I am the poster-child for poor prep and apathy. I started fooling around with the notion of a MBA back in February. In March, I began my unfocused reading of what an MBA is all about. I wrote essays, and I bought Dummies for MBA and Dummies for GMAT. I blew through the Dummies with no problem (540 sample test) because it is for dummies. Then I checked out the 2002 Princeton review. I went through it cover to cover. At this point, I thought I was on a good pace. Princeton & Dummies explain the way to trick your way through the test which was not what I needed. Dummies did not have similar material. PR, I scored 410, 430, and 470 on the tests with many distractions. Because of my busy family schedule, I was not getting the appropriate study time in. I was still concerned about my math so I bought the
OG. I got my butt handed to me by missing many questions and became concerned about math. I sifted through 2 or 3 Algebra books and felt I was ready so I scheduled my test date for June 17. With a month left, I felt I would do well on the ETS computer tests--410 then 430. I realized that my math skills were unpolished so I wasted more time on theory. Two weeks left, I realized that "Houston we have a problem." I worked through 40 problems of qaunt in
OG book. I had ignored verbal because I was overconfident until I recieved a poor score. With a little over 1 week left, I began to put in two hours a day and discovered that a whole lot more work was needed by reading about other test taker methods. I tried to reschedule but it was too late. Now, I am cramming tonight before the test tomorrow. My goal is to take more time on the first 10 of each quant & verbal. My best shot is that I can get the first 15 correct on verbal and take it from there. It all comes down to studying the GMAT not math or verbal. I wasted way too much time on things that didn't matter. I can't put a number on total hours but the hours were not quality just reading here and there. Excluding intelligence, what I noticed about the GMAT pros is that it simply comes down to mass-studying, using the right tools, and focus. I did not demonstrate any of these concepts because of not understanding what the GMAT was all about and underestimating it. This site was an eye opener...500 or bust...