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11 Oct 2015, 11:48
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Hey guys,
this forum was a great resource for me while preparing for the GMAT (even though i never posted anything...) and i would like to give something back by telling my story. Of course everybody has to find his / her way to prepare for the test and there is no "one size fits all" solution. But i think there are a few things you can nobody can go wrong with Smile
My profile: male, 23. I hold a bachelors degree from the University of Mannheim in Germany. Currently i am gaining some experience in the venture capital industry. I am not sure where my journey will take me in the next years but i think crossing the GMAT of your list of things to do is always a good idea. I'm thinking a finance master in Mailand or the UK. Or collecting some more work experience and doing a MBA in the US.
I took the summer off to prepare for the GMAT. To be fair: I familiarized myself with the quant section in January (2 weeks self-study with Manhattan) but didn't find the time to do the test back then. Of course, I forgot most things but it was helpful not to start at 0 again - I still knew what prime factorization was and had heard about ratios Wink Long story short: i moved back to my parents and studied part-time for 3 weeks (6-8 hours / day) and full-time for 4 more weeks (12-14 hours / day). "Luckily" the work ethic in Mannheim was very disciplined when exams would come up so (very) long studying hours are something that I am familiar with.
I spent 90% of my time studying quant since i figured there was not much i could do to improve my verbal skills in such a short amount of time. I did very good at university but I'm not a natural when it comes to numbers. Hint for what comes next: I found Target Test Prep and my fear of quant vanished quickly Smile
Confession: I didn't do any test exams before the actual tests. I started working on SC only a few days prior to the exam and didnt want to take a prep exam knowing that there would be things I didn't know how to handle. A poor score would have hurt my self-confidence so i decided to gamble. Probably this was a foolish decision but things turned out okay for me anyways Smile
The first week of studying i spent working through the Manhattan quant guides. I quickly felt that i needed a more interactive source of study material to stay engaged. My problem was that i would just fly over sections that bored me out in the Manhattan books and ended up having no clue how to solve the problem sets at the end of each chapter.
I went on youtube for some gmat related video material ("heck, its so much better to let someone else do the explaining than reading everything yourself, right?") and found a explanation on trailing zeros - a topic almost completely neglected by Manhattan by the way. The video was clearly structured and concise. I was super happy to find out that there was an online program made up almost entirely of those videos.
After checking out the program for a couple of hours i was completely sold. I purchased the flexible preparation plan for 4 weeks for a very fair price (much cheaper than all other programs i found and also cheaper than the Manhattan books). There are 20 chapters that elaborate on every possible aspect of the GMAT quant section. Every small theory section is followed by a number of examples (hidden answer and explanations). There is a video explanation for every example too. All videos are very easy to follow well produced. Whenever i didnt feel like studying anymore i just ended up watching the videos and learned so much doing so. I can only imagine the amount of time needed to produce these videos..
This was exactly what i needed. Whenever i was done with a section i felt like i already almost mastered the material. There was no way to easily forget everything and just go on because you are immediately tested - no more self-cheating Wink
For every single one of the 20 chapters, a collection of easy, medium and hard questions is available. This is a ton of material. Once you are through all the questions (probably not even needed) there wont be many things left to surprise you on test day.
Speaking of the actual test: i scored a 730 with a quant score of 49 on my first try. Honestly, i felt quite down after the quant section. I focused most of my study time on the hard questions on target test prep and didn't see anything as hard on the test - so i figured i was doing poorly (the 27th question was: "How many primes are between 50 and 75?" - maybe experimental? Wink I also only had to use the pythagorean theorem super late in the section to answer a seemingly complicated geometry problem). Well, apparently i was wrong Smile I think it is fair to say that the preparation was so good, that i was almost "over-prepared" for the real deal.
Even though TTP made the studying as enjoyable as possible (trying not to sound sarcastic here..) I'm so happy to be done with the GMAT once and for all. There were a lot sacrifices I had to make in the last weeks and being the only one of your peer group to to the test in a specific period you might end up feeling lonely. The forum did help (knowing that other people suffer too) and the videos on TTP were a good way of having some kind of GMAT related "human contact". Definitely a plus!
I don't think that I have many meaningful insights for the verbal part. Just try to work intelligently, try to understand what every sentence wants to say and anticipate the answer choices (CR and RC). Be attentive how seemingly right answers are trying to fool you. I chuckled a few times on the GMAT because i thought "Damn, i totally see why someone would go for the wrong choice. I have to admit, good work GMAT guys" Wink
SC: no way around the Manhattan bible. I read the NY times regularly and changed my reading behavior to actively understanding the grammar being used. You will realize that most problems can be solved using the same concepts over and over. Don't freak out about idioms. I tried to find hard SC sample questions online. Someone once said "easy questions build confidence, hard ones build knowledge". Similar to quant the actual questions on the GMAT were much easier than expected. Don't waste your time on easy test problems. Try to work the hard ones and understand what is going on. This knowledge will help you to rock the easy questions!
For all of you who are still preparing: Stay optimistic, believe in yourself. I never figured i could score that high in a number based test format. I do realize that i was given the ability to quickly understand problems and verbal intelligence of some kind but these abilities normally don't necessarily include the quantitative specifics of number theory Wink That being said: If I can get a 49 in quant, anybody can. All you will need is dedication and hours over hours of practice. Trying to sound neither like an informercial nor a parrot: I believe that Target Test Prep is the best way for non-naturals to get the needed amount of practice and eventually conquer the quant section of the GMAT.
Cheers guys,
Julius
this forum was a great resource for me while preparing for the GMAT (even though i never posted anything...) and i would like to give something back by telling my story. Of course everybody has to find his / her way to prepare for the test and there is no "one size fits all" solution. But i think there are a few things you can nobody can go wrong with Smile
My profile: male, 23. I hold a bachelors degree from the University of Mannheim in Germany. Currently i am gaining some experience in the venture capital industry. I am not sure where my journey will take me in the next years but i think crossing the GMAT of your list of things to do is always a good idea. I'm thinking a finance master in Mailand or the UK. Or collecting some more work experience and doing a MBA in the US.
I took the summer off to prepare for the GMAT. To be fair: I familiarized myself with the quant section in January (2 weeks self-study with Manhattan) but didn't find the time to do the test back then. Of course, I forgot most things but it was helpful not to start at 0 again - I still knew what prime factorization was and had heard about ratios Wink Long story short: i moved back to my parents and studied part-time for 3 weeks (6-8 hours / day) and full-time for 4 more weeks (12-14 hours / day). "Luckily" the work ethic in Mannheim was very disciplined when exams would come up so (very) long studying hours are something that I am familiar with.
I spent 90% of my time studying quant since i figured there was not much i could do to improve my verbal skills in such a short amount of time. I did very good at university but I'm not a natural when it comes to numbers. Hint for what comes next: I found Target Test Prep and my fear of quant vanished quickly Smile
Confession: I didn't do any test exams before the actual tests. I started working on SC only a few days prior to the exam and didnt want to take a prep exam knowing that there would be things I didn't know how to handle. A poor score would have hurt my self-confidence so i decided to gamble. Probably this was a foolish decision but things turned out okay for me anyways Smile
The first week of studying i spent working through the Manhattan quant guides. I quickly felt that i needed a more interactive source of study material to stay engaged. My problem was that i would just fly over sections that bored me out in the Manhattan books and ended up having no clue how to solve the problem sets at the end of each chapter.
I went on youtube for some gmat related video material ("heck, its so much better to let someone else do the explaining than reading everything yourself, right?") and found a explanation on trailing zeros - a topic almost completely neglected by Manhattan by the way. The video was clearly structured and concise. I was super happy to find out that there was an online program made up almost entirely of those videos.
After checking out the program for a couple of hours i was completely sold. I purchased the flexible preparation plan for 4 weeks for a very fair price (much cheaper than all other programs i found and also cheaper than the Manhattan books). There are 20 chapters that elaborate on every possible aspect of the GMAT quant section. Every small theory section is followed by a number of examples (hidden answer and explanations). There is a video explanation for every example too. All videos are very easy to follow well produced. Whenever i didnt feel like studying anymore i just ended up watching the videos and learned so much doing so. I can only imagine the amount of time needed to produce these videos..
This was exactly what i needed. Whenever i was done with a section i felt like i already almost mastered the material. There was no way to easily forget everything and just go on because you are immediately tested - no more self-cheating Wink
For every single one of the 20 chapters, a collection of easy, medium and hard questions is available. This is a ton of material. Once you are through all the questions (probably not even needed) there wont be many things left to surprise you on test day.
Speaking of the actual test: i scored a 730 with a quant score of 49 on my first try. Honestly, i felt quite down after the quant section. I focused most of my study time on the hard questions on target test prep and didn't see anything as hard on the test - so i figured i was doing poorly (the 27th question was: "How many primes are between 50 and 75?" - maybe experimental? Wink I also only had to use the pythagorean theorem super late in the section to answer a seemingly complicated geometry problem). Well, apparently i was wrong Smile I think it is fair to say that the preparation was so good, that i was almost "over-prepared" for the real deal.
Even though TTP made the studying as enjoyable as possible (trying not to sound sarcastic here..) I'm so happy to be done with the GMAT once and for all. There were a lot sacrifices I had to make in the last weeks and being the only one of your peer group to to the test in a specific period you might end up feeling lonely. The forum did help (knowing that other people suffer too) and the videos on TTP were a good way of having some kind of GMAT related "human contact". Definitely a plus!
I don't think that I have many meaningful insights for the verbal part. Just try to work intelligently, try to understand what every sentence wants to say and anticipate the answer choices (CR and RC). Be attentive how seemingly right answers are trying to fool you. I chuckled a few times on the GMAT because i thought "Damn, i totally see why someone would go for the wrong choice. I have to admit, good work GMAT guys" Wink
SC: no way around the Manhattan bible. I read the NY times regularly and changed my reading behavior to actively understanding the grammar being used. You will realize that most problems can be solved using the same concepts over and over. Don't freak out about idioms. I tried to find hard SC sample questions online. Someone once said "easy questions build confidence, hard ones build knowledge". Similar to quant the actual questions on the GMAT were much easier than expected. Don't waste your time on easy test problems. Try to work the hard ones and understand what is going on. This knowledge will help you to rock the easy questions!
For all of you who are still preparing: Stay optimistic, believe in yourself. I never figured i could score that high in a number based test format. I do realize that i was given the ability to quickly understand problems and verbal intelligence of some kind but these abilities normally don't necessarily include the quantitative specifics of number theory Wink That being said: If I can get a 49 in quant, anybody can. All you will need is dedication and hours over hours of practice. Trying to sound neither like an informercial nor a parrot: I believe that Target Test Prep is the best way for non-naturals to get the needed amount of practice and eventually conquer the quant section of the GMAT.
Cheers guys,
Julius
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