I'm not really a great test taker. Sure, I can get high grades in school, but standardized tests have always been my Achilles' heel. I did not, however, allow this weakness to stop me from pursuing my MBA dream, so I studied -- a lot. Below is a brief synopsis of my journey towards a humble 740 (49-41 with AWA of 6 and IR of 8). I hope that at least some of you glean insights from it.
Test ScoresMGMAT CAT 1 - 640 (44-34) - Apr 2015
MGMAT CAT 2 - 660 (45-35) - Jun 2015
MGMAT CAT 3 - 670 (46-35) - Jul 2015
MGMAT CAT 4 - 620 (39-37) - Aug 2015
GMAT PREP 1 - 710 (49-37) - Aug 2015
GMAT PREP 2 - 700 (49-37) - Aug 2015
ACTUAL GMAT - 740 (49-41) - Sep 2015
The JourneyAs you can see, I did not start off with really good scores. After studying for about a month, I managed to muster up the courage to take my first
MGMAT CAT. Because I had really low expectations for myself then, I was happy to see a 640. After getting this score, I slowed down my studying for two months as work picked up. When I noticed that I was neglecting my GMAT prep, I took another
MGMAT CAT, and my score increased to 660. At this point, I realized that studying does actually help increase one's score in standardized tests. (I previously thought that for standardized tests, no matter how much you study, your score stays the same. Sort of an insecurity of mine).
Anyway, after taking that
MGMAT CAT I studied religiously for three straight months. On average, I studied for probably around 10 hours a week in the first two months and 20 hours a week in the last month. The more I studied, the higher my score got -- save for
MGMAT CAT 4, I have no idea what happened then.
When I took my first GMAT PREP 1 in Aug 2015, I finally hit the 700 mark, and the scores above tell the rest of the story from there.
Materials UsedMGMAT SC - Apr 2015
MGMAT RC - Apr 2015
MGMAT Quant Regimen - May 2015
PowerScore CR Bible - May 2015
Veritas Quant Regimen - Jun to Jul 2015
eGMAT SC - Aug 2015
GMAT Club and Books - Aug 2015
OG 2015 - Apr 2015 to Aug 2015
Commentary on MaterialsBefore buying any materials, I scoured all the GMAT forums to find out which resources were the best -- and bought all of them. Though I spent a lot, money was the least of my concerns because I knew that a good GMAT score would, in one way or another, offset the costs.
MGMAT SC and RCSimply the best SC and RC books out there. I read these two books really slowly, as I knew that verbal was my weakness. In my opinion, everything you need to know about the technicalities of grammar is covered in
MGMAT SC and about the GMAT RC is covered in
MGMAT RC.
MGMAT and Veritas Quant RegimensMGMAT and Veritas both have their respective strengths in quant, so I clustered them in one discussion. In my opinion, the
MGMAT quant books are better at teaching concepts and techniques. They have this way of making concepts easy to digest. Veritas, on the other hand, is a better resource for practicing the content because a myriad of questions are given in each book. If you're willing to spend, using these two books concurrently will definitely boost your quant score.
PowerScore CR BibleTook me ages to find a copy of this, but the search was well worth the trouble. PowerScore basically covers all the types of CR questions asked in the GMAT. It's really great because it not only teaches you how to identify the questions, but also teaches you how to best answer them. Highly recommended for those who can't put their fingers on CR.
eGMAT SCI think I got this one too late, but it still definitely helped.
eGMAT taught me the value of looking for sentence meaning before looking for sentence errors. This helped me cross out answers that changed the meaning of sentences -- a really useful skill for people who want to get a high score in Verbal.
OG 2015Please, please, please answer all the problems here. And if some problems are too hard for you, browse GMAT club for the answers. Bunuel and Karishma's explanations for quant really helped me look for the best way to solve each type of problem. And the community's explanations for verbal really aided me in deciphering sentences and passages.
GMAT Club Quant Problems and BooksA really good way to augment and integrate the concepts learned from other sources.
Hope this helped! Good luck, everyone! I'm off to work on my essays.
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Updated on: 04 Sep 2015, 21:49
