From Padawan to 710 Jedi to IESE MBA

becareful though as if you revisit the ques too quickly you *might* "remember" the answer or steps from before.

I scored 9/10 in the problem set in chapter 1 of MGMAT SC!

My trick is to not time myself right from the beginning, and write down why such choice is wrong. Then when reviewing the answers I also make sure to check the problems I got right.

Argh! I scored 55% in the idioms chapter. I have to admit I was a bit in a hurry to complete the 20+ questions of the chapter and made careless mistakes.

Now SC is coming out of my ears. I think I'll alternate 1 Math book, 1 Verbal book, etc. Too much verbal or math at once is certainly detrimental.

I took my second MGMAT test and scored 640 Q44, V34. I'm a little disappointed as I was aiming for 670.

My previous MGMAT score was 630 Q45 V32.

Quant
I'm affraid I've hit my quant wall. I'm not sure I'll be able to get back to the level I had 10 years ago; I used to be a living calculator at that time. Look at me now

I failed all "digits" questions. That's "normal" knowing that during my studies we never encountered such problems.

Verbal
This time I got nuked by the RC questions. I'm glad I still haven't work on that part yet, so there is room for improvement. It's either I get all the anwsers correct for the passage or fail them all. I have to train myself in reading boring passage

SC remained constant as if I hadn't worked it at all However when eliminating answer choices I often found myself hesitating between two answers. If my elimiation was at least correct, then I'm probably just missing a few suddle things. I'll have to analyze that.

CR improved a little. I'm not pleased I failed "strengthen" and "draw a conclusion"! I should be scoring 100% on these!

The AWA was better as I have started to write a framework based on Chineseburned's. I need more ready-made sentences for the Argument essay.

I got the same score in my first mgmat test - 630 - Q44 and V32. Hoping to improve by few points when i take the next test this Saturday.

I have now ≈28 days left for preparation and already worked for 140 hours. I work an average of 4hr/day and doing good progress and I find that my RC has improved thanks to MGMAT RC book. They provide good tips to avoid falling in the traps gmat writers have waiting for us.

My next MGMAT test will be performed untimed just to see how good I can score without pressure.

I'll now be doing a bit more tests and go into the advanced sections of the MGMAT books.

MGMAT Test #3 and I scored 650 Q43 V36.

I felt I was doing well at the beginning of quant, and mgmat suddenly started to throw me some really tough questions that made my brain feel like a pressure cooker. I don't see how I can approach the Q50 score which I should be making thanks to my background. The better I do, the harder the questions become, and the lower my overall quant score is: 45, 44, 43

Verbal is gradually approaching the Q40 barrier. I already know I made a few silly mistakes. I think CR was not very brilliant.

AWA is getting better and better as I am learning my templates, so I have to think less about coming up with cheesy sentences. I totally love the bullshit conclusion chineseburned posted. I just learn it by heart and spit it back. It's works whatever the argument is and it sounds professional

It's now time for reviewing and debriefing.

I roughly have 3 weeks left to finish the MGMAT books as I still need to go through their advanced sections which offer more OG12 questions to play with.

Wait, I was looking at the percentiles and here is what I get:

Test #1: 630 79% - Q45 77% - V32 67%
Test #2: 640 80% - Q44 73% - V34 72%
Test #3: 650 84% - Q43 70% - V36 81%

I'm just so happy to see how my quant is going down the drain

In CR, I almost exclusively failed 700-800 questions except one 600-700. So the level of questions was definitely harder than in the previous tests.

EDIT: in SC also I mainly tripped on 700-800 questions.

In RC I got 4 passages, one being insanely long to read that appeared near the end. That passage threw me off time and I had to rush to complete the remaining questions of Verbal section

So my success rate was exactly the same as for my previous tests, i.e: 53%, but the difficulty of the questions was much harder. I'm surprised my score wasn't better than that.

I'm glad I still didn't yet review the advanced sections of SC

What is your plan to improve the Quant score further. Are you planning to write GMAT club tests

I won't try to improve my quant at the moment. It's more valuable for me to improve my Verbal.

Gah! I made silly mistakes in Quant, so if I keep cool, on test date I should be able to pull out a 46-47 with minimal additional training.

In Verbal, I'm not solid enough in CR, I need more training to get a better hang of it. I only trained with PowerScore CR and I find it lacks exercises, it is compulsory to use OG12 in addition.

In RC my eyes must have been killing me, since I didn't correctly read some sentences so I stupidly eliminated correct answer choices. I need to make sure I bring eye drops on test day for my breaks.

In SC, I often correctly eliminated 3 choices and failed on a 50% guess. I'm just missing a few things here and there to be able to choose an answer with which I'm 100% sure it's the correct answer.

But there is bad news coming. Some unpleasant stuff will happen in my neighborhood in a few weeks, namely roadworks and buildings, and that's pissing me off as it will destroy the scenery I get from my window and increase taxes. So I'm having problems to sleep and I'm trying to lobby against it. As a result, today I only worked the gmat for 2 hours instead of the usual 4. I hope it won't affect my performance. Bloody socialists, I hate you.

I started my 2nd review of PowerScore CR, did the 41st problems of OG12, and scored 38/41! I know that the first problems are the easiest, yet it still feels good to get such a score!

I also started to dive into MGMAT SC Advanced sections. Maybe I should give a second review of its basic chapters before getting advanced?

Overall I'm pleased with my progress. It seems my test date should coincide with my training peak, leaving me plenty time to apply in round 2.

As a trick, before entering the test center, the brain should be warmed up with a few easy problems for each section.

PS: in MGMAT Test #3 I made a few really silly mistakes in my math, I should have scored at least 45. With good training I am sure it won't happen on T-day.

1. If those 41 probs are from OG-quant then think again!!! I also easily solved each OG12 quant question but got only 47 in real gmat's quant.

OG12 is best to use for verbal. Its quant sucks!

2. Start getting 95% ile in quant-mock GMATs if your quant is strong.
Don't think that it won't happen on T-day...
Just my 2 cents...i did blunder in quant...i should have scored 50+ instead of silly 47...

No I did 41st questions of Critical Reasoning section.

I find OG12 good enough for quant when used with MGMAT books.

No, it won't happen on T-day, this is clear in my mind. Do skiing champs think that they can fall before a race? Definitely not. GMAT is as much about quant+verbal as about psychology, if one doesn't have the proper "winner" mind then the GMAT will own him.

Great Confi...Keep it up....my wishes not only for GMAT but also for getting great school...

MGMAT SC ch11 official guide problems I scored 55%, and ch12 OG12 I scored 67%. Near the end of OG12 SC, the problems get really hardcore!

Critical Reasoning OG12 problems 42 to 79, I scored 89%!

Is it just me, but for CR in OG12, I find that most of the answers are really obvious? Whereas in MGMAT CAT I have struggle to get the logic and answer correctly. Could it be the computer screen that disturbs my reading ability versus paper?

By the way, I think I prefer PowerScore's method of having one book with its own exercises, then once finished and mastered, I can move on to the OG12 and beat the hell out of it. That's currently very effective for CR.

For MGMAT, in SC I'm exhausting all the OG12 problems and I'm not yet ready nor pleased with my results. Where can I find more good and challenging SC problems? gmatclub SC forum? Is OG verbal Review really that easy?