490 to 700 Q45 V 40

Hi guys!

I am a 22-year old Austrian citizen studying right now in Santiago de Chile for an exchange semester and did my studies at the WU-Wien (Vienna University of Business and Economics).

I started my GMAT journey in September, when I had serious troubles finding the GMAT books in Santiago. The only book I found in the whole city was GMAT quantitative for about 30 dollars. But still, I could manage to use these materials:

OGMAT
8 MGMAT
Mcgrawhill
gmat verbal 2nd edition (did just a few RC questions)
Beat the gmat daily questions


The best material is OG + GMATprep for practice. MGMAT was very good for explanations but mostly too difficult.

I did the first exam in september and although I had already studied and was familiar with the structure and everything got a 490. (I was hangovered I have to admit)

The problem was that I could never really identify my weaknesses. So i studied all 8 MGMAT books. I started with Part 1 of each book and when I finished I revised the before highlighted texts and the questions I did wrong. Parallel I read some fiction books (I liked the great gatsby a lot) and I am read the economist weekly, which saved my exam (got 2 RC's about economy/business). I should have read more science magazines.

I finished the books about 2 months later. last month was preparation (should have been earlier). A third of my time in the last month I dedicated to reviewing theory, a third to doing OG- questions and a third to doing (a lot of sample tests).

The sample tests including score were (sorry I dont know the dates, just that I approx started 1 month before the exam apart fromt he first gmatprep....-> too late)

gmatprep 490 (sept) I am glad I took this exam because it finally triggered the studying. I never knew what and how to study. My first advice is Just do it! ...like in the Nike ads

princeton 520 about a month before the exam (devestated, because everybody told me that these exams are soooo easy)
GMATprep 2 620 about 3 weeks before the exam(-> still hope)
MGMAT 1 Q43 V33 630
MGMAT 3 Q36 V33 580
MGMAT 2 Q47 V33 660
MGMAT 4 Q44 V32 630
GMATprep 630

I did all the MGMAT + GMATprep 2 in the last 2 weeks before the exam. I do not recommend taking more than 3 MGMATs if you are heading for 700 or less. Quant + Verbal are quite different from the actual exam, although good practice.

one week before the exam I received an email indicating that I didnt receive a special scholarship (they counted an exam I thought they would not count, whatever). I nearly quit studying for the gmat because of this message and because I had soo much to study and did not know with which section to continue.

G-Day:

Got there too early (1 hour earlier) and had to wait for 1 hour -> at first I was totally relaxed, but then pretty stressed. -> you should avoid walking around too much and somewhere in this board I read that you should always try to breath-in and out. This helped me a lot! There should have been 3 exam takers, but the other 2 did not show up (how stupid is that??).

The AWA was not that horrible as I thought. I never wrote AWA before, so I guess it will be a 4. I should have practiced 1-2 more because I wrote very slowly at the exam and had no time to proofread everything.

Quant section: starting with an easy but question. 3 monthly income equations in textform and you had to calculate the last income. I set up the equations and calculated, but my answer was wrong. I started looking for the error but could not find it (I should have started once again). About 7 had passed and I had guess. I could not answer the second question as well and had to guess once again. I was doomed. I read in this board that if you got the first 2 questions wrong you cannot catch up and have to "play catch" for getting up again. After the first two wrong-answered questions I decided to take this exam as a preparation and try it one month later. I thought that I would get a 580 or sth .

Verbal: a lot of SC. Rc 2 short 1 medium 1 long. 2 texts about business->yes. So pretty easy although in general RC was my weakness.

at the end I was screaming when I saw my score ...I was so suprised

700 Q45 V40

I am sorry that Quant was so low. After my exam I talked to a GMAT instructor because I was sooo happy with my score. He told me that 700 is not that special and (at-least US) b-schools just look on the quantitative part (what do you think?).

So my key take-aways:
*JUST DO IT (like in the Nike ad). I wasted 2 months of studying because I didnt know how to start. Just start with sth and later you will adapt.
*Dont trust too much in MGMAT and its exams. These problems are sometimes very difficult and weird and often useless, unless you want a 700+.
*Stick to your level of difficulty: Studying easy questions is not always bad, it helps you solving them better. Too many hard questions are bad, unless you want a 700+, since they often cause confusion, stress, demotivation, and waste a lot of time if you dont get the solutions. (I skipped most MGMAT questions after reading 1-2 explanations )
*Dont guess but calculate DS-questions (my main mistake)
*Never give up! I thought about breaking up the exam after the first 2 questions and also thought about deleting the scores. Now I am happy that I didnot

I want to excuse for all the misspelling, the bad structure and my bad English, but I had to celebrate my GMAT, my goodbye, holidays and christmas.

Is 700 a good score? Is Quantitative more important than verbal for an Master of science?

Stockholm school of economics, see you next year !

good job man!

congratz for ur GMAT! I just did mine today as well.

I was looking into SSE too (or WU), do u know what score they require?

What was your score?

It depends on the programs. But since for WU-students the GMAT is not a requirement, it is not that important. You should get at least 600+, but grades, school reputation, professional experience... counts way more I think.

Cems (WU): gpa + languages + international background
SIMC (WU): gpa + professional exp + interview + courses taken

SSE (acc + FM): last years average was 680 I think
SSE (Finance): last years average was 650 I think

Cems (WU) has a good reputation, but have to study nothing at all there. Whereas with the SIMC program you study and learn a lot. I am also applying for the SIMC program because I think it is great. The institute of Strategic Management and Management Control (IfU) has a very, very good reputation. The best Austrian managers did the "Unternehmensführung" Magister (old Bachelor + Master) degree which was held by this institute. I did my bachelor major at this institute. The bachelors and the masters (SIMC) participated in a post-merger integration consulting project with the Austrian telecommunications company. It was fantastic, although a bunch of work (about 14-18 hours/week for 4 ects). The other institute is very renowned as well (Innovation & Entrepreneurship). I absolutely recommend the Simc, since I know a lot of delighted master students. So why is the simc not that famous right now? This master is about 2 years young and can only be ranked and rated after 3 years. (just write me if you need more information)

congrates for becoming 700 scorer...