Hello everybody!! Finally, the long journey called GMAT is over!! I cannot really believe it's happening. You cannot imagine how happy I am. It's been a great effort to score a 710!
BACKGROUNDNationality: Argentinian
Age: 23
Degree: finishing Industrial Engineering
Goal: run my own business or get into finance.
FIRST STAGE, HOLIDAYS OF 3RD YEAR OF UNIVERSITY/ 6 YEARSThe journey started back in June 2017 (you can check when I created this account) when I decided to buy the
OG 2018 bundle and the
MGMAT bundle. October 2019 I received the books (yeah. took a long time to get them to my country, argentina), but back then I was busy with the university courses so I could not start to study for the exam. Mid november 2019, I started studying FULL TIME (literally, I did not even hang out with friends or family). I first started with the
MGMAT bundle and as soon as I finished the verbal books, I began with the
OG books (solving questions). While I was solving verbal gmat questions (in the mornings), I was also reading the
mgmat quant bundle (afternoons and nights). When I finished
MGMAT, I went directly to the
OG quant questions.
Here, I was just solving questions (nothing more than that), I did not even bother about error logs.... BIG MISTAKE.
After finishing the
OG, what happened?
MGMAT MOCKS... devastating. (540 I remember). After studying 2 months, I scored a ******* 540. I used to read inspiring debriefs of people who score 700+ by just studying one month.... or even less than a month. Imagine ... I was expecting a 700 at least. Boom 540. WTF!!!!
By the way... I was really confident on my skills as I used to do really good in my classes of university... so, obviously I said, if these guys score 700 in one month, I guess that I can do better than them in 2 months. Other BIG MISTAKE. I would say that only americans who had already studied for similar exams (SAT, LSAT,...) can do so.
After seeing my 540, I decided that I needed Expert's help. But no money. No money literally. I asked my dad for money but the only thing that I could get was money for a
Magoosh premium course (rather cheap). HERE, I'M NOT SURE WHETHER PAYING FOR THIS COURSE AND DOING IT COMPLETELY WAS A BIG MISTAKE OR NOT. Maybe,
Magoosh did help me (up to a certain point). I'm not sure. What I was sure about was that after doing the whole course, I was scoring better but still not decent for me. I remember that by that time I used to score around 640.
And as I have already told you, I did not have money. I would say that I kind of had only one shot and the shot must have been a headshot (I could have asked my dad for money, he would have obviously given me the money, but it would have been a great effort for nothing since the score was not enough for me).
After studying for about 4 months or more, I was starting the university courses again. So I gave up and said, ok maybe next year.
SECOND STAGE HOLIDAYS OF 4TH YEAR OF UNIVERSITY / 6 YEARS First off, I said alright my friend, you already know how it works. You know your mistakes. Now you destroy this ****** exam. Sadly, everything went contrary to what I expected.
In November 2018, I started reviewing all the concepts on
Magoosh course (I asked them to extend the license, and they said yes! That was really nice of them). But I noticed that their verbal (except for SC, which is really good) materials were really poor. (I would say the basics of CR and RC). So, I decided that I needed more of CR and RC. Here is when gmatclub came to rescue me. I read that Powerscore CR bible was fantastic and still is. I would definitely recommend you to GO FOR THAT MAGIC BOOK. It's a must for you. You will definitely need it to score 700+ (If you have a similar background to mine). I was also a little bit bad at RC so I bought the PowerScore RC bible (it's really good as well). Apart from those books, I bought KAPLAN 800 (it's a really bad book),
MGMAT ADVANCED MATH (or sth similar, I don't remember the name precisely. I just know it's advanced math) and I paid the suscription to the Economist (I think it was not helpful).
So after studying the books, reviewing concepts at
magoosh, reading the economist, and doing a VAGUE
ERROR LOG, which I did not check nor study, I was getting better.
GMAT PREP 1 (660, Q48, V33) FEB 22 2019
GMAT PREP 2 (680, Q48, V35) MARCH 16, 2019
In between and before those exams, I did some
GMAT Club Tests in which I scored between Q38 - Q50 (more on the lower side, like Q47, Q46, Q44). My opinion about these tests is that they are not helpful. JUST MY OPINION. ( I would recommend to stick to gmat questions. I think that to get a good quant score it's necessary to solve the medium to easy questions all correct, not the hard ones)
After studying a lot, and practicing several tests (also the Veritas ones, I've just remembered that I did like 4 tests), I was not SOO ready for the test, but as I was really tired of the exam, I decided that I should give it a try. So I booked an exam on march 25th, 2019.
I have just remembered that I solved a lot of CR questions from Lsat (I posted many of them here at the club) and RC from LSAT. I agree that these questions are useful if you run out of official questions (but with the questions online and all the books I think is enough)
On test day, I was not so nervous but as soon as I got there, maaaan. I sat on the chair, and my heart was pumping as never before. I was nervous during the exam.
Apart from that, the guy who was controlling in the room was in front of me and he kept going out and in of the room ( doors cracking all the time and movement), so I was really distracted. Plus my heart pumping fast.... plus the fact that the marker was a **** maan!! It kept going dry (then not working properly and made me go mad several times).
When I finished the exam, I saw a 630. (Q43 V34). Q43 guys!!! Remember that number!!!
I would say that I spent A LONG TIME STUDYING, but it was not studying of quality. Now you are going to understand why.
THIRD STAGE 5TH YEAR OF UNIVERSITY/ 6 YEARS (now)On the first and last attempt to the gmat exam, I noticed that I hadn't really followed strategies to solve a sort of questions. For ex, even if I was good at SC, I didn't pay attention to the splits...
So I bought the
MGMAT new books (the bundle of 3) because I remembered that
MGMAT were really focused on strategies, the
OG bundle 2020 and the Advanced GMAT questions (the official book).
I said
ERROR LOG from the very first minute of studying. (THIS IS HUGE GUYS, REALLY).
I started the prep on march the 3rd (after coming back from USA, first time, and noticing how amazing that country is and how rich people there are. OMG.). I started with the
MGMAT books (read all of them). Then I went directly to the
OG and to create an
ERROR LOG. On this prep, I decided that I would stick only to GMAT official questions.
I would like here and now to highlight that my
ERROR LOG consisted in: writing down the NUMBER of the incorrect official questions that I got(if it came from a book), noticing what the concept in which I was failing was, and writing down that concept.(My
error log was primarily full of the concepts tested on the questions I got incorrect). I completed 12 sheets (both sides) full of concepts. FOR EXAMPLE: one concept for me would be triangle ttriplets ( 3,4,5 5,12,13 8,15,17...) or if a triangle is 45 45 90 then 1 1 2^(1/2). you know what I mean.
I did that from the beginning to the end of the preparation. I used to read the sheets from time to time ( twice or thrice a week).
When I was about to finish the
OG BUNDLE I was already in the 700s.
GMAT PREP 1 JUN 02 2020 (700 Q48 V38 IR2)
GMAT PREP 2 JUNE 16 2020 (710 Q50 V36 IR8). I literally couldn't believe I was scoring that much. All the gmat exams drove my confidence on my skills to the floor.
GMAT PREP 3 JUNE 22 2020 (700 Q49 V35 IR 4)
GMAT PREP 4 JULY 02 2020 ( 700 Q49 V35 IR5)
GMAT PREP 5 JULY 09 2020 ( 620 Q47 V28 IR8). BOOOOOM DEVASTATING. LIKE I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. WHEN I SAW THE SCORE I WAS LITERALLY LAUGHING, NOT TO CRY. APART FROM THAT, I WAS RUNNING OUT OF QUESTIONS ON THE OFFICIAL BOOKS AND OF TESTS!!!!!!
Here is when I read
GMATNinja tips for which I owe him a lot.
And I would say that here I started to focus more on general strategies than on concepts.... I said alright what your main mistakes are on exams. Which questions on tests you miss the most (on each question). AND SO HERE, I started to write about my main strategies for each type of question (RC,SC,CR,PS,DS). For example, I used to make a lot of silly mistakes on the very first PS questions... So I said... Read them twice. Read them slowly. Read all the answer choices before reading the question, etc. I did that with each type of question.
I think (It's my belief) this was an inflection point in my preparation. Writing down and stating all the main general strategies for each type of question definitely changed my approach to gmat.
The very first time I put into practice the general strategies was on an exam.
GMAT PREP 6 (690 Q48 V38 IR 4).
After doing that, I had no more questions and no more tests. I said "what am i gonna do now?." There is when
GMATNinja help came into place. Buy the OFFICIAL PRACTICE QUESTIONS 1 to get more tests (and more questions). I started to solve 31 quant questions and 36 verbal questions each day. I notice more mistakes. And practicing like that helped me to polish my general strategies.
Again, I was getting really tired of the exam and said, I pollished so many things. Let's try one more exam that I had already done and if I get a good score, let's book an exam.
I tried
GMAT PREP 3 AUG 03 2020 (Q50 V38 IR5). That boosted my confidence. I only remember one question in quant, which I answered incorrectly, not on purpose?.
And so, I booked the exam. AUG 06 2020 (thursday).
TEST DAYOn Wednesday (aug 05), I was already very nervous and my mind was really playing against me. (always came to my mind the thought that my heart was going to pump fast and it's gonna bother you during the exam...). I even got to the point in which I was talking to my mind aloud. Saying Shut The .... Up Mind!! You know what? If you keep doing that, mind, you will have to study much more for the next gmat attempt ?. I think that probably calmed my mind down??
BUT, BUT, BUT, To prepare for the previous exam (aug 03), I tried training hard at the gym (home because of quarantine) the day before test day, and on test day, I went jogging as soon as I got up for about 20 mins. As the score after that exam was good, I said ok, Im going to do the same on the real test day. And it worked.
On test day (aug 06), I was nervous, yeah. My heart pumped, yeah. But it didn't so much as to bother me and I wasn't speeding through the questions.
I tried to be as nice as possible to the proctors (like HI!!! Good morning!! how are you?? Thanks so much for the help!!!! You are awesome!!!.... some pretty words that I notice people in america love. Thank you SO MUCH especially) so that they didn't bother me during the exam, and they never did.
On the exam, I got the very first Quant question VERY DIFFICULT. Like SUPERDIFFICULT. I'm not kidding. I would say I remembered almost every word of the question and as soon as I came home (I sat for the exam in my grandparents apartment), I wrote it down (and tried to solve it). I could not do it. I spent like half an hour trying and I couldn't. I "intelligently" guessed that question after 4 mins or more. The next question was as difficult as the first one and I said WTFFF!!!!!!! I kinda guessed as well. But then the other questions were not so difficult.
On quant, I'm sure I guessed the last question without reading it.
On verbal, I thought my score was going to be much better. I did understand every single passage of RC (not normal) and the CR questions were very difficult (I thought I managed to answered them correctly). But I guessed 1 or 2 questions at the end.
IR was not so difficult.
All in all, my gmat score 710 (Q50 V36 IR 5). Enough to get into where I want.
Now to the point:MATERIALS:
1-
OG BUNDLE 2018 (GREAT. A MUST)
1.1- GMAT CLUB!!!! SUPER HELPFUL!! SUPER!!! I LOVE THE EXPERTS HELP (
VeritasKarishma GMATNinja BrentGMATPrepNow (They all think out of the box. They give answers that really surprise me. If I had more money, I would definitely pay for them to help me) AND OTHER PEOPLE EXPERIENCES.
2-
MGMAT 5th series (great)
3-
Magoosh premium (good but up to a certain point)
4-
GMAT Club Tests (good but I would not use them). Stick to official materials. For me the most important was to get the medium to easy questions, to avoid silly mistakes (read twice or slowly) and not to get really nervous (to the point you speed up and don't understand very well the questions)
5- PowerScore CR (GREAT. A must for me)
6- PowerScore RC (good but not a must). Follow
GMATNinja Tips on RC. Always ask WHY WHY WHY. WHY is sth there??? Why is this here?. I THINK that is a must. ( I would not follow the strategies that consist in what's the tone? what is the main point? what is the purpose? I read many and they were not helpful to me.) I would say just always ask WHY and what the main purpose is. That's it for me.
7- KAPLAN 800 ( really bad. not useful)
8-
Mgmat advanced math (Useful)
9-
OG bundle 2020 ( Great. a must. but only one. 2018 or 2020)
10- Advanced gmat questions (the new book) (It's really good. It helps you to notice what the questions you should not spend so much time in are)
11- Gmat prep exams (all of them. A must)
12- Gmat official questions 1 (very useful. I would say a must)
13- LSAT RC AND LR (useful but I think it's not necessary)
MY GENERAL STRATEGIES:1- SC: first look at the answer choices and notice what the question might be testing and SAY IT. Is it parallelism? Say this question tests parallelism. This approach helps you to avoid wasting a lot of time! TRUST ME!
2- CR: read slowly and try to connect the dots. Notice every subtle change in the words (read
GMATNinja ultimate CR for beginners and you will know what I mean). If you can, try to predict the answer. For ex, the cause of this might be different... etc.. the cause could be X... that weakens the argument.
3- RC: read slowly and understand everything. Always ask why is sth there. (again
GMATNinja is great on this).
4- PS: first, read the answer choices. Then read the question slowly or twice. (slowly is preferable).
5- DS: look at the statements first. then read the question. What is the question really asking for? ALWAYS ASK THAT QUESTION! It's a must!!!! then start with the shortest statement or the one that looks easier. (HERE I'VE tried many strategies to avoid making silly mistakes (like writing everything down or the most important things or most precise things) and I think that the Best thing to do is to READ SLOWLY).
6- MY BEST TIP FOR YOU IS ALWAYS KEEP AN
ERROR LOG. IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE KNOW WHAT YOUR MISTAKES ARE SO THAT YOU DON'T MAKE THEM TWICE. I think that it helps even for your life. For your relationship with your family, kids, spouse, whatever..... in your job....
Overall= 14 months of study almost full time
Feel free to ask whatever you want!
Sorry for the spelling mistakes!
THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE LUCKIER YOU GET!!!!
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10 Aug 2020, 21:40
