Hello everybody. Since I´m really happy with my GMAT score and since I have benefited a lot from this forum, I want to share my GMAT story and help you guys some advice. My first Gmat went really bad and when I saw the score of 730 on the screen of my second Gmat I felt really relieved and very satisfied!!
So I got 730, Q49 V41 on my second attempt. My first attempt I surprisingly completely messed up the verbal part and got a 600 with Q47 and V26. That day pretty much everything went wrong, since my lowest verbal score in 8 tests before (6 MGmats and 2 official GmatPrep) was 36. In the first moment I thought the mashine was broken, but I guess it wasn´t. Q47 was a one of the lower of the expected scores. The week before I scored on the official prep tests: 710 Q47 V40 and 700 Q49 V36 (not completely sure about distribution anymore).
So what went wrong and what is my advice here for you guys:
First, I had a back injury at the time and the back pain kicked in at the time of the verbal section, which distracted me a lot. Other than that there were more issues.
I think the biggest issue was that I wasn´t used to wearing ear plugs and that at home I made out of the verbal section a listening section. Ear plugs are a must at the test center because it can be pretty loud in there (people sighing, laughing, hammering the keyboard, etc.). So, I wasn´t used to wear earplugs and I kept putting them in and pulling them out, leading to a big distraction. Furthermore, I noticed that at home I often read out loud the sentence, which you just can´t do at the test center. That made a big difference to me as I´m not a native speaker.
So, get used to wearing earplugs and try to understand the passages without reading them out loud!! In relation to the actual test at the test center this is in my opinion the biggest advice that I can give to you.
My second biggest advice is to not get under big time pressure. I got under big time pressure on this test because I knew my quant hadn´t gone great and I knew I had to make up for it on the verbal, so that I tried to answer the first 10 questions correctly. I wasted way too much time here, though. In the end I think I had to guess without a second of thinking on 4-6 questions in a row. This was crucial for the low score. I also noticed in later practice tests that, although I got the same amount of questions wrong in two tests, I had 2 points less in the end in the test, in which I answered 2 or 3 wrong in a row towards the end of the test.
So, don´t get under too much time pressure!! If you notice you are behind, decide or read faster, or just make 1 straightforward guess in order to win back 1 min 45 secs.
Other issues were that I got into a discussion with the too young girls working at the test center before the test, which wasn´t perfect either for concentration. Furthermore, I was 1 minute late to each section because the log in with hand print and the log in at the computer took longer than I expected. That obviously stirs you up even more, so that I needed 4 mins to solve the first quantitative question. My Adivce: Focus on your thing and
go to the desk early to get back to the computer! You can then sit another minute in front of the screen and motivate yourself.
Then there are other conditions, that you unfortunately can´t influence. For instance, at the first test center in the beginning I got 1 pen and they told me to raise the hand for a second if needed. Well, I started with the first and it didn´t write well, I didn´t want to lose time nor get distracted so I decided to keep writing with this pen until I later asked for another. The second pen didn´t write well either!! In the second test center I got two pens in the very beginning and they both wrote well. So, there are some luck factors that kick in.
Another reason why my verbal went so bad that day was in my opinion that until this test I could often rule out 3 options in verbal and then I guessed between the last two. After my awful verbal in the first Gmat (also considering that quant went bad, but hardly as bad as verbal) I certainly attempted to change that for my second Gmat.
So, I worked for 5 month at a court and a law office. I didn´t like my job at all and it was time to tackle the Gmat again. I started shaping up in math again by the end of January. In the beginning of March I quit both of my jobs to have 2 more weeks of full time preparation for the Gmat.
In my second test everything just went better and I was also even more prepared for both sections, but especially more prepared for the verbal section. I had also learned from my mistakes and took every mock with ear plugs in and I also studied with ear plugs in. The scores of the 4 official prep mocks (I purchased the extra prep tests and the extra questions, later more to that) I took the two weeks before were: 700 Q48 V38, 750 Q49 V42, 680 Q47 V36 (got under time pressure in verbal here) and 730 Q49 V41 (few days before the test, my score of the test
). I again noticed that the V36 was when I had 2 or 3 wrong in the row in the end.
So, in the actual test, I knew quant went well and my biggest goal for verbal was not to get under time pressure, so I really focused on that. So, there were several questions, in which I rather quickly decided between two options left (although I prepared better in order to not have so many questions with 2 answers left, as mentioned above, as a non-native speaker I couldn´t make that always happen). So, I got somewhat lucky on my test day there, too, I think.
Alright, now let me write a litte more about materials to use:
I have graduated from law school in Germany, so my math was really bad when I began studying for the Gmat. I opted for the
Mgmat preparation. I purchased 6 mocks and all books. The mocks were good, but way farther away from the actual Gmat as the Official Prep Mocks were, especially the quantitative part. So, my recommendation: instead of the
Mgmat mocks I would definately purchase the official Extra Pack. The books were great, though, especially if you have forgotten a lot about math like me or if you just didn´t know how to set up a double matrix, doubleVenDiagram, etc. etc. If you already feel confident about math, I would only use the explanations of this forum here and the math book of this forum.
What you should definately do in my opinion is the extra question package of the official prep software and the extra tests. They were all very close to the actualy test and luckily the extra question package gives you a lot of hard questions.
Now two more things: 1st there are soooo many tricks to answer quantitative questions quickly and without these tricks it just takes so long. Learn all these tricks: One good example are the formulas for a TripleVenDiagram: Total = Singles - (Doubles) - 2xTriples + Neither ... with the formula you solve the question in a minute, without it you sit there for 3-4 minutes or longer. 2nd I wanna thank everyone who is contributing to this forum, Bunuels explanations are awesome by the way. This forum can help you improve a lot: for instance, back to the Triple VenDiagram Formula(s): that formula -2x Triples i just applied if we know the "exact" or "only" amount of doubles! I have never knewn that before I read this great explanation in this forum here (hope I can find the link later). If it is just "doubles" (not exactly, neither only), then use the formula: Total = Singles - (Doubles) + Triples + Neither.
So, this I just one of the example how I benefited a lot from this forum. You can also just put all questions of the official prep into google and google will give you the link to the question in this forum.
In relation to the verbal section my advice is to not read to much theory, but to answer a lot of questions and figure out what your mistake was later. You also get a better feeling for the traps.
So, that was my way too long debrief! Good Luck Everyone on the Gmat!!