680 to 710 in 30 days: focus on your faults and find success

[bagchibhai]

I originally started on my GMAT journey in Feb 2012. I had always planned to write the GMAT, but had put it off to "some other time", just like a lot of people on this blog. Finally last December I decided to get my act together and enrolled myself in the Manhattan GMAT course on the recommendation of a friend. Halfway into the course I booked myself a test date in May and prepared as best I could. Test day arrived and I made it to the test centre a little early to ensure I wouldn't be late. The test seemed to go OK, so imagine my surprise & disappointment when I saw my unofficial score and it was lower than what I had been scoring on my practice tests. I was a little crushed at this, knowing that I would have to deal with Integrated Reasoning.

While 680 (V-40/M-43) is a good enough score to get into several MBA programs, I knew that I would need a higher score for the 2 programs I want to get into most: INSEAD and LBS. It took me a few days to come to grips with my "failure"; I'm the kind of person who likes to prepare properly and do things once. I decided to take some time off, I had family visiting me in May and I spent my time away from the GMAT books to gain some perspective.

Manhattan GMAT offers a post-exam assessment where one of their GMAT instructors (someone other than the who you take classes with) goes over your exam experience in detail. They also time you on problems to gauge your speed and accuracy. The reviewer was very perceptive and went over my practice test results (on MGMAT's website) and helped identify the areas in my math prep that I needed to work on.

Having taken this advise on board I used the MGMAT analysis tools to evaluate my performance on the last 3 practice tests I had done and started to work on the 9 math topics I identified. There was no magic method to improving my performance: just reviewed each topic and practiced the official GMAT problems suggested by the MGMAT material. The MGMAT prep material also includes several online labs that teach you how to approach Data Sufficiency, Sentence Correction etc. I found reviewing these very helpful, especially as I knew what I was looking for having done several questions. Also, doing the extra problems on MGMAT helped identify some of the tricks the GMAT questions makers build into D/S questions.

So I had 30 days (test date July 3rd) and I needed a plan to succeed: 9 math topics and 5 more in verbal to concentrate on. The system I used was -
Day 1: concentrate on 1 topic - review fundamentals and do problems
Day 2: do a list of general problems - 10 math + 10 verbal
Rinse & repeat!
I did 2 more practice exams, both from the official GMAT Prep 2.0 program: this seems to be much more representative of the difficulty on the actual GMAT exam. Also, their practice questions (90 of them) are great.
The result of all this: 710 (M-48/V-40) & I haven't received my official report yet, but I believe I did well enough on IR to get a score of 6, the essays I am not to worried about.

I also have to thank some people for my success: Avi Gutman (great instructor and always available to help with questions) & Brett Beach-Kimball (reviewed my GMAT experience) & Stacy Koprince (your reviews of the IR topics were invaluable) of Manhattan GMAT. BTG users 'havok' and 'myohmy': your posts on your GMAT experiences really helped with my prep the second time of writing.

[NextGreatLeader]

Congrats on joining the 700 club. How close were your practice test scores to your official test score?

[Suz]

Congrats on your score! Im also taking the mgmat classes- and my exam is now two weeks away. Could you tell me what you think went wrong the first time you gave your exam? What did you do in the interim period after your classes ended and before you gave your first exam?


Thanks.Good luck with your applications!

[bagchibhai]

Congrats on joining the 700 club. How close were your practice test scores to your official test score?

Thanks! My practice scores were spot on with my official score.
GMAT Prep 2.0: 680/ 730/ 710
Manhattan GMAT: 640/ 660 (@ the start of my course)/ 700/ 700/ 710/ 720

[bagchibhai]

Congrats on your score! Im also taking the mgmat classes- and my exam is now two weeks away. Could you tell me what you think went wrong the first time you gave your exam? What did you do in the interim period after your classes ended and before you gave your first exam?


Thanks.Good luck with your applications!

Hi There! I think what went wrong for me the first time was that I didn't know what to expect at the test centre: spatially and emotionally. I did do a couple of exams on the GMAT Prep 2.0 platform (this mimics the test really closely), but I made the mistake of using a Mac where the test centers use PC's (the keyboard layout and some keys are different).
Secondly I had not prepared my two greatest weaknesses in Math: Inequalities and Probabilities/ Combinatorics well enough. The questions from these topics (Ineqs. especially is pretty common) totally threw me off my game. You can see that my 2nd attempt I pulled up my math mark while my verbal stayed stable: I only had 30 days (not a lot with a full time job) so I concentrated on the math.
The interim period between classes and exams I practiced the entire GMAT OG & Supplemental guides. MGMAT has a great breakdown of problems by topic area called the Master OG list: this is what I used to alternately focus on topic areas and do more general practice (2 questions from a selection of topic areas).

Since you are writing the 2.0 with IR I would strongly suggest that you review all of Stacey Koprince's posts about IR. Stacey is also an MGMAT instructor so try to schedule an office hour with her. I recently got my complete scores (IR: 7 Essay: 6.0) and one tip I can pass on is that the multi source reasoning seems to have a higher weighting than the other questions types so try to get all the questions on this one right.

With that I wish you the best of luck and be sure to update the BTG community with a blog post when you BEAT THE GMAT!

[Suz]

Ahh. Thank you! That was fantastic advice. I'm also using a mac- so I shall keep that in mind, and give one or two tests on a pc before my exam..

I'll try scheduling an office hour session with Stacey for IR, but on the off chance that I can't- is there any advice you can give me? I find this section pretty challenging. What material did you use for it? Were the questions in the OG+Mgmat IR book sufficient?How much time do you think I should spend on this section?


Thanks so much for all your help!

[bagchibhai]

Hi Suz,

I didn't spend too much time on preparing for this section, about 8 hours over a weekend. I basically used the IR question bank on MGMAT as my starter to practice each section and then practiced the problems on the GMAT Prep 2.0 in "exam" mode where the questions come at you randomly. This section has 15 questions, 3 more than what you will see on the exam, but thats a small anomaly.
I was studying off OG 12 so I didn't actually have the IR questions from OG13. I did practice some extra IR questions by doing 2 full CAT's with IR & also some questions from Veritas Prep's site for extra practice. So if you have OG13, I'd suggest that would be a good place to practice the prompts and question types before doing a couple of CAT's with the IR section.

I sat thru a couple of info sessions that BTG held in May for the IR questions types & took notes from those. If you like I can email you my notes. The most important piece of advice I can give you is to not take this section too seriously and save your energy for the main event: Math & Verbal.

[normalperson]

Hi, congrat on your +700.
I've spent 2months to get the level of +700 from 690, But I've landed on the miserable 680.
You said that Manhattan GMAT offers a post-exam assessment by GMAT instructors. Is this on-line thing? Can I get those advise, even I purchase on-line mock tests pacakage?

[bagchibhai]

Hi, congrat on your +700.
I've spent 2months to get the level of +700 from 690, But I've landed on the miserable 680.
You said that Manhattan GMAT offers a post-exam assessment by GMAT instructors. Is this on-line thing? Can I get those advise, even I purchase on-line mock tests pacakage?

Hey normalperson (love the handle!)!
First off congrats on the 690 & the 680. These are both good scores. I totally understand where you are coming from. When I re-wrote the GMAT my only objective was getting a 700+. The reason I found the post exam assessment (PEA) so helpful was that the instructor from MGMAT was able to help me identify my core competencies and weaknesses and provide an outline for the 30-40 days I had left to prepare for the re-write. Details of the PEA:

- Conducted over the phone and using an online meeting software for going over my test scores.
- Spent about 1 hour with me on the line
- Regarding whether the PEA is included on the online study package I honestly could not say. I'd say drop their student centre a quick email: [email protected] / 1-800-576-GMAT

But the assessment was based on my performance on their CAT's so I should see no reason they would not offer you a PEA. Best of luck, GO GET THAT 700!