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04 Jul 2014, 06:06
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So, about a year ago I decided to take GMAT. At the moment I had almost no idea on what to expect from the exam, so I started reading forums. After doing that for a while I was completely terrified, so I stopped reading forums and started to prepare. From the beginning I targeted 700+. I did not take CAT right away, since I thought it would be a waste of one of two free CATs provided with the official prep software (looking back I still think it was right). Instead, I took a diagnostic test from the official guide, which showed the following results:
Problem solving - 21, excellent
Data sufficiency - 18, above average
Reading comprehension - 15, above average
Critical reasoning - 12, above average
Sentence correction - 16, excellent
Well, not so bad, I thought. So I started with the official guide, 13th edition. For the first couple of months I studied about 1.5-2 hours a day, 3-5 days a week. Most of the I was just solving problems from the OG. I never made timed sets, but I was always keeping track of my average timing. I also did not make an error log. I was just reviewing the questions I got wrong, that’s it.
After completing quant section of the OG I took a big break due to personal reasons (i.e. getting a girlfriend). In October I renewed my studying and took the first CAT, at which I scored 680 (did not save the breakdown, sorry). OK, I thought, and started to do verbal. After finishing it I took another big break for some other personal reasons (i.e. getting married) and came back to study only in May.
By that moment I completed quant and verbal sections of the OG and thought that it might be the time to appoint my exam. I gave myself five weeks to finish preparation and chose 28 June as the big date. Then I started preparing with Manhattan GMAT books. These were very helpful in elaborating on some problems I had no idea how to solve even after finishing the OG. They also helped me improve my timing by showing some techniques I never used before. After the first two books on quant II took a CAT again (the same one I took in October, since I forgot almost everything about it) and scored a surprising 760. In the time left before the exam I only finished the quant guides and quant OG 2nd edition. I decided not to spend any additional time on AWA and IR, so I only took these sections in the CATs. I also did not study any verbal beyond the OG because my CATs showed decent verbal score (44-45) and I did not feel like I can improve it significantly without investing much time. I also noticed that during CATs I had plenty of time left in the verbal section (15-17 minutes).
So, a week before the exam I took the second CAT and scored 750. During the last week I did not study much. The night before the exam I had a good sleep, in the morning took a heavy breakfast, bought some chocolate bars and mineral water and arrived to the test center 30 minutes before the exam. During the test, everything was close to perfect. I was calm, it was quiet, everything worked just as it should. For timing during the quant I used the 10-minutes-5-problems table from Manhattan, which proved very useful in my last CAT. In the end I got my 760 and was absolutely happy.
Summarizing my experience, I should say that it actually wasn’t very difficult. It required some effort and discipline to study after work, that’s it. I would assess total time of study as approximately 120-140 hours. Again, i did not prepare to IR and AWA. However, I read some advice on AWA in the forums here and learned some general principles and constructions. As you can see, although my English is not very good, I scored a 5.0.
Summary:
CAT Scores:
CAT 1 (October 2013) - 680
CAT 1 (retake) (May 2014) - 760 (49Q, 45V)
CAT 2 (June 2014) - 750 (49Q, 44V)
Official test (June 2014) - 760 (50Q, 44V), IR 7, AWA 5.0
Study materials:
Official guide for GMAT review 13th edition - a must
Official guide for GMAT quantitative review 2nd edition - a must
Manhattan GMAT strategy guides (GMAT roadmap and quantitative only) - strongly recommend
Problem solving - 21, excellent
Data sufficiency - 18, above average
Reading comprehension - 15, above average
Critical reasoning - 12, above average
Sentence correction - 16, excellent
Well, not so bad, I thought. So I started with the official guide, 13th edition. For the first couple of months I studied about 1.5-2 hours a day, 3-5 days a week. Most of the I was just solving problems from the OG. I never made timed sets, but I was always keeping track of my average timing. I also did not make an error log. I was just reviewing the questions I got wrong, that’s it.
After completing quant section of the OG I took a big break due to personal reasons (i.e. getting a girlfriend). In October I renewed my studying and took the first CAT, at which I scored 680 (did not save the breakdown, sorry). OK, I thought, and started to do verbal. After finishing it I took another big break for some other personal reasons (i.e. getting married) and came back to study only in May.
By that moment I completed quant and verbal sections of the OG and thought that it might be the time to appoint my exam. I gave myself five weeks to finish preparation and chose 28 June as the big date. Then I started preparing with Manhattan GMAT books. These were very helpful in elaborating on some problems I had no idea how to solve even after finishing the OG. They also helped me improve my timing by showing some techniques I never used before. After the first two books on quant II took a CAT again (the same one I took in October, since I forgot almost everything about it) and scored a surprising 760. In the time left before the exam I only finished the quant guides and quant OG 2nd edition. I decided not to spend any additional time on AWA and IR, so I only took these sections in the CATs. I also did not study any verbal beyond the OG because my CATs showed decent verbal score (44-45) and I did not feel like I can improve it significantly without investing much time. I also noticed that during CATs I had plenty of time left in the verbal section (15-17 minutes).
So, a week before the exam I took the second CAT and scored 750. During the last week I did not study much. The night before the exam I had a good sleep, in the morning took a heavy breakfast, bought some chocolate bars and mineral water and arrived to the test center 30 minutes before the exam. During the test, everything was close to perfect. I was calm, it was quiet, everything worked just as it should. For timing during the quant I used the 10-minutes-5-problems table from Manhattan, which proved very useful in my last CAT. In the end I got my 760 and was absolutely happy.
Summarizing my experience, I should say that it actually wasn’t very difficult. It required some effort and discipline to study after work, that’s it. I would assess total time of study as approximately 120-140 hours. Again, i did not prepare to IR and AWA. However, I read some advice on AWA in the forums here and learned some general principles and constructions. As you can see, although my English is not very good, I scored a 5.0.
Summary:
CAT Scores:
CAT 1 (October 2013) - 680
CAT 1 (retake) (May 2014) - 760 (49Q, 45V)
CAT 2 (June 2014) - 750 (49Q, 44V)
Official test (June 2014) - 760 (50Q, 44V), IR 7, AWA 5.0
Study materials:
Official guide for GMAT review 13th edition - a must
Official guide for GMAT quantitative review 2nd edition - a must
Manhattan GMAT strategy guides (GMAT roadmap and quantitative only) - strongly recommend
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