Hello,
I've been a lurker, but finally started to get involved in the forums and would like to ask for your guidance. Here's my story. I came across the website August of 2011 which was the beginning of my GMAT studies. My goal was, and still is, to attain acceptance into a MS Accounting program which requires a minimum score of 520. My goal is to score between 550 - 600 to balance out my sub-par gpa in the application.
Initially I believed this was a fairly easy test and prepared for 2 weeks and took the exam in September. My first mistake. So after realizing the difficulty of the test, I purchased the
Manhattan GMAT Set of 8 books, fundamentals of math (
MGMAT),
OG 12, Quant Review, and Verbal Review and studied for 2 months, roughly 8 hours a week, skimming through all of the books and took the test in November. Mistake number 2. At this time I decided to push the GMAT studies aside and focus on work. During the summer I studied for the IRS Enrolled Agent tax exam which is a rigorous 3 part exam and passed all 3 exams on my first attempt. This boosted my confidence and I attempted to study for the GMAT once more, but this time seriously giving it my all and committing my time and energy. I studied for 3 months reading and absorbing every page of the GMAT books, completing and fully understanding over 200
OG questions in Quant and 100 in verbal, and completing 3 practice exams (
MGMAT) with scores of 520, 550, and 580.
I was extremely confident that I would attain a score of at least 520 on the real test which was yesterday, but I ended up performing worse than my first 2 GMAT attempts. I am quite shocked and confused. Majority of the questions on the GMAT seemed foreign to me even the ones that were elementary. I seriously could not figure out how to approach and solve the problems. I would say only 10 problems in the quant. section was from the material I studied from the
MGMAT books. I seriously thought I was taking a different exam because the questions were not similar to the questions last year when I took the exam.
I will be attempting this exam for the 4th time this coming spring and I need to take a different approach. I am not someone who is looking to score a 700. Just a simple guy who would like an average score to attend graduate school in accounting. What would you guys recommend I do to crack a 520?
I've been considering a prep course, but I've read that it is overpriced and not all too helpful.