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29 Apr 2020, 05:46
Kudos
Bookmarks
I've frequented these boards for months, but finally registered for an account so I could post my experience with the online version of the GMAT.
A bit of background: I wrote the GMAT just over five years ago when I was planning to do an MBA and scored 740 with little to no study (I have a strong math background and am a native English speaker). Unfortunately, life got in the way, plans changed, and I was forced to indefinitely postpone my pursuit of graduate studies.
Now: After dedicating approximately 200 hours to studying, using a combination of the OG, Manhattan Prep books, and online forums, I was regularly scoring 750+ on timed practice exams, and feeling fairly confident going into exam day. That confidence fell apart within minutes into the exam.
The whiteboard tool was a nightmare to use. Beyond the normal difficulty of doing math on a virtual whiteboard, It constantly froze and was difficult to navigate. Between that and having to flick back and forth between screens, I would estimate that for me, it added an extra 20-seconds per question - an extra 10 minutes that I just did not have. Suffice it to say, this resulted in a lot of 'guessing' on the exam, particularly at the end in a rapid attempt to simply complete it. Combine that with the fact that you cannot wear earplugs in an uncontrolled environment, and well, it was an absolute disaster.
My score - 550... a far cry from my old 740 and the multiple 750+ practice exams prior to test day. This was a disaster and a poor excuse as an assessment of ability.
A bit of background: I wrote the GMAT just over five years ago when I was planning to do an MBA and scored 740 with little to no study (I have a strong math background and am a native English speaker). Unfortunately, life got in the way, plans changed, and I was forced to indefinitely postpone my pursuit of graduate studies.
Now: After dedicating approximately 200 hours to studying, using a combination of the OG, Manhattan Prep books, and online forums, I was regularly scoring 750+ on timed practice exams, and feeling fairly confident going into exam day. That confidence fell apart within minutes into the exam.
The whiteboard tool was a nightmare to use. Beyond the normal difficulty of doing math on a virtual whiteboard, It constantly froze and was difficult to navigate. Between that and having to flick back and forth between screens, I would estimate that for me, it added an extra 20-seconds per question - an extra 10 minutes that I just did not have. Suffice it to say, this resulted in a lot of 'guessing' on the exam, particularly at the end in a rapid attempt to simply complete it. Combine that with the fact that you cannot wear earplugs in an uncontrolled environment, and well, it was an absolute disaster.
My score - 550... a far cry from my old 740 and the multiple 750+ practice exams prior to test day. This was a disaster and a poor excuse as an assessment of ability.
29 Apr 2020, 08:16
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi,
Thank you for sharing your experience and sorry that it didn't work in exam this time.
Can you please elaborate on your preparation journey to reach 750 level?
Posted from my mobile device
Thank you for sharing your experience and sorry that it didn't work in exam this time.
Can you please elaborate on your preparation journey to reach 750 level?
Posted from my mobile device
29 Apr 2020, 09:20
Kudos
Bookmarks
Raxit85
Absolute.
First, I will be honest in saying I did very little for the verbal section as I was scoring fairly high on that from the start.. I probably spent about 15 hours (max) on this and did not study critical reasoning at all as I rarely got one wrong. As for SC, i focused on a practising few 'tricks' that such as rewriting/simplifying a sentence to delete the 'filler' content to better spot the error:
From: When Matthew, known for his charm, ran the length the Water Street, thought to be the prettiest street in the capital, he became increasingly ill.
To: When Matthew ran down Water Street he became ill.
I also would look to answers immediately to see if there was an error, if there was, I deleted it and narrowed my choice.
For RC, my goal was to read the passage as quickly as possible and ignore the filler detail. I did not like the idea of jotting down information and paragraph summaries as I read because I thought it wasted valuble time better spent understanding the passage. I would generally do a quick skim (10-15 seconds) to get an idea of the subject matter, and then do a read while trying to ignore numbers and focus on concepts. The best practice for this is to just read as many academic articles as you can.
For quant, I started by doing random problems in the OG to gauge my weaknesses. From there I purchased the Manhattan Prep guides and found them to be an excellent brush up and tool. Finally I just did practice tests and kept revisiting notes to see where I went wrong. Do some problems in that area, and then another test. I kept an error log, which was an incredible asset along the way.
If I had one quick tip for using the white board, it would be to use a short hand. For me, I code in Python, so I decided that I would write arithmetic using the same operators as when I code.
