Hi all,
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone. I just returned home from my GMAT – 720: Q50, V37 !!!
It is my third try at the GMAT:
4 years ago – 49Q, 28V =640 (only studied 4 days , didn't learn for the English part)
July/2004 - 49Q, 28V =640 (studied 4 months – did not improve even one point)
Today – 50Q,37V = 720 (studied for 3 weeks).
Before doing the second attempt I browsed the GMATclub and read about people failing their first time and succeeding at their second attempt. Boy, I didn't want to be one of them, but when I received the score I understood I failed miserably. I was shocked, did not stop crying for a couple for hours. I didn’t know what to do and why I have failed. Four months of learning went to the dumpster. I was so sad , I even called my X-girlfriend and begged her to take me back…(she didn't
)
It took me 4 days to get a grip on myself. I started reading posts and realized that my problem was RC. I was so afraid of SC that it was the only thing I learnt. BUT – if you want a great score , you need to succeed in RC !
One other important thing I noticed that I lacked a timing strategy, you really need one if you want to know how good you are doing time wise.
So I changed my learning method:
3 weeks to the test – only doing SC and RC (from
OG, Kaplan, Princeton, Vstudy, Gmatplus)
2 weeks – tried a test , found out that I forgot most of the math , so started learning some math.
1 week - did a lot of tests.
Two important things that I discovered:
1. When you do old ETS test you try to do the 3 RC in 30/25 min , because that was the time limit on paper and pen tests. Bad strategy ! This way you really have to skim through the passage, no way one can read it fully. But in the computer test you have plenty of time, and ETS asks you questions that require you to read all the passage. Do not skim – read it ! (even if you have a 95 sentences, like I did
- read it !) I used the same strategy as did SigEpUCI (look at his post from sep 12), this is the best one, especially for non-English speakers.
2. when doing a computerized test you get tired after those 4 hours ,the only thing you want to see is the score. Most of the time I didn't have the power to check the questions I did wrong. So this time , I took only 3 computerized tests (Kaplan 2, Princeton on-line X 2) , and the rest of the test I just printed (Vstudy, GMATplus and other you can find in the web) and only practiced. The score that the test gives you aren't important , what is important is to understand what you did wrong.
Test experience:
AWA – argument was easy. The Issues was the hardest I have ever encountered (global companies and you as a citizen of the country). Never mind , the AWA is not that important (and I scored 5 on my last try , so Harvard will forgive me).
Math – last time I had hard questions and easy ones. Today – only medium level. Every time I took a test I finished with more than 10 min. to spare, today I made it with only one. I did notice that ETS has started to have new trends in their questions ,
OG is really not enough nor does it reflects the questions in the test (BTW: I didn't have a SD question, strange…).
Verbal – SC was easy (most of it at least) – again new trends in the ETS , like instead of asking : not only … but also , they now use : not just… but also. They also love to ask "so… that" questions.
I am very good at CR – but the questions I encountered today were really hard. I guess if you want a 35+ at verbal you need to learn LSAT CR .
OG's CR is a joke compared to the ones I saw today.
RC – yep… I knew I was doing OK when the 95+ lines paragraph started coming. Last time I only saw short paragraphs. I read them fully and the questions were quite easy.
All in all, 720 . I am happy.
About learning material:
Kaplan is good only for math. The test results are way out the real scores. I think I should have used Kaplan800, but I didn't. I only used the standard Kaplan and Kaplan verbal. Both are not sufficient if you want to score 700+.
SC – used the 885 from this site. It is great. Did almost all of them.
Used Princeton's "cracking the gmat" – again , only the basics. But they did have a great idea – writing on a piece of paper a table with the number of question and A,B,C,D,E , so you can scratch the wrong answer while doing the test. This helps to save time. I prepared the table while doing the AWA
.
Tests – Princeton on-line is the best, they really are the closest to the real test. But please do Vstudy and Gmatplus.
I am flying on Wednesday to the US to visit schools. I am so happy that I can come with a 720 instead of a 640.
Last but not least, if someone wants to succeed in the GMAT , he should use GMAT club. I've sent emails to many friends in Israel about this site. I hope many of them will come.
Many thanks to Praetorian , Paul and all the rest – you now have fans in Israel.
close
20 Sep 2004, 07:50
Have a good one. 
