I wanted to share my experience on this website as I felt it was the least I do after gaining so much help from this website through downloading the practice materials, notes and reading about other people's experiences. Thank you so much.Firstly, I can't say I beat the GMAT, I was aiming for over 700, and was intially crushed when I saw the score. I had been scoring 720-710 on my GMAT prep. but I have now overcome the trauma of a 680 after learning there is not much of a difference between 680 and 720 in the bigger picture of the MBA application, and therefore the fact that I do not need to sit it again. My time will be better utilized in focusing on the essays.
My back ground
6 years work experience, I am Aussie, native english speaker, female, have a degree in International business, majoring in Economics have a strong background in sales in the financial services, and also worked as a fashion buyer in the last year. The last time I did math was in high school. Also, luckily I have only ever worked for American companies and lived in the US for two years so I could convert easily the the "American" way of spelling for the essays. I can imagine that it would be difficult for other Australians to convert, and even more difficult for non-native english speakers to score well on the verbal, which I had to work really hard on as a native english speaker. I absolutely detested RC and CRat the start, the words just were one big blur initially, but it got dramaticaly better with practice
thank fully i was not sitting the LSAT!Experience
I had THE worse case of nerves this morning. I never want to experience that again. Then to make things worse I had a really bad panic attack during the math starting from the 2nd question!! which is what ultimately brought my score down to Q44, I had been scoring Q48-50. My Verbal was V39, which was the same. Because of the panic attack, I stuffed up on the third question, and froze - I was so out of it I can't even remember the question, and obviously got it wrong because then the questions were easier for the rest of the test and knew I stuffed up when I finished the math with 3 minutes to spare - that had never happened before. I sat the test in Hong Kong and was very impressed with the centre, they provided erasable notepads, earplugs, took digital fingerprints which enabled me to get in and out of the test room with just a touch of the index finger, very 'james bond-ish". I was impressed with the high tech. Also, I was happily surprised to find out that you get 10 minutes break now! it makes such a difference. Apparently it is a new thing, and mba.com has not updated this yet - so 10 minutes between essay and math, then another 10 between math and verbal. This makes a huge difference and gave me time to recollect myself so that I did not mess up the verbal as well.
Questions
I got a lot of DS inequalities, one probability, three geometry and a couple of ratios. Honestly, the questions are pretty much identical to GMAT prep. The whole format, font, structure of the real deal is the same as GMAT prep. Had I not let the panic get the better of me, I know I would have done so much better. Then in Verbal, I was happy to see 3 of the EXACT same questions recycled in my GMAT test!
Practice
I studied for exactly 2 months, with a countdown. I started on the Princeton Review as a warm up ( that is all I recommend it for), then Kaplan, then I did every single question on OG 11, OG quant ( the green one) and OG verbal ( the purple) as well as the simulated GMAT prep. My advice is, do the Kaplan and PR as back up, but towards the end just focus on OG< OG OG, including the purple and green book!!! Do every single question, know the solutions and you will be fine. The questions are of the same difficulty, style and maybe even identical to the ones on the test. Jusy dont get stupid panic attacks like I did....Also, it is so helpful to have two performance charts, one for the CATs including Verbal and Quant, but then another one just for practice questions, so you can keep track of your performances, see where you are weak and where you need work on. I cannot stress how important that data is to your study.
Two days before the test I just reviewed all the solutions to the questions I got wrong on the OG. Then I took the night off before and watched a movie.
My practice test scores.
KaplanCAT - 570, 550, 600, 600 (I found the Kaplan CATs so hard.)
Princeton review CAT - 730, 720, 720
GMATPrep - 690, 720, 710, 720( I redid each one and got entirely different questions which is how I got 4 results. I recommend this) My only complaint is that no solutions are provided, so alot of time is spent trying to work it out yourself. I was expecting a 710 or around there. Actual GMAT 680, but I had an off day and I will try not to lose any sleep over this.
This website was terrific in helping me out. Although I did not get over 700, I would not change the way I studied for the test. As I realised a big part of the success is mental control on the test day.
but your story inspired me in many ways..
Fei
