780 (Online) with short study time

Hi all,

I just took the GMAT Online this week and I thought I would share my experience, since it is probably less common. 780 total (51V 49Q 8I)

I booked the Online Exam with only two weeks to study, because I knew I would have a hard time maintaining motivation for much longer than that. I studied for about 2-4 hours per day and probably 5-7 hours per day in the three days leading up to the exam.

The official GMAT book was the best source of practice questions. They have tons and you can simply work through them. However, they do not provide much in the way of strategy or substantive feedback.

For that, I bought the Princeton Review GMAT book. This had some great math tips and some decent verbal tips but here's the caveat—their online tests are FULL of errors. I would not recommend Princeton Review for verbal practice especially, because numerous typos and inconsistencies in their online tests will leave you entirely confused.

Here are my tips for the verbal section, which was my strength (I finished with over 20 minutes left).

- Reading Comprehension: I like to read the entire passage first, even though I have heard advice to the contrary. I read slowly, almost aloud to myself (without opening my mouth). I put plenty of emphasis as I read on turns like "however" or "despite," like I was reading to a group of 2nd graders. This helped especially with passages that had a lot of unfamiliar scientific terms. Hand gestures can help, too. Read like it's a fun, interesting fact—and indeed, I find a lot of the GMAT passages actually quite interesting! I think this helped me relax, too, because I felt as though I was just there to learn, at least while I was reading. Then, for the actual questions, I went back and reread, but had a much better base for understanding the passage as a whole, and could read/answer more quickly.

- Sentence Correction: My best piece of advice is to start by looking at the END of the underlined portion, and correspondingly, at the end of each answer - at least to start. It is much clearer to see in this smaller section of the sentence how one ending would make sense or not, given the rest of the sentence that follows.

- Identify: This was the hardest for me. Thankfully it seems like the GMAT does not ask this kind of question frequently. I spent a long time on these questions, probably five times as long as any other, and just went over each option again and again. Usually I could get it down to two options.

Overall, the Online Exam was a fine experience. I used a 11x17 whiteboard and took the exam at 10:15 am. Beforehand I did yoga from 8-8:30 and took a walk from 9-9:30 (I don't know if this information really helps anyone haha but I love info about how to prepare body/mind). I also did jumping jacks during my break—my proctor didn't seem to mind.