My Quant Wakeup Story - Journey to q50 (GMAT: 760)

LOL...aint gonna work for everyone....this advice has every potential of backfiring.

Congratulations and thank you. This is really a great post.

Marriage..interesting..

at this point i might try anything..

fantastic post really helpful

Some of the best advice! Thanks so much!

Great post! Congrats on such a high score!

Hi! Do you think it's necessary to go through Kaplan for a higher Math score? I've just finished Princeton Review, and I knew the Math was pretty easy there. I'm going to start with OG12 by tomm, or day after. My Math score in the 2 practice tests I've taken has been 44. I know I haven't practiced enough of Math yet to score better, but was just hoping for an opinion from you anyway.
And congrats on ur amazing score!!!

By go through Kaplan, do you mean their classes or just their guide(s)?
Kaplan had a pretty solid math review guide (100 math facts or something to that effect) that helped me become more efficient at a lot of the problem types, but you can find similar guides elsewhere (including this forum).

Whatever tools you use, just be honest with yourself on the different problems. If you got it wrong, why? Is that a trend? If you got it right, why? Did you really know how to solve it? Can you do it faster by adopting a new method?

Great post and nice score in such a short period of time.

I meant just the guides. I've been thru PR, and my cousin (gmat score:740 Q51 V39) thinks that's enough, and I should just go on to OG12 now. He thinks doing Kaplan as well is not reqd (i.e. he thinks do either PR or Kaplan, no need to do both). What do you think?

Yeah the OG12 is probably a good idea - just make sure you keep an eye on the strategies you are using and resist the urge to just crank out problem set after problem set.

thanks for your input! i'm planning on giving PR CAT#2 tomm (if i manage to wake up at 5 am!)...once i review that, I guess by Tuesday I should begin with OG12...

Thank you for sharing your experience! Very insightful indeed. I didn't do much prep at all for my first sitting, but I see myself in your description. I wanted to crack quant problems my way but I have always been a slow-poke, I'm not a math wiz by any stretch, and I didn't have a decent math refresher pre-sitting. What the hell was I thinking? I cracked under the tic-tac and now I have a shattered ego to heal.

Other than the stupidity of not really studying for GMAT (in my defense I'll allege post-partum madness or...wait, extreme sleep deprivation will do), the little practice I had was misguided by my stubborn-self. Reading your post before putting together my study plan is great since I was at serious risk of making some of the mistakes you pointed out. Lesson learned: I will certainly watch myself carefully throughout practice AND I'll be sure to review my methods + read carefully about recommended strategies. Thanks!

I like your advise about "Be honest with yourself and be open-minded" It gave me something to think about. it's very true that that is an important element of preparing for the test.

Impressive!

I am going to try your method. I was always good at math but bombed my first GMAT I have about two months until the next try and my weakness was math so I'm going to focus most of my study time on that while doing regular review on verbal as well. I will post once I retake and let everyone know my results! Last try for getting into school for next year...Thanks for the strategy!

Super duper post congrats!!!!

Super awesome. Thanks for the inspiration.

Great story!