Hey!
Before starting my preparation I did some reading on GMAT Club and found the experiences quite helpful and fun to read. They gave me a first hint how my preparation should look like and what to read. Therefore, I would like to share my GMAT experience with you guys...
My BackgroundI am a 22 year old German business student and will graduate in 4 weeks. I would consider myself OK in math yet not on the level of an engineer or rocket scientist
Yet in contrast, my english is quite bad. As a non-native speaker the verbal part gave me quite a hard time... I prepared while writing my Bachelor thesis, doing approximately 3 hours of preparation a day.
The PreparationEven I scheduled my GMAT appointment 6 weeks ahead, I did not start preparing until 4 weeks before the test. First, I did the GMAT Prep 1 to see where my weak spots are and to get an understanding on "where I am". I got a 690, which was quite disappointing. Yet the split revealed that my quant score of 49 was ok but that (as expected) verbal was my main field to work on.
Following, I started to complete all questions in
the Official Guide (both quant and verbal) in order to get a more comprehensive understanding of the patterns GMAT is testing. While doing this, I marked all the questions I got wrong and did them again one day later to really get them right. After completing the
OG, it was quite clear that I am performing well on quant (except for inequalities), CR and RC but very bad on SC.
VerbalSentence correction was pretty tough for me, because as a non-native speaker had problems with most of the idioms. Of course I heard them before yet often two answers sounded "correct" to me. Therefore, I ordered the
MGMAT SC book, which gave me great insights. I especially liked that the book also includes tasks where you have to correct sentences by hand, which matched perfectly with my style of learning.
After completing
MGMAT SC, I did all SC questions in the
OG Verbal Review and again marked all questions I got wrong. In comparison to the
OG, my results were much better. Subsequently, I did the
OG again and got about 95% right.
QuantSince my quant score on the first GMAT Prep CAT was ok, I did not want to spent too much time on quant. As for verbal, I ordered the
MGMAT inequalities book, which gave me quite some insights. Nevertheless, I would not consider it as useful as the SC guide since about 80% of the content is very basic.
After finishing the
MGMAT Guide, I did all questions in the
OG Quant Review and again marked all wrong questions. In the first run I got 97% right which gave me quite a boost of confidence.
CATParallel to doing the
OG books, I did two CATs every week for the first three weeks of preparation and one CAT every day during the week before the test. I would consider the CATs the most valuable part of my preparation. Especially the
MGMAT CATs gave me the opportunity to familiarize with the concept of getting harder questions when performing well. They further are a great pool of questions and since the quant section is harder than the real GMAT it is quite a good preparation for being confident on the test day. Below you can see my test scores on the various CATs:
CAT - Total - Quant - Verbal
Prep 1 - 690 - 49 - 33
Prep 2 - 740 - 48 - 44
MGMAT 1 - 650 - 44 - 34
MGMAT 2 - 750 - 48 - 45
MGMAT 3 - 720 - 43 - 45
MGMAT 4 - 730 - 48 - 42
MGMAT 5 - 740 - 49 - 43
MGMAT 6 - 730 - 50 - 40
MGMAT 1 - 770 - 50 - 45
MGMAT 2 - 740 - 50 - 41
MGMAT 3 - 760 - 49 - 44
MGMAT 4 - 740 - 50 - 41
MGMAT 5 - 750 - 50 - 42
MGMAT 6 - 740 - 51 - 45
Prep 2 - 780 - 50 - 48
Test DayThe day before the test, I was actually quite nervous which is very uncommon for me. Normally, when writing an exam in university for example, I know all parameters and know approximately how I am going to score. I've further been a bit under pressure because most of my friends scored 760 or higher.
During the actual test, quant went well except for one geometry question. Nevertheless, I finished 10 minutes ahead and started to relax a bit. Verbal was also ok, yet i got 5 reading comprehensions and finished 25 mins ahead. Therefore, I was almost 100% sure that I messed up everything.
I ended up with 760 in total, disappointing 49 in quant and 47 in verbal (which i did not expect
).
Last Remarks1. Do as many CATs as possible
2. Mark all questions you get wrong and do them until you get them right
3. Do not contribute too much time
I hope it will help you throughout your preparation!
Alexander
close
12 Apr 2012, 10:02
), yet I belief that doing 4 weeks of 3 hours a day is more effective than 12 weeks of 1 hour a day. This is what I meant with "Do not contribute too much time". 
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on dec 17,2011. 
