I took the GMAT today (Feb 20, 2008) at the Warwick, RI Center and got a 710 (48Q, 39V, 93%). The center is really easy to get to, quite and very nice. And more importantly, no one was sick, rude or noisy so it was more than I could hope for. The proctors were very attentive and respectful. So no horror stories like that New York Center!!!
Anyway, these stories really help me out while I studied so I will share mine with you. (very long)
Study MaterialManhattan Books (all 8)
Official Guide, Verbal Supplement
OG, Quantitative Supplement
OGVeritas Books (especially the Permutations & Combinations & AWA book)
1000SC, 1000PS
GMATCLUB
Study HabitsMy total prep time was about three months. Lucky for me my job (engineering) is really slow right now so I basically got to study during the day for about a month or so. In addition, I would go home and study from 6-10 every night. I would cruise this site a lot, do the 1000SC problems and then eventually lived on the Share Your GMAT Experience page (yeah, I told you work got boring). I did about 300 of the 1000SC and 8 sections of the 1000PS. I started to do the 1000CR/1000RC but I was getting too many wrong so I didn't want to screw with my confidence and stopped.
Practice Test ResultsPaper Test #1 = 680 (didn't take off for wrong answers)
Paper Test #2 = 670 (didn't take off for wrong answers)
MGMAT #1 = 670
MGMAT #2 = 640
MGMAT #3 = 660
GMAT Prep #1 = 670
Power Prep = 740 (all
OG questions)
GMAT Prep #2 = 710
GMAT Prep #3 = 710
GMAT = 710All in all I thought the paper test had too many easy questions and docked points too harsly for getting one simple mistake wrong. The
MGMAT test were very, very long but surprisingly I found the real GMAT math questions similar. GMAT Prep was easier that my real test, probably because of the natural stress.
Verbal SectionI'm an engineer and I'm from Hawaii (local dialect is similar to ebonics or cajun) so verbal was my weakest point. I knew the test was skewed towards verbal so I worked really really hard at this section. I pretty much memorized the Manhattan SC book and did every
OG problem twice. I also did 300 of the 1000SC problems and looked up each wrong answer on this forum. For CR, I used the Manhattan book and thought the ideas and way the sectioned the questions was perfect. Doing 30 strengthen the arguement questions really gets you to focus on the patterns, etc so I thought that the
MGMAT CR was just as worthwhile as the SC book. I started by diagramming the arguement but then got good enough where I didn't need to any more. As a benchmark, I got roughly 80% of the
OG SC problems right and 95% of the CR correct. Then comes my nemisis, Reading Comp. I'm one of those people who absolutely blows through a passage without retaining anything and I'm not confident enough to just read the first/last sentence to understand the "general idea." So my strategy was to outline each RC. I practiced this and found that when I outlined, I got more corrected and was faster than any other method I tried. Plus it makes me slow down to help with retention. As a benchmark, I got 70% of the
OG problems correct but I was using the blow through the passage method and not note taking so I think it helped.
Quant SectionI was pretty good in math and knew I could get around 50-48 so I didn't really worry about this section that much. I did the
OG problems and got 90% of the correct. I hated DS and was confident on PS. My errors were pretty much careless errors or the dreaded number property errors..augh. I did find the anagram permability/combo/probability problems from the
MGMAT book very helpful and used that method on the numerous Veritas problems. I was pretty confident in all those problems but knew I'd have only 1 or the real exam so I wasn't even too worried about it.
AWAIf you have a friend who took Veritas or has the book, ask to look at the AWA templates for the sections. Their method and outline structure was fantastic and gave me a lot of confidence during the exam. I know many people aren't that interested in the AWA section but I looked at it once and had my template down for whatever they threw at me. I truly beleive you cna't get lower than a 4.5 if you use their template.
Actual Test DayI was super nervous and got to the site an hour early but they had open seats and said I could take it whenever I wanted so that was cool. I spent the entire 30 minutes on both portions of the AWA and thought I did well. As for quant, I usually finished with 6 minutes on the GMAT Prep so I wanted to make sure I slowed down to use all the time. Well the questions I had flying at me from question #3 seemed brutal. They required a lot of time taking steps but really weren't that difficult to solve if you had say an HOUR. I noticed around #20 that I was way behind schedule so I started to panick and speed up only to get to the last 5 questions which took me a whole 30 to do them all. By this point I thought I completely blew it since the last ones were so easy. Then I started the reading and thought I was catching a lot of the RC/CR tricks and patterns but the SC was tough. I mean I didn't get thrown one bone as to "this in GMAT land is always wrong" and sometimes not even a 3/2 split. But I finished right on time and had to proceed through the endless questions on the test. When it came time to report I was basically praying for a 670 with a slight hope at 710 and BOOM up came the 710!!! I was so excited, I wrote down my score on my tissue and then freaked out thinking I just invalidated my score so I had to raise my hand for the proctor to come and help me out. She looked at my score and had smiles all over telling me that I'd get a print out and that I didn't just invalidate my score. I was so embarrassed but so relieved. The proctors were the first ones giving me high fives out the door, I felt like a super star.
More RecommendationsLots of people keep an
error log, that probably would help. I kind of kept a mental log of typical SC I got wrong.
Practice SC as it's a section you can improve the most.
For CR DUMB IT DOWN!!! CR is usually totally centered around the conclusion so don't deviate with you own assumptions.
RC watch for tricks...like "the sun rising each morning is a popular theory"...but if it doesn't say it in RC you can't just add that in yourself.
Eliminate very critical language on RC.
Practice in an environmental that has ambient noise such as people talking quitely, typing, people moving rather than a shut off room during practice exams (i.e. library or Saturday at work).
Well good luck to all you GMATers out there. I will now stalk the admits/ding page.
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20 Feb 2008, 16:09
