570 to 700

Finished the exam yesterday, I'm more or less happy with my score, and very much not going to retake the test

Prep: Mostly OG, with the math supplement. I also bought the verbal supplement, but didn't even open it, so that was a waste of money. I also used the MGMAT SC book, but mostly for the CATS provided with the purchase of a book. I probably should have just bought the CATS from them online. I also, of course, used the GMATPrep software and this wonderful message board.

I started with a 570 from the GMATPrep test about nine months ago. I had a feeling I could do better as generally I’m decent at standardized tests and I had a lot of room to improve in math as I hadn’t touched much of that subject matter in about four or five years. I focused my study in that direction. I was doing maybe six or seven hours of study a week max for the first few months, and was a little disjointed. I mostly just wanted to re-familiarize myself with math. To that end I often referenced PurpleMath—another website I would highly recommend for folks like me who had to go back to the beginning for quant.

I registered for the test, then the last couple weeks before the exam I spent eight or nine hours of study, a little more focused, and began to look at the SC stuff in the MGMAT book. Two nights before the test I looked over formatting for the AWA.

I’m a US citizen who lives in Europe, so I took the test here in Brussels. The test center here is quite small, with only three computer terminals. It also struck me as very laid back… there wasn’t a proctor in the room with the testers, and I’m fairly sure they weren’t monitoring the CC-tv cameras as when I or another testee raised our hands no one responded. For the breaks I would just get up and leave the room after clicking the button to start the break.

I honestly didn’t feel all that confident going into the test. I had been looking at the exam as a kind of pass/fail proposition, with the breaking point being that 700 mark. The last couple nights before the test I had a real feeling that I would probably do better than 600, but not that 700. I know these are arbitrary and somewhat counter-productive feelings, but I actually think reading some of the threads on this site may have contributed my attitude

During the math section I felt totally behind the power curve, and at one point in the middle had fallen behind on time. I made a couple relatively quick guesses to catch myself up. Verbal went much faster, I think I finished with about 30 minutes to spare.

Final score 700, Q43/V42. Edited to add 6.0 AWA.

Best part of the day was afterwards the wife and I went over to Delerium Cafe for some beer. That spot is awesome… it’s close to the Grand Place and has over 2000 brews in stock. I had hoped that we would have been able to tour some of the EU buildings (our hotel is literally next door to the EU parliament, and a great deal at 50Euro a night) but they close early on Fridays. I consoled myself with a couple more of the aforementioned beers.

All the best with everyone’s studies!