I spend a lot of time on this site and read a lot of debriefs for motivation. After n-th debrief they are became a little similar because GMAT world not so big: we have like 15-20 courses (3-4 major) so here is not so much many possible ways of preparation.
So I decide not to write about usual things and my preferences for courses because it is quite obvious.
I will try to write about stuff with I usually didn't met at debriefs. So it will be like anti-debrief
This post has been voted
Best Debrief of 2015 and identified as one of the best and featured in the
Best GMAT Stories - Period collection
-bbI listen/read 5 different GMAT courses. It was my huge mistake in hindsight because such strategy is quite stupid. Theory and fundamentals are the same in each course. Stick to one and don't search for some magic tablet. Time that you spend on second/third course can be much better invested in practice of solving questions.
With one exception: you can add to the main course
EGmat SC - especially if you have some gaps in grammar. I did not advertise them and to prove it I can say that they have a lot of problem with customer service and technical quality of material (not critical but still as IT guy I was sometimes irritated). But their approach in learning change my view of English grammar.
I have a strange way of English learning. My native languages are Russian and Ukrainian and I didn't study English at school. When I found first normal job in which English was needed I start to learn it by myself but never learn grammar. I always wonder: if child don't learn grammar and speak easily why should I learn grammar? After 3-4 years I start quite confidently speak, have a big vocabulary baggage and easily watch movies with subtitles. Two years ago I pass Toefl on 101 from 120 but still didn't know any grammar rule. I have no idea what is present perfect and how to use it let alone future perfect or modifiers with or without comma.
So when I start to learn sentence correction in GMAT I cry a lot
GMAT explains me very earnestly why I need grammar )
I can't read Manhattan SC. I still don’t read it and think never will. For me it was like reading phonebook: rule, rule, rule. How normal person can remember all this stuff?
EGmat saved me. They have really cool, fluent approach to load grammar into your brain, spoon by spoon
I am really happy that I bought their course (CR part is ok but Powerscore is better and I don't understand who needs book for RC so it is definitely don't worth to by it)
2. Are you lucky? I didn’t want to write this point in my previous debrief because of my low score. But now I can freely write it. Gmat is not a fair test. There is a lot of luck. In my first exam I met two combinatory tasks and zero of mixture tasks. In my second exam I met two mixture problem and zero combinatory. What if I hate mixture problems and adore combinatory tasks? I will have a gain in first exam and minus in second exam. How is this fair? But this is usual situation in any competition. When I was a dancer we have a way much more subjectiveness in our competitions. There was a lot of tears, disputes and hot debates. Judges are just people and they can’t simultaneously pay attention on 30 couples on dance floor. And one person ask my teacher: "Why I dance so cool and another couple so bad and I lost and they are win?" And teacher sais genius thing: “Was you worst 10 seconds of dance better than your competitors best 10 seconds? What if judge saw you worst moment and their best?”
Why I write all this stuff? For two remarks:
a) do not omit some parts of GMAT (probability, mixture, alphabetic, functions or some other weird stuff) – do so is a really dangerous practice. The more you omit the more you will need a luck on exam.
b) do not get despair if you didn’t pass from first/second time. There is a lot of luck in this exam. Just book the next exam, keep calm and continue your preparation.
3. Sacrilegious story about quant legend of this site It is really scare to write this point but I feel a moral obligation so I will do it
On this forum present a genius of math – it is a
Bunuel. Now I adore his explanations and reread them even if done the task correctly. He is always find some unique, short and unexpected way of solution.
But when I after 4 months of preparation I start to use this site I did not understand his explanations. In 50% of cases at all. They were amazing (I felt it) but my level wasn’t enough for understand them. And when I read after his explanation 2-3 comments “Wow this is amazing” it was really depressing because I feel myself infinitely stupid (because all understand it except of me!).
So if you do not understand his explanations – it is ok. Just try to find another comment, another type of explanation. Do not give up if you do not understand, just continue to try to understand it and understanding will come.
I write it because for me it was a really difficult and shameful moment so I hope I will help to somebody to restore confidence if s/he will be in the same situation (also I hope that I not only one who had such problem
4. Do not be greedy it is usually too much expensive finally Do not save your GMAT prep test till final dates. It has an algorithm that will give you questions of your level. So when you make them at beginning of your preparation you will meet easy questions. When you increase your level you will meet another more difficult questions. This will be much more productive then use them one time before the exam.
5. Shock true about market leaders Manhattan and Veritas prep CATs. IMO too hard. I never reach 700 in any of them test. So do not be upset if you such cases.
6. How I make mistake, lost money and why I glad because of this situationGMATclub quant tests. Priceless. You should bought it one time because you should support amazing work of
bb and
Bunuel. I did this at first because I didn’t know how to make kudos
But I didn’t regret, such work should be supported.
IMO this is the most representative tests. Only GMAT prep better. For now I did 22 tests. Each of them are unique and gave me some new tricks.
7. You will not win by following some voodoo rituals. Sorry for harsh true At first test I did all correctly: food, timing, I was in center before test, I take shirt because there was a conditioner, I wash my face in breaks. What I have finally? 660 Second attempt: I have a headache, I forget water and food, and come to center 10 minutes before exam. And I did it. I don’t know why. But I think that all this stuff around the exam decide nothing. Knowledge, calmness and a little bit of luck - this are all you nned on exam, do not create too much pomp about this event because it worsen situation with your merves
My suggest is to not bother too much about all this DDday stuff. (be careful it is only my opinion and I do not have any responsibility for my advice
8. All you need is Motivation Motivation. During the preparation I found this YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnJ-KJ ... rGs_6XfmmQIMO it is amazing because it gives me a lot of energy when I was desperately tired from all this stuff. There was a lot of such such periods so I rewatch this videos many times.
9. How I lost at least one month of preparation 
I was really angry at myself when I realized that I read about
error log but didn’t catch the main idea. I was reading all this articles and I have impression that you should enter your tasks in this excel and get some report that shows you there is your weak spots. Useless thing as for me. When I read article of MikeMcgarry
https://magoosh.com/gre/2013/good-i-got-it-wrong/ and I did my own
error log Attachment:
Results.xlsx [528.99 KiB]
Downloaded 1836 times
in which I put task, put link from gmatclub and write what was my problem with this task. And after some days I try to solve it again.
I was shocked when I saw that some tasks I did 4-5 times wrong. I just can’t remember how to solve or there was a trick. After this “invention” my math went up really quickly. When you read decision this is not mean that you remember and understand it. After read of decision you must close decision and solve it from zero immediately. Sometimes you will not solve it and then you should reread it and again close solution and solve it from scratch.
Why I was angry? Because when I reread
error log instructions I see that all guys write about it and I just miss that part. This mistake cost minimum month to time of my preparation.
10. Do you interesting in some cool stuff? Be careful it is addictive Between my official attempts I found this author:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... nprep-com/Amazing stuff. Sadly that I found it only in last weeks. This is another big mistake (
11. Forget about point 8. Motivation sucks! All you need is Discipline Put a really long password on your Facebook and other entertaining accounts. Something like “IReallyWantToPassGmatOn 7++” so when you will have a desire to break the discipline you will be reminded about your past decision and maybe you will return to GMAT stuff instead of Facebook surfing.
Also make a day plan in which put some everyday tasks such as
A) read 10 pages of Manhattan
B) make 10 SC
C) make 10 DS
and just check it day by day in excel: green cells if you make it and red if you don’t. The global picture with a lot of red cells will shame you and green picture will motivate you. Don't use reminders: you should see global picture of your discipline. But be realistic. Make a small plan but from littel tasks but do it every day: this is a way to create new habit.
Discipline is really important part. You need a motivation, but discipline is more important. Do not way for some inspiration: just sit and start to solve tasks and motivation will come to you
12. I do not believe them. And this helps me to sleep calmer I will not write how long I prepare for GMAT because it was too much. But I want to write about other thing. There is a lot of debriefs in which somebody write: 4 weeks and I received 7++. Such debriefs are killing me. I am already wrote about my English level – it was a disaster. My math was much worse. I didn’t learn math in school (
After 3-5 month of preparation I still says that \(2^2+2^3\) will be \(2^5\). And I 35 years old. And I do not have college. I will be honest I did not believe in myself when I was at beginning of my preparation.
I do not write it to boast. I write all this with only one purpose: if I did it any of you can do it. I have some friends who are much smarter, who have a college and work as consultants in prestige firms and know a lot of about GMAT. They say to me that "maybe GMAT is not for me", after my first attempt on 490. They say that "GMAT is like IQ test and one can not change it on more than 100 points". They did it not because they are bad friends. They did it because people do not believe in themselves and subsequently do not believe in anyone. But this is wrong life position.
Do not listen to anyone who told you that you can not do something in GMAT. Just continue learning. Big score it is matter of time and you stubbornness.
13. Secret from NobelistWatch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F3vmNeyOvUI hope after watching you will understand why writing posts in style “+1 for C ” is useless and why writing your way of reasoning is priceless for you not for others.
14. Secret level of understanding Another article from Mike Mcgarry
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/understand ... rformance/Here is short excerpt:
Stages of Understanding
We could outline, roughly, six levels of understanding.
• Level #0 = no understanding, it’s completely foreign, does not compute
• Level #1 = looks familiar, “Yeah, I think I’ve seen that before,” some dim memory of how to do it
• Level #2 = with a little review, or some key hints or coaching, you can solve one of these problems.
• Level #3 = In the course of focused–practice, you can solve these problems consistently. If you are in the “zone” for that problem type, then you can do it.
• Level #4 = you can see the problem cold and, with no warm up, be able to solve it, time and time again. This happens in diverse-problem practice.
• Level #5 = you can not only solve the problem, but explain explicitly the strategy employed in solving the problem
• Level #6 = you can teach the problem clearly to someone who is struggling with how to work through it, and you can answer all their questions in a way they understand. (The old adage among teachers: “The best way to learn something is to teach it.”)
I think out level #7 = creating or chaning of tasks: if you struggle from DS tasks try to take a simple one and change it. Put off the type. Change the type. Add some conditions from another task. And try to understand how answer reacts on all this changes. It will be better to have friend to check your inventions. If you make one or two DS tasks in one topic by yourself – your level of understanding DS became amazing. I had a period when I did like a 15 of DS tasks and I realized how it is difficult to create a good real DS task. I realized that each word in task has a sense, that conditions are connected and you can easily back solve task because you can initially find the answer and after that check the conditions separately and a lot of another tricks.
But by changing of task I mean not to change “a” on “c” or “5” on “6” but make some serious changes.
But I suggest NOT to post your initial attempts on forum because it can became a disaster like my first attempt:
is-x-y-x-y-even-integer-195807.htmlI change answer 4 times! In my own task. It was really shameful situation )
15. Hello Captain! It is quite obvious but still worth to mention. Do not polish your strengths: pay attention on your weak spots. It is much easier to gain some scores by fixing weak spot then by increase quality of your strong side. I knew it rule by heart from business. But periodically catch myself on solving critical reasoning (strongest part) and put away geometry and algebra (weakiest part).
16. Really working way to 50. Money back guarantee! Secret technic for transform 47 to 50. When you achieve 46-48 you already know all what you need to know about math. And only careless mistakes drag you down. I hear this method from Ron but it was about sentence correction. You need to pick one type of mistake (for example subject verb agreement) and go through all
OG tasks but looking only for this mistake. That is it. It is desperately boring but you will train your eye for catching such errors.
It is boring
I give up after third type of error
But I make a little trasformation of this method and apply it to math. If you make
error log then you know with type of careless mistakes you did often. For example I love to forget what question asks and answer on something other. What I do with this mistake. All day before solving tasks I write question at the top of my list and draw a little square near it. Before submit task I force myself to reread question (and lose precious seconds for it I even now feel an inner protest about such stupid actions
and check this square. But really reread this question! Only checking the square will not help. First times it is impossible. You try to control yourself but still make this mistake. It is like a magic. This exercise clearly show that we can not control ourselves. But after some days (if you not give up) it became a new habit. And you start check question automatically. And you win at least 1-2 task on the exam because of this habit.
17. RC I do not know why but I never met any advice about vocabulary. And I think this is really important part of RC and CR. One word can easily solve the correctness of the answer. Learn all words from RC passages this is too extreme and very often GMAC include wrods that you do not need at all. Shist, big tits (no this is not that you think about
this is word from animals world, algae, aardvark and so on. You will meet such words in RC but you can easilty substitute it with X and solve the questions.
So for me I design three step process of solving RC passages:
1) Number of questions * 1:30 = Total time. Read and solve questions during the total time. If not have time - guess.
2) Read passage second time and make second attempt on each question. Take as much time as want but you should give correct answer.
3) Third attempt but with use of dictionary. Read unknow words and try to understand: is this word change something in your previous answer? If yes - you should remeber this word.
After these steps you can easily understand what is you problem: is it time issues or vocabulary issues.
For vocabulary issues I reccomend to use Anki.
For time issues - only reading practice. But I never understand why people recommend to read some other sources. We preparing for GMAT so for reading practice we should use GMAT passages and during this practice we should answer to the questions. No other practice can give your development in this type of questions. Don't waste your precious preparation time on other sources.
This is debatable claim but this is only my unprofessional opinion so I hope you will forgive me my tone )
18. How I completely fail my second attempt I start really cool. I have a lot of time at 7 IR question and I relax. After some questions more I stuck with one problem and after this delay did not have a time for last three tasks. That was really careless and stupid. Result: IR 3.
Ok. I learn my lesson during the break and prepare myself morally to quant.
First quant task 1:30 - excellent. Second task and I see that this is simple. It is really simple but I can not do it. I write more one half of page and still can not do it. It was situation from nightmare you see that something scary happens and you can do nothing. I understand that I can not skip second simple task! And I watch on timer and realize that I spend more than 5 minutes on this task. Goodbye dreams about 1 round, hello second round and third attempt.
I lost this battle but decide to gain some experience and do not throw off my money. So let's do it for fun. I estimate this stupid task and continue my test. There were some more problems. Not so dramatic but I did this quant way to much worse than my previous attempt. Verbal? It was ok. My SC still sucks ( but there was some progress in comparison to first attempt.
When I saw my score I was shocked more than in my previous attempt:
unpleasant-surprise-660-q48-v33-201704.htmlI was 100% sure that I received less than 660. I do not know what happens. This was really weird.
Read this article:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/ ... ill-creep/and never estimate your success during the exam. This is really golden rule.
19. Be strong guys. This is last point Finally. If you are usual guy or gal without extra quant or verbal knowledge then you have a long way to go.
You can make it boring. You can make it sad. You can fill it with hate to all this cramming. Or you can love it and make this period interesting and fascinating.
GMAT can be a beast or can be a tool that makes your brain faster, smarter and more inventive.
And this is depends not from GMAT, not from your tutor, not from your course and not from this site. It is only your choice about what role GMAT will play in this period of your life.
I chose to love it and for now I have a little sadness that this period is over (
And a little joy too for sure.
Ok, I will be honest: mainly joy actually
Good luck in your preparation guys. Hope I not boring you with my pieces of advice
close
14 Aug 2015, 15:34
. Did not even bother with an error log for my 3rd attempt.
. i really learnt from you a lot.
