Hello,
Leaving my testimony on my GMAT journey.
Background: working full-time, target on GMAT was 700+, and I was expecting to study around 10-15h/week - which it didn't happen. Non-native english speaker living in English speaking country for 3 years).
Exam 01 (March)- 650 (44 / 36) after +/- 40h of study (Manhattan Guides) and one Manhattan CAT GMAT scoring 660.
Exam 02 (April) - 680 (49 / 33) after additional 40h of study (Manhattan Guides and GMAT Toolkit App) and 5 Manhattan CAT GMAT scoring between 650 and 700.
Exam 03 (July) - 740 (49 / 41) with only 1h of refreshing study immediately before the exam. Haven't touched the books after the second attempt.
My thoughts:
1. Know where you are in Quant based on different subjects. Great way to measure yourself is to get the GMAT Toolkit App. It splits the questions into different categories, and you can know how comfortable you are in each different subject (Combinatorics, Probability, Work and Rate, Algebra, Geometry, etc etc) and study each of them separately if necessary, then go back and do the exercises for that subject again until you know you are comfortable to what is being presented;
2. Try to do different simulation exams, not only from one system. I spent too much time doing the Manhattan CAT Exams and not getting the rating I wanted, then I realized that Manhattan's CAT exams are very similar to each other, and although are a good form of preparation, it does not reflect the real exam. So the more options for prep, the better.
3. Do simulations under different conditions. If you only simulate in your "optimal" conditions, you are not going to capture the natural stress on the test day. Simulate in the morning, and in the afternoon, for instance.
4. RELAX. Don't try to exhaust every single topic before the exam. Be familiar with the topics and get at least one week before the exam to relax. I was studying hard just before my second try and failed to perform in the Verbal section - probably because of all the stress. Third time I was absolutely relaxed and everything went well during the test day.
5. Remember to use, during the exam, the different exam strategies that you studied. It's very easy to start the exam and get dragged into the questions and forget about "ballparking", solving from the answers, that guessing is fine, etc etc. It's important to be conscious of this during the exam, otherwise you may miss valuable questions only because you tried to solve all of them in the same way.
Well, hope this post can be of help to anyone that is trying to Beat the GMAT. Best of luck!
Leaving my testimony on my GMAT journey.
Background: working full-time, target on GMAT was 700+, and I was expecting to study around 10-15h/week - which it didn't happen. Non-native english speaker living in English speaking country for 3 years).
Exam 01 (March)- 650 (44 / 36) after +/- 40h of study (Manhattan Guides) and one Manhattan CAT GMAT scoring 660.
Exam 02 (April) - 680 (49 / 33) after additional 40h of study (Manhattan Guides and GMAT Toolkit App) and 5 Manhattan CAT GMAT scoring between 650 and 700.
Exam 03 (July) - 740 (49 / 41) with only 1h of refreshing study immediately before the exam. Haven't touched the books after the second attempt.
My thoughts:
1. Know where you are in Quant based on different subjects. Great way to measure yourself is to get the GMAT Toolkit App. It splits the questions into different categories, and you can know how comfortable you are in each different subject (Combinatorics, Probability, Work and Rate, Algebra, Geometry, etc etc) and study each of them separately if necessary, then go back and do the exercises for that subject again until you know you are comfortable to what is being presented;
2. Try to do different simulation exams, not only from one system. I spent too much time doing the Manhattan CAT Exams and not getting the rating I wanted, then I realized that Manhattan's CAT exams are very similar to each other, and although are a good form of preparation, it does not reflect the real exam. So the more options for prep, the better.
3. Do simulations under different conditions. If you only simulate in your "optimal" conditions, you are not going to capture the natural stress on the test day. Simulate in the morning, and in the afternoon, for instance.
4. RELAX. Don't try to exhaust every single topic before the exam. Be familiar with the topics and get at least one week before the exam to relax. I was studying hard just before my second try and failed to perform in the Verbal section - probably because of all the stress. Third time I was absolutely relaxed and everything went well during the test day.
5. Remember to use, during the exam, the different exam strategies that you studied. It's very easy to start the exam and get dragged into the questions and forget about "ballparking", solving from the answers, that guessing is fine, etc etc. It's important to be conscious of this during the exam, otherwise you may miss valuable questions only because you tried to solve all of them in the same way.
Well, hope this post can be of help to anyone that is trying to Beat the GMAT. Best of luck!
Last edited by ffuriati on Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
