750 - Q49 V42 - My GMAT experience

Just wanted to share my GMAT experience. I just took the exam today, and I got 750.

My prep material was:

- Manhattan verbal books. I didn't open the RC and CR ones though. As a non-English native (although I have a very good grasp of English), SC book was essential. It really helped me improve my verbal skills.

- Math challenges. Great practice for maths. I recommend this to everybody, especially considering the price, best value for money I've seen. https://gmatclub.com/wiki/Tests

- OG ed.11. Good basic practice exercices.


- 1000 tests.

Background: I studied business in uni, with a strong emphasis on maths, chemistry and physics in the first years (commercial engineer, for those of you who understand what it means). So I've always been comfortable with figures and speed tests (did CFA 1st level too). I lived in several English-speaking countries, so I'm quite comfortable with the language, but I'm not perfectly bilingual. Some idioms were a bit tricky for example.

I'll split my explanations in maths and verbal.

Math

I did almost all the challenges, and did the difficult exercices in the OG. Maths was always going to be easier for me than verbal. I did have to polish my math theory, ecause I forgot a lot.

My recommendation would be the following for those of you who are not poor in maths (sorry if this sounds like I'm bragging): the OG math theory is sufficient to revise most of the principles you need to know. What really helped though were the "tricks", for example in order to add several consecutive integers, take the middle figure and multiply it by the number of figures, etc. This could sound like basic stuff for the math gurus, but I forgot most of this, and it's VERY VERY useful in a test where speed is essential. Anything that can make you save time is good, you'll defo need it. Surf on the math forum to check for this.

Also, knowing that you can use several methods to find answers was very useful - this might sound very stupid, but before going on the forum I never thought of replacing figures in the different results, etc. Try to identify the easiest method for each question. I still made that mistake in the exam, trying to solve a complicated problem without replacing, cost me 1.5 minutes, which was ridiculous.

Also, you HAVE to know the basic stuff inside out: 1 is not prime, 0 is even and isn't negative or positive, etc. The corrolary of this is: read the question CAREFULLY. If we speak about a POSITIVE INTEGER, you can forget about -0.5. Inversely, an integer can also be sq2. NEVER forget to test special figures such as 1 and 0 in the DS questions.

The best practice I found were the challenges, that are - I reckon - quite similar to what you are going to get on the GMAT. COngrats to the peopld who contributed to their creation btw, you guys are spot on. Well done. 79$ for that kind of practice is ridiculously low (especially with the very high euro ), don't hesitate and get it!

This is all I used for maths, and it was enough. I don't think I could increase my 49 without practicing like a nutter - not worth it. I think that was my limit.

Verbal

I'm not very good in verbal. Like all the international students, I struggled with SC. I practiced RC and CR with the 1000 tests (did 120 of each), and that was enough for me. I studied SC with the Manhattan book. I would like to stress here that this book was a BIBLE for me. SC was much clearer to me after that, as well as understanding the 3/2 concept. I would recommend all the international students to get this book.

Last remark: I also don't believe in studying 6 months before the exam. Regular studying + 2 weeks intensive before the exam should do it (I took 2.5 weeks off, where I wrote a couple of essays and studied).

Anyway, if you have questions, please don't hesitate!

PS: sorry for the totally incoherent post structure, I can't be ars*d reading it again