I achieved 740 points (Q50, V40) at the first real try, in the AWA section I got 5.0 and in the IR 6 points.
BackgroundI am a 23-year-old European (Non-Native), who achieved the BSc in Business Administration. I have a GPA of 4.0 and tests at school and university were never really challenging, unlike the GMAT. I have been in Uganda for 10 months to work with a NGO, so in the evenings I always had around 2 hours to prepare plus additional time on the weekends (without Facebook, https://gmatclub.com/chat, … because of the bad internet connection). I started in the end of October 2015 and finally wrote my test in the mid of June. So my journey took around 9 months, but from time to time I took longer and shorter breaks. In the end, I had spent around around 300 to 350 (net) hours. Considering preparing full time, this is equal to 1 1/2 to 2 months.
As the first step recommended everywhere, I took a CAT from GMATPrep. It was an embarrassing 410 (Q34, V13). Math was ok, I realized that I would only need to refresh some formula to score better. Verbal was a disaster. I had no idea what they asked me. Before taking the CAT I thought I would score higher (600+). Fortunately, this showed me right away that it will be a though journey.
List of content
1.) Key Strategies
2.) Success Factors
3.) Things I wish I would have done or known earlier
4.) CAT Results
5.) Materials used (with a link collection)
My Key Strategies
Quant
For Quant it is essential to practice a lot, since there will be always the same topics. Especially for Data Sufficiency (DS) you have to make sure, that you understand how this question works. This took me some time in the beginning. The more practice you get, the less the GMAT can trap you. When checking my mistakes, I wondered how silly some were. I had to train both: speed and accuracy. Moreover, some topics are covered more often. Some would say that you should always focus on your weaknesses, but I think it is also important to know at which topics you have to be excellent to score well. Check this out:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-ultimate-q51-guide-209801.html and
https://gmatclub.com/forum/overview-of-gmat-math-question-types-and-patterns-on-the-gmat-211809.htmlFor the basics, I found the books from
MGMAT very good. In addition to some questions in the books, you get around 200 additional questions online (difficulty from average to hard). After rushing through these books and writing flashcards for all new information, I went through the GMATClub book in Math and wrote some more flashcards. I somehow felt that nearly everything I read in the
MGMAT books was to be found in the GMATClub Book for math as well.
Then I started with the
OG Questions. I was done soon but I felt as if I needed much more practice to get a good quant score. As I had read many recommendations for the GC Math Tests, I gave them a try. Since these questions are hard and there are good explanations for every question available, this is the best source for quant, in my opinion. With around 1.500 quant questions you have enough material to practice. Although I always missed about 10 questions when practicing 37 questions in a row, I am sure that this helped to score between 49 and 51 points.
My Strategy for Problem Solving (PS)
1. Read the question stem carefully first – what is asked? Sounds obvious but it is easy to answer a wrong question,
2. Check the answers to get a feeling for what the answer will look like
3. Take 5 seconds and think about the fastest way to get to a solution
4. Do the calculations on your paper
5. Check again what is asked and make the right choice
My Strategy for DS
1. Read question stem and the given information carefully
2. Use the information from (2) to help you with (1) and v.v. For example, when x is unknown, (1) and (2) can help you to know, what x really is. But this does not mean that you need both!
3. Beware of the C-trap (to think that both information are needed, although one is sufficient)
4. Make your choice
Verbal
Verbal was the hardest part for me. Because it is not enough to just be good in Verbal to score well (40+). You have to be excellent in every area. But this is a challenge, because in Reading Comprehension (RC) it is not easy to improve and also the other sections need a lot of time and practice.
Sentence Correction (SC)
This is the part of verbal in which you can reach the highest improvement in performance. There are two important things to master SC: 1.) Know all the idioms and rules 2.) Have an excellent strategy. 1.) is not as easy as it sounds, because I have not found one single source, which provides all the idioms. The GC Verbal Book provides around 60 % (I had the feeling it contained also knowledge which is not asked).
MGMAT SC around 85 %. The
Magoosh Idiom Book around 25 %. My recommendation:
MGMAT SC +
Magoosh Idiom Book.
At the time I knew all the rules, I reached an accuracy of around 70 %. This was not enough, so I subscribed for the
E-GMAT Sentence Correction course to improve on my strategy ( 2.)). Great deal! This course in addition with the rules learned before helped me to score well in SC. The course not only explains a top strategy, it also repeats the rules learned before well. As
E-GMAT uses different resources (mostly videos) it was a nice alternative to reading books all the time.
Many people recommend Ron Purewal’s Videos from
MGMAT (‘Ron’s Thursdays’) for SC. In my opinion he explains the same strategy as
E-GMAT – just for free. But I did not like his videos because I had problems to understand his English and they were very boring as they come with slow speed. Increasing the speed did not help me, because I had more problems to understand anything.
My strategy for SC (
E-GMAT Strategy)
1. Read the entire sentence
2. Understand the meaning
3. Look for mistakes in the original sentence
4. Check the other answers
5. Use POE (Process Of Elimination) to get to the answer.
Critical Reasoning (CR)
CR is all about Pre-Thinking and understanding how the test-maker thinks, because the answers will always be kind of similar. There are around 20 different kinds of paragraphs (e.g. government wants to increase tax or reduce pollution, animal population decreases, crop harvest is as not good as before, etc.) and the right answer of each kind will help you to understand how the test-maker thinks. As a result, practice is very important. In addition, the Critical Reasoning Bible (Powerscore) gave me an excellent framework for the questions, although it doesn’t provide many questions. It helped me to understand for each question type why a specific answer is wrong.
My Strategy for CR
1. Read the paragraph and check out what is the conclusion
2. Evaluate the conclusion – is it strong or weak?
3. Read the question stem
4. Pre-think the answer (think about 2-3 possibilities)
5. Read all answers and make your choice
Reading Comprehension (RC)
For me as a Business Administration student all business related topics were very nice, all others (history, social science, physics, biology) horrible. It is recommended to read ‘The Economist’ or ‘Wallstreet Journal’. In my opinion, this does not really prepare you for the RC section, as these magazines are not tough enough. They should only be considered as starters. However, ‘American Scientific’ helped me to get good practice for the real hard passages. Stacey Koprinz from
MGMAT gives a good advice.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2011/01/26/how-to-improve-your-reading-skills-for-reading-comprehension/My Strategy for RC
1. Read the passage carefully (especially the first and last sentence of each paragraph) and write down short notes. Took me around 3-4 minutes
2. Summarize the passage in two sentences in your mind
3. Read the question stem
4. Pre-think the answer
5. Make your choice.
In fact, I never read my notes when answering the question. Writing them just helped me to stay focused and get all the necessary information. In addition, I always tried to tell myself, that I am very interested in the topic, and to smile during reading (sounds crazy, but I think it helped me).
AWA
To be honest, I am little disappointed about my score of 5.0. Like everyone in this forum, I used the template of chineseburned (highly recommendable) and I always did the AWA when I made a CAT. CATs from GMATPrep sometimes have AWA Topic for two CATs – for this case just take another AWA topic from the
OG Guide or a different source. Check out the template:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327.htmlIntegrated Reasoning
Also with my 6 points in this section I am not satisfied. When practicing CATs I often got 8 points. Practicing for Quant and Verbal also helps you in IR, nonetheless you should know the different types of questions. It is possible to get one question wrong and score 8 points, so some suggest leaving out one question. My strategy was always trying to do all questions and when time was running, I always tried to make a guess only on the last question.
People who are going to write the GMAT from now on, should not underestimate the importance of IR. Right now, there are still some people applying for B-Schools without the IR-Score, since it was introduced around 3 years ago and the GMAT is valid for five years. Soon everyone will have an IR score and B-Schools will have their first statistics about the correlation of IR-Performance and success in the programme/career.
My General Success Factors
Make for every new idea or concept a flashcard
Every time when I made a mistake or I went through prep material I paid attention to new ideas or concepts and wrote them down. In the end, I had around 700 Flashcards and I could study them easily everywhere. In addition, an
Error Log was unnecessary, since all my mistakes were on these cards. I think this helped me most to have all the concepts in my mind. Everyone knows this “Ah, I don’t have to write it down, I will remember it” – This can be fatal. Better to have more than less on your flashcards.
Always time yourself and prepare a timing strategy for the CATs
The GMAT is a test not only of accuracy, but also of speed. You have to make sure, make good time and stayaccurate. Therefore, I timed myself right from the beginning every time when doing practice questions. Staceys Koprince Approach from
MGMAT worked well for me.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2012/07/25/everything-you-need-to-know-about-time-management-part-1/Use GMATClub (GC) for three purposes
When I did not know why an answer is wrong, I checked it at GC. There you have an explanation for everything. I used GC also for debriefs (they can motivate you a lot if you are down) and reviews of prep companies or materials.
Use the CATs wisely
In my opinion, only the GMATPrep CATs can show your current score. Manhattan is too hard, especially in quant – I did not try other CATs entirely. Make sure you write the CAT under test day conditions. CATs are primarily not to improve your score, but to check where you are and which are your weak areas (so don’t do them too often – a good interval is every two weeks). Staceys Koprince recommendation for CATs is worth to check.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2014/02/11/4-steps-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-cats-part-1/The test day is your day
Make sure nothing unexpected happens - read some test-day debriefs. Some days before, I knew exactly what I would eat in the breaks, what I would wear, how I would make sure that I reach the test centre in time and how the place would look like where I was going to write my exam.
Everyone has his own way to push himself. My way is to watch some motivational videos (e.g. final battle scene of 300 is great for me) and to listen to a few songs. I don’t know why, but I think this helps me to boost my performance. So make sure, you know how to push yourself. Another way: I visualized in the morning on the test day, how I will react when I see a fantastic score on the screen and how I will reward myself on the same day.
Two cites I found on my GMAT journey
On my way I found two cites, which I had always in mind:
“GMAT Assassins aren’t born, they are made” by Rich.C@EMPOWERgmat – Nearly every one of us has to spend an immense amount of time to get better. Maybe very few need only little time to get a 700+ score, but this is not the general case. So make sure, you have enough time – For a 700+ score I would suggest at least 200 hours
“Iit ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.” – by Rocky Balboa . There is a high chance that the test or also a CAT will hit a hard question on you. You may have never seen such a concept before. It’s no problem. Make an educated guess, do not spend more than three minutes on this question, and move on. But now it’s getting critical. You have to make sure to put your full focus on the present question immediately. Your score will go down much faster, if you have two wrong questions in a row instead of one mistake at the beginning and one in the middle.
Things I wish I would have done or known earlier
- A written and maybe printed time plan would have helped me to study more, since I would have tried to finish my goal for the day. I had “a plan” only in my mind, so it was much easier to find something better to do (or just sleep) as to stick to my plan. I think this is the best way: Set a 2/3/6 month plan with sections (two weeks focus on SC and basics of quant, etc.) and dates for CATs. Then make a detailed plan for two weeks (how many questions per day of each sections, how many pages of the prep book, etc.)
- I wish I would have had enough time to do all the questions of the comprehensive guides of SC and CR as well as to take all my wrong questions of the GC Tests again.
- I wish I would have done the E-GMAT Course for SC before I started to practice any SC question of the OG.
- Of course, the GMAT is no vocabulary test – but in some passages (RC, CR) I found some words, which I did not know. I could have spent more time to learn some of these words..
- The earlier you book the test date, the earlier you get additional (positive) pressure. If you have limited time, you should book as soon as possible. If you have a lot of time, I would wait until you know you are ready.
CAT Results
19/10/15 I PrepGMAT1 I 410 (Q34, V13, IR2)
13/03/16 I MGMAT1 I 620 (Q45, V31, IR2)
25/03/16 I PrepGMAT2 I 660 (Q48, V34, IR5)
10/04/16 I MGMAT2 I 640 (Q46, V32, IR7)
30/04/16 I PrepGMAT3 I 710 (Q50, V36, IR8)
15/05/16 I PrepGMAT5 I 690 (Q48, V37, IR3)
03/06/16 I PrepGMAT4 I 700 (Q49, V36, IR8)
09/06/16 I PrepGMAT6 I 710 (Q48, V39, IR8)
As you can see I have never scored within the range of 30 points of my actual score, I think my test day rituals worked very well for me (or I just had luck). During CATs I didn’t do them.
Materials used:
- Offical Guide #13, Quant and Verbal Review
- Extra Pack of Questions and Exams (GMATPrep)
- Manhattan (MGMAT) Strategy Guide 6th Edition
- E-GMAT Sentence Correction Course
- Critical Reasoning Bible by Powerscore
- GMATClub (GC) Test Subscription for 3 Months
- GMATClub Math and Verbal Book
- Magoosh Idiom Book
- Comprehension Files
Money spent: around 500 $ (Good cite I have read: ‘Don’t save money to reach a 150.000 $ degree’)
I benefited so much from debriefs of others, so I consider it my duty to share my experiences as well.
Regards,
Thomas