740 - i've done that!

Question

740!!! I do not deserve it! I don't, I don't, I don't. I am sure they will send me a note saying that there there was a bug in the software that made my score 200 points up from what it had to be. That's when I will seriously consider suicide

The long story: I'm an Eastern European male, 29, software engineering background. I have never been really smart at anything related to math. Have been a lot better in verbal though. I have been studying for 3 month + ~10 days. Almost every day, 2-3 hours. On week-ends around 3-8 hours. I did some of it during my business trips - which was twice as hard. Sometimes - after a few beers.. Can you imagine how obsessed I was?

I used: OG10 and OG12. These are the essential. I did them, then did the error log a couple of times. Redoing a log helped me a lot (and really was the most boring thing). GMAT Prep - did that a couple of times each of the two tests. Kaplan 800. Don't remember, was too long ago. I'd skip it. Kaplan 2009. Good but verbal is too easy. Princeton. 2005 edition or something like that. Too easy! OG Quant Review. These were too easy and also had a lot of the Qs from OG10! Do them only if you're a beginner. Overall exam experience: I hoped to get the same or very very similar Qs to OG. The reason is that my memory works much better than my "smart" part of the brain:) As a result, there was only ONE similar to GMAT Prep. All the others - I had to come up with a solution (as opposed to kind of looking for a matching solution that I keep in my memory). I'm sure I did A LOT of them wrong. Did one absolute guess in Quant. Did 4-5 guesses in Verbal, since I ended up with 1 minute and 3 Qs unsolved

The Qs - both Verbal and Quant were unexpectedly hard. I did not expect that and was absolutely sure I'm below 700, if not below 600. I was "clicking through" by the end of the exam never even hoping to get above 700. I really really considered cancelling my score. Still I tried really hard to solve most of the questions. I was not sure in 70% of them. Got depressed by the end of the exam. And then ..... SEVEN HUNDRED FORTY! OMG

I'M SO HAPPY I'M OVER IT!!! This is what I scored on the mock tests: May-XX: GMATPrep1 (first time) 700 May-29: GMATPrep1 (second time) 710 Q50 V35 May-30: GMATPrep2 (first time) 690 Q49 V34 Jun-2: GMATPrep2 (second time) 730 with a couple of questions answered incorrectly on purpose How good I was before the test : Quant: Generally I did around 80% accuracy on OG12. And around 95% accuracy on simpler stuff such as Verbal review. Verbal: Around 70-75% accuracy on OG12. It was not always stable though, every now and then I found some questions on the net and did them with like 55% accuracy. P.S. Some of the people here advise to get yourself to LOVE GMAT, I will never understand that

P.P.S. I guess the best strategy is to train a lot, and then have a good attitude on the test. Think of each question as you most important one but keeping in mind 2 mins and never get stuck. Good Luck! And thanks for you support on this forum, it helped me a great deal.

DAYNE · Answer

congrats

ManishS · Answer

Hey, Congrats,

You give me hope.. I have my gmat on the 10th of June. My GmatPrep scores have been more or less similar to your scores.

Regards, Manish

nonameee · Answer

Congratulations.

ohfred · Answer

Hi,

Congrats on scoring 740 ! Your study plan looks simple enough for me to follow. In fact, I find it very motivating that repeated re-dos of the OGs can get you this far. A couple of questions which I hope you can de-mystify:-

(a) On the average, what is your sensing on the number of questions that you got correct in the verbal and the quant section respectively?

I've tried GMAT questions on paper and I get about 30 - 35 correct out of 41 questions for verbal and 28-30 questions correct out of 37 for quant. Any idea what does that equates to like percentile and final GMAT score? So far, I have not tried the GMAT prep test yet. I think it is still too early and rather not waste it now.

(b) I have also to do GMAT questions on paper using a pacer. The average time I kept on a question is about 1:45 min. But it it not work very well because there are some questions which came up much earlier and were very time consuming. Do you often find that you do not have time for the last 5 questions? Am I too slow?

Thks !

BlueRobin · Answer

Awesome, keep it up.

Please post your strategies on Verbal when you find time.

Also did you taken any mind boosting drinks on the test day lol, i am not the health inspector.

dzyubam · Answer

Congratulations on the great score!

Good luck with your Applications!

ligett · Answer

If you ask me, I'd say 60% was what I scored. However this obviously is not true

If I were you, I wouldn't look at the paper GMATs when you gained some level. I would better look at Manhattan GMAT mock tests and GMATPrep. I heard a lot about paper tests being too easy. (b) I have also to do GMAT questions on paper using a pacer. The average time I kept on a question is about 1:45 min. But it it not work very well because there are some questions which came up much earlier and were very time consuming. Do you often find that you do not have time for the last 5 questions? Am I too slow? Somehow when I did on paper I was much better than I did computer tests. I was barely getting everything on time on computer. I'd suggest to do a lot of paper stuff but also devote some sizable time for computer-based tests. Please post your strategies on Verbal when you find time. I just did some OG10 and OG12, plus Manhattan SC guide (this one is very good). BTW OG10 SC seemed to easy to me. On the actual exam I could split like 2/3 or 3/2, but rarely knew the exact right one, so guessed in between the two or three. Again, on the exam it seemed much harder than just OGs, more like Manhattan test. Couple more general advices: Do as much math and verbal as you can, with error log. Practice A LOT. On the actual exam, don't get frustrated with your past answers, just keep doing your best until the end. You're likely to be doing much better than you think!

rvsahu · Answer

Congrats on great score!

ligett · Answer

What is your scaled score? Quant & verbal

What do you think about 1000 series questions, did u study with them? were they helpful?

My score is V39, Q50, 740 (97%), AWA: 4.0

As to 1000 series - sorry did not do them. OG10 + OG12 + Kaplan were more than enough for me

BM · Answer

Nicely done, sir! And I definitely agree with you on math preparation: do as much as possible.

phoenixrulzz · Answer

Congrats !!! All the best in your life!!!

BlueRobin · Answer

Thanks for the reply, i agree that Manhattan SC is great even though i am a non native en speaker, the guide helped me understand a lot of facts(sub+and+sub-plural so on) There are a lot of these facts though

Did you create any notes to remember all these verbal facts from Mgmay SC. Because as i move onto next chapters i tend to forget some facts from modifiers, verb,tense,mood. If i tend to forget a few as i move on, then i am afraid when i start working on Powerscore CR, then i might have to revise SC again.

Any advice?

Kudos.

ligett · Answer

I used the following a small program called Words Reminder, that did precisely that - reminded me of a random idiom once in 20 minutes

I also actually did all of the OG10 exercises that are listed in every chapter of Manhattan SC. Just reading does not help me much, I need to use the knowledge to remember it. I read Manhattan SC twice, in the beginning and by the end of the study. Something else on Quant: I used Manhattan Flash cards, actually went through them just once. And I could solve 80-90% of those without using pen & paper. Let me know if I can help with anything else!

ioanadinu · Answer

impressive! and mostly for a non-native :=) !

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740 - i've done that!

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