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Updated on: 30 Jul 2018, 03:26
Originally posted by Masterscorp on 01 Jul 2018, 03:50.
Last edited by Masterscorp on 30 Jul 2018, 03:26, edited 4 times in total.
Last edited by Masterscorp on 30 Jul 2018, 03:26, edited 4 times in total.
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Hey everyone,
first of all I want to thank you all so much because signing up for Gmatclub was the best decision I made during my GMAT study time! The abdundance of guides, questions and discussions is invaluable and has helped me to improve tremendously.
I scored 710 (Q44, V41, IR7, AWA 5.5) yesterday and am very happy about it. The hard work payed off and this is actually what matters most to me. This is because I enjoyed the GMAT journey, but I also realized that it consumed a lot of time and required a strong discipline and focus. Hence, it was very important that this sacrifice payed off.
If I summarized my GMAT score I would say the following: "Even when you do a lot of things right, there always will be something to improve upon". In my case, thats my quant score, which turned out to be significantly worse than those during my prep. I honestly think that it will bother me for a while, but as the total score is still very good I can't really complain too much. I'm considering to retake the GMAT to reach a higher quant score but I will collect information first about whether I would benefit from scoring even higher. My MSc. program has an average GMAT of 620, hence I should already be above-average. If you have any advise for me, I would be grateful to hear it
My background:
21 year European male with a pretty average GPA. I was also good, yet not exceptional at both English and Math. The GMAT was the second standardised test that I took (first one was the TOEFL). As I had already received my admit to HHL Leipzig I knew that I wasn't required to score 700+ but I was highly motivated to do so because of my low GPA and other personal reasons.
Test Day Experience:
Woke up at 8:30 AM and was refreshed after a nine-hours-sleep. Had breakfast on my way to the test center because I valued sleep higher than a classic breakfast at home. I ate two bananas and a few nuts because I ate both a lot during my prep. I arrived at the test center a half hour before the exam started. Hence, I had enough time to get accustomed to the location and to focus on the upcoming challenge. I started with Quant, which went very well during my prep. However, I had problems with my time management and didn't manage to come into my flow that I usually had. Perhaps the cause was the nervousness...Anyways, after finishing the quant section I stayed to stay calm even though I was aware that I performed worse than expected. Despite that, I started verbal with a lot of confidence. I have to admit that verbal went better than expected, I even had six minutes left for the last two questions. At this moment I wasn't really sure whether I **** up hard or just breezed to the verbal section
After finishing verbal I knew that the essential part of the GMAT was done now, a fact that helped me stay calm during the last two sections. IR was pretty manageable but it also didn't give me any great trouble during my prep. AWA also went well thanks to chineseburned's template. I didn't really practice AWA and scored a 5.5, hence I can recommend to learn the template and to be confident in your writing skills.
General takeaways:
1. If you want to study, commit fully to it. I had several interruptions during my studies and after those breaks my performance dropped significantly. If you study on-off then it will take you way longer to reach your goal than if you studied consistently. I first started studying last October, but my dedicated study approach started after I finished an internship in March. Hence, my "effective" study time was between April and June. However, I feel like this was enough time to prepare in-depth and to build and practice all concepts needed to score 700+.
2. The GMAT is a marathon, not a race. Try to study everyday to reinforce your knowledge about concepts that you already know. If you study new concepts, make sure that you practice them enough so that they become part of your knowledge. Its better to commit two hours of studying everyday than to study six hours on two days of the week.
3. Accept that you will make many mistakes. Once I understood this I felt better and kinda relieved. Do you want to score 760 like a few students here on gmatclub did? Keep in mind that even these exceptional students probably made around 5 mistakes in both quant and verbal sections. Getting questions wrong is part of the GMAT and hence it is advisable not to get enraged when one gets a question wrong.
4. Try to be interested in the stuff you learn on the GMAT. This may sound a bit weird but I think it is helpful to have a mindset of learning everything that crosses your way. Stuyding for the GMAT will require a lot of time so you should try to be interested in the stuff you read there. My best example is that I know very well about the asteroid impact that presumeably lead to the exctinction of the dinosaurs now It was mentioned in several RC passages and SC questions and I recognized that. So if you recognize stuff you can perhaps connect some information and it will possibly help you to understand a question in a better way.
5. Try to train your mind, but don't be oblivious about training your body as well. During my prep I tended to spend a lot of time in front of the computer and not to work out. Two weeks before the exam I realized that my lack of physical fitness hampered my learning progress a bit. It was more a feeling than factual proof but it made go jogging several times over the last two weeks. I really felt better after these workouts and I would recommend strongly that you do the same.
- Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of smart people around here and there is a good chance that someone will answer your query, even if it may require some time. A forum is meant to communicate with other students, therefore you should use that to your advantage!
Quant Takeaways:
I only scored Q44, a performance that is pretty weak compared to the quant performance of most other users in this forum. Anyways, I will tell you a thing or two.
1. Understand what the most important concepts are. MathRevolution has a great guide on which sections are needed to reach atleast Q49. For example, combinations/permutations is a topic that will only appear when you're doing extremely well in the quant section. Hence, if you know that you won't go that high skip preparing for this topic and focus on others.
2. Practice to solve problems on time. Of course it is great if you can solve a certain problem at all, but can you do it in less than two minutes? The latter question is actually crucial because thats what matters on test day. You dont get points for the ability to solve a question, you only get rewarded for solving it on time and moving on to the next 30 questions. In conclusion, always use a timer when practicing and try to find a faster way if you're too slow.
3. Don't try to calculate exact values in DS if it isn't neccessary! I can't stress this enough because this is a great way to save time. Remember that DS is all about proving which statements you need to answer the question. So if the question is "what is the value of x" and you can safely conclude that only one statement will lead you to answering this question, don't waste time on actually calculating x! However, it really depends on the question so pay thorough attention when trying to apply this strategy.
4. Use Gmatclub quant tests! They are really apt to prepare quant because they include a lot of tough questions and in-depth explanations. After I did a few of them my confidence in quant rose sharply. Yes, my quant performance on the actual test wasn't that great but I'm sure that this has nothing to do with the quant tests
Additionally, I feel like buying these quant tests is only fair for all the value that this forum offers.
Verbal Takeaways:
1. Practice at least two RCs a day! I know that a lot of students hate RC, but this is the very reason why one should practice it the most. I have to admit that I also didn't practice RC too much when I began practice, yet I committed more and more time to studying it. As we all know RC is even more important in the new format and hence a good preperation for it is essential. Additionally, it is a section that you can only improve on by practicing a lot.
2. For RC: Try to read one paragraph as a whole and write down the key findings afterwards. I found that this method helps to understand the overall tone and flow of the passage. If you read one sentence, stop to write something down and then continue reading again you will have a hard time understanding the passage as a whole. Additionally, pay thorough attention to the answers because they oftenly have some truth in it, which is mixed with a false statement. Therefore, I would advise you to question every part of an answer. For example: "Yes, the author is concerned about evaluating a new research concept but does he really mention a second concept?". If one part of an answer isn't plausible, search for a more fitting answer.
3. For CR: The oftenly recommended Powerscore Bible is a very good source, which I can recommend to everyone. Apart from that, the LSAT question bank is a valuable resource to practice CR questions that are on a level with GMAT OG questions. However, CR is a section that requires a lot of practice as well because there are fewer strict rules than in SC.
4. For SC: Try to understand all the basic rules before tackling questions. However, don't forget that SC is strongly meaning-based and that only adhering to grammar rules won't bring you that far. Don't try to act like Microsoft Word that marks words that it doesn't know or seemingly incorrect constructions. Take an active approach and try to understand what the sentence tries to express! Moreover, try to understand the sequence/significance of the events described in a sentence. Those are also criteria influencing the correct answer, especially for high-difficulty questions.
Thanks for reading through all of this! I will add a few more details later so make sure to come back in a few day. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them
first of all I want to thank you all so much because signing up for Gmatclub was the best decision I made during my GMAT study time! The abdundance of guides, questions and discussions is invaluable and has helped me to improve tremendously.
I scored 710 (Q44, V41, IR7, AWA 5.5) yesterday and am very happy about it. The hard work payed off and this is actually what matters most to me. This is because I enjoyed the GMAT journey, but I also realized that it consumed a lot of time and required a strong discipline and focus. Hence, it was very important that this sacrifice payed off.
If I summarized my GMAT score I would say the following: "Even when you do a lot of things right, there always will be something to improve upon". In my case, thats my quant score, which turned out to be significantly worse than those during my prep. I honestly think that it will bother me for a while, but as the total score is still very good I can't really complain too much. I'm considering to retake the GMAT to reach a higher quant score but I will collect information first about whether I would benefit from scoring even higher. My MSc. program has an average GMAT of 620, hence I should already be above-average. If you have any advise for me, I would be grateful to hear it
My background:
21 year European male with a pretty average GPA. I was also good, yet not exceptional at both English and Math. The GMAT was the second standardised test that I took (first one was the TOEFL). As I had already received my admit to HHL Leipzig I knew that I wasn't required to score 700+ but I was highly motivated to do so because of my low GPA and other personal reasons.
Test Day Experience:
Woke up at 8:30 AM and was refreshed after a nine-hours-sleep. Had breakfast on my way to the test center because I valued sleep higher than a classic breakfast at home. I ate two bananas and a few nuts because I ate both a lot during my prep. I arrived at the test center a half hour before the exam started. Hence, I had enough time to get accustomed to the location and to focus on the upcoming challenge. I started with Quant, which went very well during my prep. However, I had problems with my time management and didn't manage to come into my flow that I usually had. Perhaps the cause was the nervousness...Anyways, after finishing the quant section I stayed to stay calm even though I was aware that I performed worse than expected. Despite that, I started verbal with a lot of confidence. I have to admit that verbal went better than expected, I even had six minutes left for the last two questions. At this moment I wasn't really sure whether I **** up hard or just breezed to the verbal section
After finishing verbal I knew that the essential part of the GMAT was done now, a fact that helped me stay calm during the last two sections. IR was pretty manageable but it also didn't give me any great trouble during my prep. AWA also went well thanks to chineseburned's template. I didn't really practice AWA and scored a 5.5, hence I can recommend to learn the template and to be confident in your writing skills.General takeaways:
1. If you want to study, commit fully to it. I had several interruptions during my studies and after those breaks my performance dropped significantly. If you study on-off then it will take you way longer to reach your goal than if you studied consistently. I first started studying last October, but my dedicated study approach started after I finished an internship in March. Hence, my "effective" study time was between April and June. However, I feel like this was enough time to prepare in-depth and to build and practice all concepts needed to score 700+.
2. The GMAT is a marathon, not a race. Try to study everyday to reinforce your knowledge about concepts that you already know. If you study new concepts, make sure that you practice them enough so that they become part of your knowledge. Its better to commit two hours of studying everyday than to study six hours on two days of the week.
3. Accept that you will make many mistakes. Once I understood this I felt better and kinda relieved. Do you want to score 760 like a few students here on gmatclub did? Keep in mind that even these exceptional students probably made around 5 mistakes in both quant and verbal sections. Getting questions wrong is part of the GMAT and hence it is advisable not to get enraged when one gets a question wrong.
4. Try to be interested in the stuff you learn on the GMAT. This may sound a bit weird but I think it is helpful to have a mindset of learning everything that crosses your way. Stuyding for the GMAT will require a lot of time so you should try to be interested in the stuff you read there. My best example is that I know very well about the asteroid impact that presumeably lead to the exctinction of the dinosaurs now
It was mentioned in several RC passages and SC questions and I recognized that. So if you recognize stuff you can perhaps connect some information and it will possibly help you to understand a question in a better way.5. Try to train your mind, but don't be oblivious about training your body as well. During my prep I tended to spend a lot of time in front of the computer and not to work out. Two weeks before the exam I realized that my lack of physical fitness hampered my learning progress a bit. It was more a feeling than factual proof but it made go jogging several times over the last two weeks. I really felt better after these workouts and I would recommend strongly that you do the same.
- Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of smart people around here and there is a good chance that someone will answer your query, even if it may require some time. A forum is meant to communicate with other students, therefore you should use that to your advantage!
Quant Takeaways:
I only scored Q44, a performance that is pretty weak compared to the quant performance of most other users in this forum. Anyways, I will tell you a thing or two.
1. Understand what the most important concepts are. MathRevolution has a great guide on which sections are needed to reach atleast Q49. For example, combinations/permutations is a topic that will only appear when you're doing extremely well in the quant section. Hence, if you know that you won't go that high skip preparing for this topic and focus on others.
2. Practice to solve problems on time. Of course it is great if you can solve a certain problem at all, but can you do it in less than two minutes? The latter question is actually crucial because thats what matters on test day. You dont get points for the ability to solve a question, you only get rewarded for solving it on time and moving on to the next 30 questions. In conclusion, always use a timer when practicing and try to find a faster way if you're too slow.
3. Don't try to calculate exact values in DS if it isn't neccessary! I can't stress this enough because this is a great way to save time. Remember that DS is all about proving which statements you need to answer the question. So if the question is "what is the value of x" and you can safely conclude that only one statement will lead you to answering this question, don't waste time on actually calculating x! However, it really depends on the question so pay thorough attention when trying to apply this strategy.
4. Use Gmatclub quant tests! They are really apt to prepare quant because they include a lot of tough questions and in-depth explanations. After I did a few of them my confidence in quant rose sharply. Yes, my quant performance on the actual test wasn't that great but I'm sure that this has nothing to do with the quant tests
Additionally, I feel like buying these quant tests is only fair for all the value that this forum offers. Verbal Takeaways:
1. Practice at least two RCs a day! I know that a lot of students hate RC, but this is the very reason why one should practice it the most. I have to admit that I also didn't practice RC too much when I began practice, yet I committed more and more time to studying it. As we all know RC is even more important in the new format and hence a good preperation for it is essential. Additionally, it is a section that you can only improve on by practicing a lot.
2. For RC: Try to read one paragraph as a whole and write down the key findings afterwards. I found that this method helps to understand the overall tone and flow of the passage. If you read one sentence, stop to write something down and then continue reading again you will have a hard time understanding the passage as a whole. Additionally, pay thorough attention to the answers because they oftenly have some truth in it, which is mixed with a false statement. Therefore, I would advise you to question every part of an answer. For example: "Yes, the author is concerned about evaluating a new research concept but does he really mention a second concept?". If one part of an answer isn't plausible, search for a more fitting answer.
3. For CR: The oftenly recommended Powerscore Bible is a very good source, which I can recommend to everyone. Apart from that, the LSAT question bank is a valuable resource to practice CR questions that are on a level with GMAT OG questions. However, CR is a section that requires a lot of practice as well because there are fewer strict rules than in SC.
4. For SC: Try to understand all the basic rules before tackling questions. However, don't forget that SC is strongly meaning-based and that only adhering to grammar rules won't bring you that far. Don't try to act like Microsoft Word that marks words that it doesn't know or seemingly incorrect constructions. Take an active approach and try to understand what the sentence tries to express! Moreover, try to understand the sequence/significance of the events described in a sentence. Those are also criteria influencing the correct answer, especially for high-difficulty questions.
Thanks for reading through all of this! I will add a few more details later so make sure to come back in a few day. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them
Arro44
Joined: 04 Jun 2018
Last visit: 14 Aug 2022
Posts: 658
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 362
Location: United States
Concentration: General Management, Finance
Schools: Sloan '22 (M) Cambridge "21 (A$)
GMAT 1: 730 Q47 V44
GPA: 3.4
Products:
01 Jul 2018, 10:42
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Thank you for the detailed debrief!
Even though I witnessed just the later part of your journey, it is always a good thing to see hard work paying off.
With regards to the questions you faced in Quant:
Were there any concepts which turned out particularly harder/easier than what you faced on the partice tests?
Best regards & congratulations,
Chris
Even though I witnessed just the later part of your journey, it is always a good thing to see hard work paying off.
With regards to the questions you faced in Quant:
Were there any concepts which turned out particularly harder/easier than what you faced on the partice tests?
Best regards & congratulations,
Chris
02 Jul 2018, 03:30
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Arro44
Thank you very much, Chris!
The chat sessions were really helpful as well and it was interesting to discuss with you and others about future plans.
The only thing I remember is that the Geometry questions were harder than I expected. As Geometry is one of my weaker quant sections this certainly hurt my quant score. Apart from that I don't really remember much because I was focused on the test itself and not on the question contents. What I might add is that I didn't face any absolute value questions, a fact that bothered me during the test already because I knew that absolute value questions typically as higher-level questions.
Hope that helps a bit.
