to change fast, so I put the books aside to focus on my new job. This was a positive - it helped me to get over my GMAT flop, but I knew that the test would be hanging over my head for the foreseeable future.
My Approach (Round Two)
By January 2012, I'd settled into my new job enough to start putting some time towards the GMAT again. Since I'd already been through the MGMAT lectures and Quant was my weakness area, I decided to just take a run through the Quant textbooks and Quant OG problems before I got into the practice CATs. 2 key differences this time around though: after getting through every textbook, as I continued through the next textbook, I doubled back to the previous textbook and made flashcards for everything I had highlighted. I repeated this process for every textbook (it took about 3 months). Manhattan GMAT provides flashcards, but the process of actually making the postcards had worked for me in the past with the CFA. The second difference this time around was MGMAT's Advanced Quant book. Keep in mind that at this point I knew of BeattheGMAT, but I wasn't coming here regularly. I was still winging it with my preparation, I lacked discipline, and I didn't fully appreciate the dedication one needs to get a high score...so I got a wake up call with my first CAT.
Like I said earlier, I focused on Quant this 2nd time around, so you can predict pretty easily what happened w my first CAT score. 660. Not terrible, but my Verbal had dropped substantially, and I was managing time terribly. On the other hand, my quant improved, so I couldn't consider the past 3 months a complete waste of time. I'd just have to refresh my Verbal, right? Not so easy. My Verbal scores stayed down stubbornly in the 70s percentiles (they were in the high 80s during last year's prep, granted I only took 2 full CATs).
Enter Beat the GMAT
I felt like I'd hit a wall at this point and was starting to feel some burnout, so that's when I turned to this forum. A complete gamechanger for me. I probably spent 4 hours in one day reading through everyone's success stories and the obstacles they had to deal with on the way to their 700 scores. My number one takeaway from all of the stories? Watch Ron Purewal's "Thursdays with Ron" lectures. Ron - if you read this - THANK YOU. Something I didn't respect enough up until this point were some of the more psychological elements of the exam. In addition to covering advanced topics, Ron frequently explains the test from the testmakers' perspective which for me was huge in developing time management and other test-taking strategies. Once I'd found this forum, and Ron's lectures, I decided to push my exam date back a few more months to early July even though IR was being introduced to the test format. Prep for IR was a minor annoyance, the important thing to me was to not make the same mistake I made last year - rushing the exam before I was 100% ready.
Now, here's a little bit of a curveball, and this is going to sound stupid to a lot of you, but I think it really helped with my decision-making and speed on the test. About a month before I pushed back my exam date to July, I came across a WSJ article linking fast-paced action video games to faster decision-making skills. https://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 83932.html I played a lot of video games when I was a kid, and I had a ps3, but hadn't played it in years - it was just my Blu-Ray player before I read the WSJ article. I figured what the heck, it would be fun, and I paid $10 for a used copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops. I played it for 1 hour, every other day. (Kind of hooked now to be honest, I still play a few times a week. Don't judge.) I sucked at first, but got better and better, hoping that my brain was learning to make decisions faster, and that this would pay dividends after a few months combined with my other studying. You should play online multiplayer, it's way harder than one-player story mode.
Over the next 2 months, while I burned through Ron's lectures, reviewed my flashcards(repeatedly), and climbed the CoD:Black Ops leaderboard, I continued to work with the MGMAT Advanced Quant book - that book is amazing, I didn't achieve the quant score I wanted in the end, but it helped me to get closer to that 80/80 Q/V percentiles goal that many seem to have. The OG quant questions were frustrating to me, they're way easier than the Quant questions in the MGMAT. I've heard it explained that the OG isn't going to have as many 700-800 level quant questions because not everybody is shooting for 700. That makes sense, so if I was going to get good advanced practice in, the Advanced Quant book was crucial. Lastly, I stopped pulling 3-4 hour study days. I ratcheted my studying back to 2 hours per day, and 1 day off per week. There were 2 reasons for this: (1) to avoid burnout and (2) to not overfeed my brain new information, decreasing the pressure on my brain to internalize too much information at once (very hackish, and pseudo-sciencey strategy, but it seemed to work for me). This was inspired by Ron. In one of his lectures he mentioned that the GMAT is an exam that rewards quick insights that you can only make if your brain has internalized the necessary information and if you've seen lots and lots of practice questions. It doesn't matter if you know all the math, or grammar, or whatever - you need to give your brain as many at-bats as possible so it's familiar with all the tricks and hints the testmakers throw at you.
Halfway through May, I started taking practice tests again. I planned to take practice tests every other week (I hoarded them, didn't want to burn through them too quickly, and especially hoarded the GMATPrep CATs since everyone on this forum said they were the best), but I suppose life happens, and I wasn't able to get to all of the practice tests I'd wanted to (especially disappointed I didn't get to the GMATprep software). The results: 3 different MGMAT CATs with scores from 680-690(but time ran out on me a few times on the very last ?, obviously still needed to fine-tune my time management).
I was very happy with the improvement, i was hitting my target score range consistently, maybe even tapping 700 if I'd been able to be a little quicker at clicking through the last questions at the end of the exam. More importantly, my quant had improved: my lowest quant score was 78th percentile. Despite not finishing a few of the exams, I noticed that my time management was much improved. Time seemed to move slower and I wasn't having those panic moments when you look up and realize you're way behind your timing benchmarks. I don't know whether to credit the improvement to my overall prep over the past few months with "Thursdays with Ron" and the MGMAT Advanced Quant book, or to credit the videogames. It didn't matter though, the important thing was that I'd improved.
Like I said, I wasn't able to get through all of the MGMAT practice CATs or the GMATprep software, but the 4th of July was approaching (not this again) and I was standing in a wedding the following weekend, so I decided to stick with my July 3rd test date - I was comfortable with scoring in the high 600s, I'm not going for HBS or Stanford, so a 670-700 would be fine.
The day before the exam, after work, I ran a sprint-distance triathlon (to make sure I'd be able to go to sleep) and went out for sushi with a friend (to keep my mind off the exam, and to keep anxiety down). I slept like a champ this time. I took the test day off from work, so I woke up at my liesure, had the same breakfast as always, and drank two cups of coffee 3 hours before my test appointment (noon) so I wouldn't have any jitters(or unexpected bathroom breaks). For my breaks, I packed 2 bananas, 2 granola bars, and water. (A good friend of mine had a GMAT nightmare because he drank too much water and coffee and had to raise his hand for two additional breaks, so I was careful with the liquids).
Once I was in the test center, nothing happened that hasn't happened to anybody else on this forum. Like most, I felt a little worried after quant, but reminded myself that's how everyone feels. When I finally saw my score I was blown away. A 720!? I honestly felt like I stole my score, was NOT expecting above 700. The Gods were favoring me that day or something, I don't know. I even victoriously threw my fists up in the air - stupid, but it was my impulse, thankfully i didn't make a sound and bother anybody else in the test center.
My official results:
Verbal: 40 / 90%
Quantitative: 48 / 78%
Total: 720 / 94%
Analytical Writing: 5.0 / 57%
Integrated Reasoning: 6 / 70%
My Verbal was higher than I expected, but I'm a little annoyed at the 78th percentile quant(the unofficial score they gave me after the test said my quant was 80th percentile, oh well). I was in the 80s in my MGMAT CATs, and I hear MGMAT quant is tougher - probably test-day nerves and not taking the GMATprep CATs. That's splitting hairs though, overall I'm ecstatic with the result.
To wrap up, I want to list what I thought were gamechangers for me:
- Making flashcards after reading MGMAT textbooks
- Manhattan GMAT Advanced Quant book
- Thursdays with Ron lectures
- Call of Duty (online multiplayer)
- Don't study too much, you'll burn out. Better to spread the same amount of study hours over more months, than to cram too many hours into too few months.
- Reading BeatTheGMAT success stories - you guys are obviously already doing that, but this is what I believe sparked my turnaround.
And don't freak out if you hit a wall and can't break above a certain score. Be patient, and don't be afraid to change your studying approach. Your test score is good for 5 years, so what's the rush, if you have to pay $50 to change your exam date, just think about the payoff after you graduate from your dream school. I felt really stupid every time I told somebody I still hadn't taken the GMAT and pushed my exam date back, who cares what others think though, what matters is doing the best you can do.
I hope this helps some of you out - I had to at least try to give back to the forum, it's made such a difference for me. Even though I set out only wanting to apply to part-time programs, given my score, I've decided to apply to some top 25 "dream school" full-time programs. I only have a 3.1 gpa, and I know the gmat only counts for so much, but I figure why not.
Last thing: I know people like to see the practice test scores so here you go:
Practice CATs
Round One:
MGMAT1: 610
MGMAT2: 690
I only took the Quant sections of the remaining CATs because I scored way higher on verbal on the first two.
Round Two:
MGMAT CAT1: 660
MGMAT CAT2: 680(but didn't answer last verbal ?, so was prob closer to 700)
MGMAT CAT3: 690
MGMAT CAT4: 680(same problem as above, didn't answer last ?)
