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31 May 2012, 18:53
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So my GMAT journey began now about 6 months ago (officially). I actually had the GMAT books since 2009 though! 
Along the way a few things came up such as a wedding, move, etc.
What finally gave me the push to finally start (seriously) late last year was my mom who sadly passed away in the August before. She has been my inspiration through this grueling process and did not allow me to quit after my 1st practice exam of 460. I kept going through the ups and the downs and thought I was ready this past weekend to aim for a high 600's score.
I started out with the MGmat Strategy books which I highly recommend. Going through these bumped by score significantly. My practice exams at Manhattan Were:
580 (Q: 42, V: 32)
670 (43, 38)
600 (38, 32)
580 (42, 28)
600 (39, 34)
570 (35, 33)
I also went through the OG12 but to be honest did not do every problem in it as I ran out of time. During the 6 months I would say I studied almost every weekend (~8hrs) and averaged 1.5 hours per weeknight so that would be in the ball park of 400 hours.
Based on my MGMAT CATs I knew that this would not be enough. By the way my target school is Part Time Stern program so I need atleast 650-660.
In February I signed up for the Knewton online class. I completed all the lessons in time for my test but did not take all the practice exams. For the ones I did, I got a 610, and 620. In my final two weeks I focused more on doing problems from GMAT prep and taking the GMAT prep tests. I scored a 650 & 650 on Gmat Prep1 & 2. I also purchased the question pack from Gmat Prep which was decent.
Now D-day...
Exam was at 12 PM so I woke up in the morning had a healthy breakfast, grabbed my snacks and headed over to the test center which was about an hour away. I arrived 30 minutes early and started the exam before 12. By the way the test center is as secure as rikers island, I was not expecting that.
The essays seemed pretty easy and knocked each one out with a few minutes to spare. Then the Quant... I felt fairly good but thought some of the questions were really out there such as ratio and probability combination questions and 1 insane sphere question. Also, had three (!) ratio questions which is my weakest area! Wasn't too happy about that but kept going. My pacing has always been an issue on the quant and had 1 minute left with 3 questions to go so I'm pretty sure I got those wrong. Took the 8 minute break (8 minutes - really? they couldn't spare 2 extra minutes to make it a round 10!?).
Anyway onto verbal... I thought it went ok also with the RC passages being up my alley with no crazy scientific ones which I hate. With my SC being the weakest I definitely thought I took some guesses on a colon question and a dash question. I still felt pretty good, not any worse that GMAT prep. I did ok on my pacing for the verbal with a minute or so to spare.
Then the score...my heart is ready to jump out of my chest as I'm going through the questionnaire. Then the score...600!! Err... My heart dropped and felt shell shocked. With a 600 there's no way NYU will pick me up. After 6 months of studying, this has undeniably been the most frustrating experience. The GMAT is not an easy test yet the concepts are elementary. It took me a few hours to clear my head and I needed to think about what I was going to do. I thought about my mom and knew she would tell me to keep pushing. So, yesterday I signed up for the next GMAT on 7/14. Hoping this gives me a little more time to go through the OG for alteast SC and Quant and study up on IR (ughhhh!). So in the 1.5 months I plan on doing approx 600 questions and 2-3 practice exams. If you have any other thoughts on how to attack please let me know!
I leave you with this... I have been knocked down before and got back up and will continue until I crack this darn GMAT. If I fail, I'll get back up. If I fail again, I'll get back up again. Knock me down 100 times, I'm up 101!! (not literally speaking taking the GMAT 101 times
)
Along the way a few things came up such as a wedding, move, etc.
What finally gave me the push to finally start (seriously) late last year was my mom who sadly passed away in the August before. She has been my inspiration through this grueling process and did not allow me to quit after my 1st practice exam of 460. I kept going through the ups and the downs and thought I was ready this past weekend to aim for a high 600's score.
I started out with the MGmat Strategy books which I highly recommend. Going through these bumped by score significantly. My practice exams at Manhattan Were:
580 (Q: 42, V: 32)
670 (43, 38)
600 (38, 32)
580 (42, 28)
600 (39, 34)
570 (35, 33)
I also went through the OG12 but to be honest did not do every problem in it as I ran out of time. During the 6 months I would say I studied almost every weekend (~8hrs) and averaged 1.5 hours per weeknight so that would be in the ball park of 400 hours.
Based on my MGMAT CATs I knew that this would not be enough. By the way my target school is Part Time Stern program so I need atleast 650-660.
In February I signed up for the Knewton online class. I completed all the lessons in time for my test but did not take all the practice exams. For the ones I did, I got a 610, and 620. In my final two weeks I focused more on doing problems from GMAT prep and taking the GMAT prep tests. I scored a 650 & 650 on Gmat Prep1 & 2. I also purchased the question pack from Gmat Prep which was decent.
Now D-day...
Exam was at 12 PM so I woke up in the morning had a healthy breakfast, grabbed my snacks and headed over to the test center which was about an hour away. I arrived 30 minutes early and started the exam before 12. By the way the test center is as secure as rikers island, I was not expecting that.
The essays seemed pretty easy and knocked each one out with a few minutes to spare. Then the Quant... I felt fairly good but thought some of the questions were really out there such as ratio and probability combination questions and 1 insane sphere question. Also, had three (!) ratio questions which is my weakest area! Wasn't too happy about that but kept going. My pacing has always been an issue on the quant and had 1 minute left with 3 questions to go so I'm pretty sure I got those wrong. Took the 8 minute break (8 minutes - really? they couldn't spare 2 extra minutes to make it a round 10!?).
Anyway onto verbal... I thought it went ok also with the RC passages being up my alley with no crazy scientific ones which I hate. With my SC being the weakest I definitely thought I took some guesses on a colon question and a dash question. I still felt pretty good, not any worse that GMAT prep. I did ok on my pacing for the verbal with a minute or so to spare.
Then the score...my heart is ready to jump out of my chest as I'm going through the questionnaire. Then the score...600!! Err... My heart dropped and felt shell shocked. With a 600 there's no way NYU will pick me up. After 6 months of studying, this has undeniably been the most frustrating experience. The GMAT is not an easy test yet the concepts are elementary. It took me a few hours to clear my head and I needed to think about what I was going to do. I thought about my mom and knew she would tell me to keep pushing. So, yesterday I signed up for the next GMAT on 7/14. Hoping this gives me a little more time to go through the OG for alteast SC and Quant and study up on IR (ughhhh!). So in the 1.5 months I plan on doing approx 600 questions and 2-3 practice exams. If you have any other thoughts on how to attack please let me know!
I leave you with this... I have been knocked down before and got back up and will continue until I crack this darn GMAT. If I fail, I'll get back up. If I fail again, I'll get back up again. Knock me down 100 times, I'm up 101!! (not literally speaking taking the GMAT 101 times
) 
31 May 2012, 22:42
Kudos
Bookmarks
dmk112
Sorry to hear about your experience.
From your GMAT prep scores, it seems like you were in the range you wanted to target. So the incremental effort to notch it up a little higher should (hopefully) not be too much of a challenge in the next attempt.
In terms of timing and background prep work for the applications, if you only have NYU on your bschool list, then you'd be fine. If not, you might want to start working on that in parallel, so you don't feel the crunch towards the end.
dmk112
Fingers crossed for you, buddy!
03 Jun 2012, 09:43
Kudos
Bookmarks
MBACrystalBall
Thank you!! Appreciate the feedback.
