I am very happy to report that I am all done with the GMAT. I think part of me doesn’t realize yet as I still look at all my flashcards and books and think, "those are important!" But nope, no longer. To the trash and to eBay they go.
I feel like a lot of debriefs I see are by people with strong quant backgrounds. I am definitely not one of those people. Before I started studying for the GMAT, the last time I had touched a math textbook was when I graduated from high school OH MY GOD TEN YEARS AGO, wow that's the first time I've counted in a while. I still remember my mind being blown on like page 3 of
Manhattan GMAT's Foundations of Math book when it told me that -5^2 was -25. Anyway, hopefully all this means this debrief will be helpful to those who are more like me.
Ten days out from my test I scored a 39 on quant and seemed doomed to a score in the 600s, but in those final ten days I employed a couple of tactics that completely changed things for me and helped me secure a Q46 on test day. I’ve written a short novel about my experience below, but I’ve also listed summaries of strategies that I used and tests scores at the bottom to make this a little more accessible.
The story (feel free to skip ahead to the good stuff, unless of course you like tales of high drama, adversity, perseverance, overlapping sets, fencing, fighting, true love, and extra practice with parallelism)
When I committed to taking the GMAT I decided I would rather go overkill on preparation than risk not doing enough, so my first step was to sign up for the
Manhattan GMAT 9-week course. I will say right off the bat that, while the actual class was helpful, the suite of online tools it came with was the single most helpful resource I used throughout all my preparation.
A few chapters deep into FOM and with the first week of class completed, I took my first practice test: 580 (Q38, V32). My target score was 700. Even my meager math skills were enough to figure out that I had some work to do. I wasn't even sure it was possible to make up so much ground. My quant was bad, but even though I hadn't studied verbal at all yet, I was shocked at the score.
Eventually, I would get up to speed on verbal just by familiarizing myself with the different question types and methods for addressing them. It was the Q38 that was the real problem, one that proved frustratingly intractable. Despite spending 90 percent of my time on math, my next quant scores were 42, 39, and 39. That last 39 was after the end of the class and after well over a hundred hours of independent studying. All of that effort and time had amounted to a measly one-point increase. The most puzzling part about it was that I
felt better at math. I knew so much that I didn't before. I was so much faster at calculations. None of this seemed to matter though and it was incredibly demoralizing.
The Final StretchMy real progress on quant all came in the final month of preparation. A key moment was talking to a
Manhattan GMAT teacher during a free consultation. He pointed out that I was getting very low-level questions wrong in algebra and told me a lot of my time should be focused on that. I duly set to work seeking out algebra questions of all types, trying to find medium level and easy problems that I would get wrong. He also explained that getting one 500-600 level problem wrong was about the same as getting about ten 700-800 level problems wrong. This was a total eye-opener for me and made me realize I needed work on my fundamentals and get out of high-level problems when I knew I couldn’t get them.
Next, I used flashcards pretty regularly throughout, but in the final month I added another wrinkle that really helped. I created a spreadsheet with essentially every problem type and kept a tally of how many flashcards I had associated with each. I wanted to make sure that I had complete coverage so that I could be certain I wasn’t leaving myself any gaping blind spots by relying on the flashcards so heavily. Some problem types only had one associated flashcard whereas others, like divisibility and primes, had upwards of eight.
The final key strategy I used in the last weeks was to do quant-only practice tests. I had noticed I was tanking at the end of each quant section, often getting many problems wrong in a row at the end regardless of whether I was running out of time. It was clear to me that I was getting discouraged and a little math-fatigued toward the end of the quant sections. I had the good fortune of still having an extra
MGMAT practice test, so I just did the quant portion of it and really concentrated on staying focused and executing my strategy: guess on high-level problems and really work on the gettable ones. The result was not stellar, a 43, but it was a step in the right direction as I actually got stronger as the test went on. Next I released all my
MGMAT practice tests so I could do another quant-only a week before the real test and got a 46. I saw 15 repeat questions, but only got 60 percent of those right (compared to 53 percent for the section as a whole) so I don’t think they had a huge impact on my score and it still served the purpose of improving my testing abilities.
It seemed the flashcards and the quant-only sections really paid off. On my final GMATPrep practice test I scored a 740 (Q47, V45) and felt totally in control of the whole test, finishing both sections with time to spare, including about 10 minutes on the verbal. It was a huge confidence booster four days ahead of my actual test. I turned the questions I got wrong into flashcards and started steeling myself for the big day.
Test DayI tend to get anxious about things like tests, so when I found myself getting anxious about
getting anxious I knew I would have to put some serious work in on the mental battle. I was very worried about not getting enough sleep the night before as I am prone to do that. I took my second-to-last practice test on minimal sleep just so I could have that experience, but even so I took some measures to make sure it didn’t happen.
I took off from work the four days before the exam and did not let myself check work email in the final two. I spent those four days cultivating a deep sense of calm about the test. I told myself it was the preparation that mattered and that I had done the prep, so I didn't need to worry about the day. I told myself I could retake it. I told myself that I could clearly do it, that it was just about execution. I stopped studying earlier and earlier each of those days, made sure I got some runs in, ate well, etc. The night before the test I stopped studying at 6:00 PM after a pretty light day, then I watched Netflix with my girlfriend and had a couple beers. Somewhere between all that I managed to trick myself into thinking I wasn't actually completely terrified about the test and I slept like a baby.
About this next part, all I can say is figure out your route ahead of time. Just do it. It might feel silly driving to a place, looking at it, saying “yep, there it is,” and then getting back in the car and going home, but do you know what's more silly? Not planning your route and accidentally getting on a freeway that's now sending you hurtling at 70 miles per hour in the exact opposite direction of your test center. Don't do that. That's what I did.
I went into a full-on panic. The facade of serenity I had meticulously crafted in the prior days was instantly shattered. Fortunately, I had left so that I would arrive 30 minutes early, so even with the traffic and the bad directions I still got there 10 minutes before the exam started. Not ideal but at least I was there. By the time I started working on the essay, the troubles of the morning were completely forgotten.
I felt strong on IR, but I was not confident during the quant. I knew I was getting some easy ones right but I also felt a little blinded to some solutions by the stress of test day. Still, I remembered my lessons from the quant-only tests and told myself that no matter what, I wasn’t going to get discouraged and that I would get stronger as the test went on. During the break I was kind of thinking I had blown the quant, but I just tried to put that out of my mind. The only thing that mattered was the verbal. The section felt mostly easy but there were definitely a few where I simply had no idea. I had only got 4 wrong in my most recent practice test so I was finding that a little frustrating but pressed on. I also almost ran out of time because I spent about 6 minutes on one sentence correction problem that was driving me crazy toward the end. Ultimately it didn’t matter and I finished the test feeling pretty good but with my heart pounding in anticipation of the final score.
The demographic questions at the end of the test were absolute torture and I’m pretty sure I ended up as 50 year-old Pacific Islander or something as I was playing so little attention. Finally, the score flashed on the screen: 720 (Q46, V44, IR 7). I was a little disappointed in the verbal but very happy with the score overall considering my struggles with math a mere ten days before.
I think the key to my rapid quant improvement at the end was that I already developed the knowledge and skills I needed. The use of flashcards and practicing my timing strategy on quant-only practice tests simply allowed me to unlock that knowledge and display it on the test.
Most Useful Study Strategies for MeFlashcards: used a comprehensive set of problems I had previously got wrong to drill myself endlessly, particularly on my weak areas
Timed sets: I did a lot of random and pre-arranged timed sets for both quant and verbal. This helped me work on my timing and was also how I found most of the problems for my flashcard deck.
Paid a lot of attention to areas where I got low-level questions wrong (mostly algebra)
Took quant-only practice tests near the end, working on timing and building endurance throughout the section
Manhattan GMAT’s online resources – not sure if you need to do the 9-week course to access all of them but even if you do, I think it’s worth it
MGMAT books, the entire set. Also of course OG13 plus verbal and quant.
Took practice tests in as close to test day conditions as possible (taking it at the same time, same breaks, same restrictions on eating and drinking, no pausing. I had a serious pausing problem on my first three tests on the quant and once I finally kicked it, I learned it hadn’t even been helping me. It was just a crutch, so don’t do that!)
Test Day Lessons-LearnedPlan out your route ahead of time. Also shouting at traffic does not make it go away, I learned.
Don’t get freaked out by easy questions and don’t try to guess how you’re doing. All that exists is the question in front of you and the only thing you need to worry about is solving it.
Do everything you can to make your pre-test days as relaxing as possible and try to get a good night’s sleep the night before.
Practice Test ProgressionMGMAT 1: 580 (Q38, V32)
MGMAT 2: 650 (Q42, V37)
MGMAT 3: 630 (Q39, V37)
MGMAT 4: 690 (Q39, V45)
GMAT PREP: 720 (Q45, V44)
MGMAT 5: 690 (Q39, V45) Huge disappointment on quant only 10 days away from the test. This is when I started taking quant-only practice tests.
MGMAT 6 Quant-only: Q43
MGMAT 1A Quant-only: Q46
GMATPREP: 740 (Q47, V45)
GMAT: 720 (Q46, V44, IR 7)
Flashcard Strategy In-DepthSince my use of flashcards was pretty involved I thought I’d spell it out in detail. I really think they were crucial to my relative success on that portion. I did not keep an
error log (though I was religious about using
Manhattan GMAT's Navigator, which proved helpful), but rather I used my flashcards as one. My deck was filled with questions that I had previously got wrong and the rest were questions that I thought were particularly instructive on certain topics. Each time I got a ‘gettable’ question wrong I put it in my flashcard deck and felt like I had just added another weapon to my arsenal, constantly turning my weaknesses into my strengths. I also kept a separate deck dedicated to simple memorization of squares, geometry rules, common pythag triangle sides etc just so I would know that stuff cold, but I went through that deck much less often. I went through my main deck almost every day in the final two weeks, always on the clock, trying to do it faster each time.
As I went through the '
error log deck' I would sort questions into piles of wrong, shaky/too slow, and right. Then I went through the wrong and too slow piles until everything was in the "right" pile. A lot of the questions had "solve two ways" written on them and I wouldn't let myself pass on it until I had, the second solution often involving smart numbers or working backwards from the answer choices. Toward the end of my studying I sometimes ran through them without actually solving the problems, instead simply telling myself which method was needed and why. It seemed to save brain power while still giving me a sense that I was mastering the strategies I needed. Finally, the spreadsheet I mention above helped me feel confident that my flashcard
error log was comprehensive enough for me to rely on it as one of my main study tools.
Anyway, thanks for reading, hope it’s helpful to some, and good luck studying.
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12 Sep 2014, 05:38
