Hey everyone,

Just thought I'd like to share my GMAT experience, as well as shill for a bit about the prep program I used. I say shill because I am clearly quite positive about the program, but I'd like to state that I'm not getting anything outta being so positive! I'm honestly just very impressed that it helped me score so well, as I wasn't expecting any more than about 740 as a hard upper limit. If any of this helps any of you guys out, it'd be fantastic.

Little bit about me:

Final year university student, American but studying overseas. Terribly rusty math AND English skills after so many years out of high school; as an Accounting/Finance major, you don't really practise the things which get tested on the GMAT. Hell, I'd even forgotten things like basic geometry, or how best to tackle Venn diagrams. So... I decided that I needed a little help.

Preparation:

After examining a few different GMAT prep program options, I eventually settled on GMAT Pill. Kaplan appears to be slightly poorer reviewed, and Manhattan's more expensive, so GMAT Pill it was.

Everything was pretty nicely laid out, and explained in a manner that was easy to grasp, and the always-available online video format made it easy to study whenever and wherever I wanted to, provided I had my phone or tablet with me. At home, on the subway, or even sitting by the pool. Don't underestimate the importance of a convenient studying resource that doesn't weigh several pounds; it'll make it much easier to keep studying consistently and allow you to take quick "study breaks" in between bouts of whatever it is you usually do.

I first started on the material about three to four weeks before my GMAT, and studied fairly inconsistently over the next few weeks. On the whole, I believe I put in about 10-20 hours of time fully concentrating on the material, and possibly another 10-20 or so leaving the videos running while I did other things that weren't overly taxing on my mental resources - television, video games, laundry, and such. It might not seem like a whole lot of time, but that's part of my point entirely; the program ran through things in such a simple way that it wasn't difficult to understand the concepts. So again... pretty impressed.

Exam experience:

Not sure yet how well I did on the AWA segment, but nobody really cares about that one, right? At any rate, it went passably. Was a little bit pressed for time because my mind wandered off for a bit during the Analysis Of An Issue section, but managed to finish my essay with less than a minute left on the clock.

When I got to the Quant segment, I immediately found that most of the questions seemed very familiar to me. Pretty much everything that the GMAT was testing had been gone through on the GMAT Pill videos; there were a couple of odd-looking questions (and I mean really odd), but I assumed that those were "experimental" questions and so didn't stress myself out too much about 'em. Finished up with about 25 minutes left on the clock.

Verbal segment seemed even more straightforward. Nothing strange-looking, and all of the questions were in a familiar format. Finished that segment with 40 (!) minutes left on the clock.

It might be of note that I made sure to take the breaks in between the segments, even though I didn't really feel like I needed them. During each break, I just sat on the chairs in the test centre, closed my eyes for a bit, and rested my brain. It might have helped or it might not, but I feel that a lot of people could benefit from taking these breaks; they give you time to, at the very least, "shift gears" from writing to quant and then from quant to verbal.

If I could go back and change anything that I did, it would be to tell myself to slow down a little. Time yourself well, and make sure that you're spending an appropriate amount of time on each question; I would advise taking maybe a minute and a half on the easier Quant questions, leaving you with a little more time for the tougher ones. Try to utilise your time well, so that you don't end up finishing as early as I did and then kicking yourself for not taking the time to be 99% sure that you didn't make any careless mistakes.

If anyone has any questions, I'd be glad to share more about my experiences


_________________

Hi, I'm MrFong, a former GMAT Pill student who scored 780. I am very grateful for this score and have now joined their staff

Wow! You must be lightening fast. I purchased a course to speed up my reading speed, but 41 verbal questions in 35 minutes is unbelievable. But why were you in such a rush to finish the GMAT, don't you feel that you could have got 800.

which books you referred to. where to practice more Questions and which book has a high level of difficulot which come on gmat??

Thank you



I wouldn't advise practising on books which have a difficulty level higher than the actual test; there isn't really much of a point to that, or so I feel. I used the GMAT Pill questions, plus flipped through the Diagnostic Test at the start of the GMAT Official Guide.

If you feel like you really need a lot of practice, then if I were you, I would try to get my hands on the Official Guide. I was only using it for a short while so I just picked it up at my campus library, but if you want to do all of the questions you might want to buy it. It's not that expensive, and the questions are obviously very similar to the exact same thing you'll see on the GMAT.
_________________

Hi, I'm MrFong, a former GMAT Pill student who scored 780. I am very grateful for this score and have now joined their staff

congrates

Congrats...Great Score!

awesome score !

I should clarify - I did take the 2 practice exams using the GMATPrep software available from the actual website. Scored a 740 on the first practice test, taken several days before the GMAT. I only did the Quant section on my 2nd practice test, because that was where I felt I needed more practice, and I didn't really have the time to go through the Verbal section as well.



Well, again, the Official Guide seems to have enough questions to keep you occupied for quite a while; if you can tackle all of their questions, I think you'll do just fine on the GMAT. If you really really reaaaaally want difficult questions, I do hear that Manhattan offers up a selection of more difficult questions. Not sure whether doing more difficult questions would actually be handy, though, for the same reason that doing college-level math may not help you score any better on a grade-school exam


Heh. I did warn you that it'd be pretty clearly favourable towards GMATPill, if that's what you're getting at. I'm honestly not making anything off of this, though; again, I was just so thoroughly impressed that it could help me score higher than I thought possible that I felt that I needed to help spread the word. You could say that I've partaken of the Kool-Aid, I suppose.

I'm not sure how I could prove that I did score this score, but if it helps any, I couldn't really believe it either. There's definitely some amount of luck involved; have to be lucky enough not to get any of those questions that just happen to stump you, and you also have to not make any careless mistakes. I'm particular prone to the latter, so I was very relieved to find out that I didn't make any on the Quant section; during my practices, I'd found that careless mistakes were responsible for a hefty portion of my wrong answers, and so I took extra care to prevent making 'em during the real GMAT.
_________________

Hi, I'm MrFong, a former GMAT Pill student who scored 780. I am very grateful for this score and have now joined their staff

wowers

Congratulations! Thank you for submitting a review.
Congratulations and interesting to see you got 80 points of improvement, so must have started at 700 - good for you! Good Luck!
_________________

Founder of GMAT Club

Just starting out with GMAT? Start here... | Want to know your GMAT Score? Try GMAT Score Estimator
Need GMAT Book Recommendations? Best GMAT Books

Co-author of the GMAT Club tests

Find out what's new at GMAT Club - latest features and updates