Intern
Joined: 29 May 2012
Posts: 1
Given Kudos: 0
Location: United States
Concentration: Entrepreneurship, Strategy
GMAT Date: 09-27-2012
GPA: 3.33
WE:Corporate Finance (Commercial Banking)
My mistakes, your success, I hope.
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16 Apr 2013, 09:48
First of all, thank you for reading my post here.
My journey is not finished yet, still need to go further a little bit.
I would like to say that I am low average among applicant pool, I know myself and not being humble though. My caution is that my story cannot be a success story yet. I am on the way to the goal. There are a lot of mistakes i would like to share in order to avoid.
I started MBA journey a year ago in April2012, totally blinded with trial-and errors approaches to GMAT exam.
I started to search for suitable b- school and planned for application. Frankly speaking, I underestimated Gmat difficulty and though that I could overcome, even not a cakewalk,but at least within 6 months time frame. But everything was totally beyond my expectations. I will show you why.
I am 29, Thai,non native , married with a kid. I work for a bank, not so much stress. I started online prep- course with one of the famous online prep provider, right now they changed to be affiliated with one of UK top business magazine. I took three month course with totally failed. I though the course was not suitable for me since I am non- native. During my GMAT preparation, due to underestimation of the whole application processes, I started to write my essay for one of top b- school, only one I wish to apply for. I hired consultant to work with me from April to September last year. She was generous, but I though I could not handle both Gmat and essay at the same time ,so I told her I would like to focus on GMAT , and I would come back to her later. In order to be well schedule for the whole process, I arranged to take exam at the end of June 2012 but I postponed with fine of $25 because I knew that I was not ready for it yet.
I know about myself later that I can do well if I do one by one task, not good at multitasking.
I though that exclusively focusing on GMAT first before writing essay is my best strategy.
I took another classroom course which gave me a good sense for quant section, especially DS, my nemesis that I was never understand how it works.I though I need more time to be familiar with this kind of exam.
Though,I took GMAT exam in September last year without solid skill yet. Failed with 550 (36Q , 27V). On that day, I got fever and sick. That was terrible. Probably, I am not tolerated for stress and easy to get sick during high stress period. I did not expected for skyrocket score on that day, just want to try my real first GMAT exam. Drinking chicken essence can help a lot.
I returned to focus on what I need to improve. I registered for famous online verbal course and another online quant course in October last year.
Even though I started both q and v at the same time, I spent time everyday during lunch for quant because it took shorter time to watch vdo and do exercise at cafeteria. It was impossible for verbal for me to do so since I need higher concentration to read but I felt sleepy during doing verbal at lunch. Quant is more enjoyable to do and I did not felt asleep. I only did online verbal course during weekend with continuous reading, 2- 3 hours a time before noon and the same for afternoon on weekend. (But I also felt sleepy, too. Quant is much more better to wake me up).
For this reason, my quant improved dramatically, on Feb 2, I took gmat prep and I got 43.( i did only quant because I knew that I am not ready for verbal yet, saving those verbal question later when i feel I should do it.)
For verbal, I took online collaboration session during night. Due to time zone difference, I need to stay late at night during weekend. My SC improved from this course but not CR and RC.
During Feb Mar, I thought Quant and SC is quite ok, the remaining CR and Rc were needed the right materials.
On Feb 9, I took gmatprep exclusively for verbal, and got 27. I was surprised because at least I should improved from SC. But I did not realize that CR and RC also affect my performance as well since GMAT is an adaptive in nature. You are not only good at what is tested,but how it is tested as well. You may know, but hectic and relentless can make you forget some fact like me.
Right now, I know that my real opportunity is Verbal. With 3- 4 months, my verbal did not improve as quant did. Something wrong with my Verbal prep.
I returned to Powerscore CR , which I bought in Mar last year and read thoroughly again in March. I can say that I cannot exactly be able evaluate my performance on CR unless I take gmatprep again. (Until now, I still not take another gmat prep yet). The book was useful. One should apply concept and test what the book said. You should see whether it works. For me, if it does not work, just change the material,and you will find one that suites for you. It was costly. I tried several gmat courses and textbooks, only few worked for me.
For RC, I recently bought powerscore LSAT RC and found it is useful. During one year of my preparation, I can say that I took for grant for RC because I did quite well at the beginning of preparation. Surprisingly, after I analyses my performance , Rc is the worst one that contributes to my bad verbal performance. the concepts are quite useful, I think. The way LSAT creates RC is not quite deviate from GMAT ( except LSAT two passage analyses and longer text,450 for LSAT and 350 words for GMAT).
I found gmat rc is simpler than LSAT's.
At this point, I am going to retake gmatprep for verbal only again. I will update the result.
I hope that if my verbal is improved and consistently done well, I may consider to take another real gmat soon. Let me update you again.
Lesson learn I would like to share with you is know thy self first. Everyone has his or her best fit strategy, not one fit all. You must find the best way for yourself that you feel you do it well. Not by follow other persons. I tried all of what others say but no work for me. I do not mean that their advises are useless, but at least you know what kind of person you are , what prep method work best for you will be beneficial. Honestly speaking, I took considerable of time finding that for myself, once I found it,it worked well, especially my quant. I may took additional practice on my weaknesses in quant and I think higher than 45 is feasible for me. I never though that I can reach 40s level for quant. But for verbal, i need more time to overcome it. It take me efforts. But I believe i can do as i did for quant( Initially, quant was much more difficult for me, but due to devotion to quant, it was imoroved higher than verbal, which i took for grant at the beginning).