Yesterday I finally beat the GMAT and scored my target score of 720! This was my second time taking the test after getting a 660 two weeks prior and I thought it would be good to share a few tips and lessons learned from the entire process. Please read this post especially if quant is your weaker section! When I was studying I found many people struggling with verbal but not so many with quant so this (very long) post is aimed at giving you those extra tips to get to that decent quant score.
Test Scores:
My first test score: Q42 V40 IR7 Total: 660
Second and final test: Q46 V42 IR8 Total: 720
I am extremely happy with my verbal and IR score, and pleased with my quant although I would have liked to get at least a 47. Overall this score makes me very happy and here are some tips for studying I found to be essential!
- If quant is your weak section, START EARLY. Around 3 months before my exam, I started to review the basic concepts that were going to be tested especially the ones that I hadn’t seen since high school or middle school like remainders and geometry. I reviewed my basic arithmetic skills and learned by heart all the squares/roots/geometry rules/fractions to decimals etc. I can’t stress enough how vital it is to have these tricks in the bag before even starting to look at test questions. This is because silly mistakes are the most common mistakes in quant and a lot of people who dislike this section will make silly mistakes because of stress/rushing. Don’t worry about complicated problems, just make sure you know the basics and have no problem doing math on paper and feel 100% confident.
- Choose an online course SUITED FOR YOU. Online courses are so helpful to study for the gmat especially if you have a tight schedule and need accessible material. However, I found that some courses are more adaptable to weak quant candidates than others and so it is important to know which course to choose:
Course review: KaplanBefore my first test, I had studied exclusively with Kaplan’s online resources for about 2 months. The Kaplan course is very expensive and has a lot of materials on it. The best thing about Kaplan is the amount of practice tests they offer (around 9) and their adaptive question bank for practice quizzes. However here’s the thing: Kaplan is not suited for people with weak quant section. Their videos are great at explaining the concepts of the gmat quant and great if we were to take a general math exam. BUT they don’t give any real strategy for the actual section part of the gmat. They give some baseline time management rules but even those are insufficient (basically saying the first10 questions matter more). Furthermore, their website was often down or the explanations of their quizzes would be incomplete due to a bug on the site but that took them over 3 weeks to fix which is invaluable time if you are preparing for this exam. AT the end of the course and before my first test, Kaplan gave me a solid base of understanding all the concepts but it was simply not enough to do well on the CATs. Nearly all my CATs at the time plateaued around 680 with 44 in quant which I was unable to raise simply because I did not have a good strategy. Kaplan’s verbal strategies on the other hand were really good although still a little over-simplistic in their explanations. Overall I do not recommend Kaplan as it is way too expensive for its value.
Course review: EMPOWERgmatWhether quant or verbal is your weak section or no matter how much you would like to improve on the gmat, this is the course to buy!! The price is so fair and you pay as you go meaning that you can use the course however long you need. I used their total score booster program between my first and second test (around two weeks) but they also offer 1/2/3 months programs for full preparation. Here is why EMPOWER is so great:
1. It offers a customizable program for whatever you need whether it is quant, verbal or overall help. You have a wide range of syllabuses and documents available to you no matter what or how long you would like to study for. If you like structured study plans, this is the course for you.
2. It has video explanations of
every question tested: this is
so important!!! Seeing Rich actually think out loud and solving the problems on video made me start to imitate his way of solving the problems which made my accuracy soar and my silly mistakes reduced to almost 0. Since the quant section is not hard math, the biggest problem for us weak quant people is how to find the BEST and FASTEST approach to a problem. Rich’s videos will allow you to watch as someone consistently applies these tricks and you will find yourself starting to also write everything down on the pad and approach them like him.
3. The big winner: It
TRAINS you for
THE GMAT. Sounds so simple but so many courses out there forget that you are just trying to beat this test and not trying to become a master in rate problems or sentence correction. EMPOWER has amazingly specific techniques, especially for the quant section that will make your life during the actual test 1000 times easier. It breaks the conventional way of solving math problems and trains you to solve them as fast as you possibly can. This was the hardest part for me and the part I worked on almost exclusively during those two weeks between my tests. TestIt, Test the Answers and most importantly TRIAGE saved me during my quant section. Before the EMPOWER course, I had a crazy hard time knowing which questions I should guess on and even psychologically I did not feel comfortable dumping questions although I knew it would free up my time for others and let me finish the test. Rich's videos helped me understand the value of these questions, how to maximize my chances of guessing right and what the amazing trade off would be if I was able to just discipline my mind, guess and move on. This also goes for Verbal. Max's videos taught me little tricks especially in SC and RC about how to identify wrong answers which ultimately made my score go up from a 40 to a 42 just based on those tricks! If Verbal is your weak section, I also strongly recommend Max's videos since they are extremely well explained and give you concrete tips on how to improve and how maximize your chances of guessing a correct answer.
4. Rich and Max also offer some great psychological and physiological tips on how to behave during your study time and on test day. They offer insights from previous students and often include some positive reinforcement messages at the end of each lesson which inadvertently make your confidence grow as you move through the course. This is also very helpful. I ended up using most of their tips during test day (even some unconventional ones) and they really helped!
- Take practice (FULL) CATs and experiment with section orderOne of the biggest mistakes that I made during my studying was that I did not take my first Practice CAT until around 3 weeks before my exam. This was a mistake as I was completely unprepared for what the test actually looked like even after 2 months of studying! Again, this test is not hard because of the concepts it trains, it is hard because of the SKILLS you must use when taking it: stress management, mental discipline, logic, etc. Therefore, I suggest taking a practice CAT early on in your studying period and then at several intervals after making some progress on content. This is important also because it trains you not to think about the score. Thinking about the score on a CAT is almost unavoidable but focusing on the score too much leads to overthinking, silly mistakes, stress and an overall lower score. If you take CATs at regular intervals and come to expect a lower score because you haven't reached some areas of study yet, it will make you more resilient to the stressful format.
I also strongly recommend taking FULL CATs whenever you can, including the IR and AWA sections. This is to be train your endurance skills. The test is very tedious and if you have concentration problems it is something you MUST work on from the beginning.
Do not be afraid to experiment with your section order! Before my first test I would always pick Quant first and then Verbal and then IR AWA because I thought that I should first do my weaker section while I have full concentration. Personally, I ended up being so stressed during the first section of each CAT that my quant score would go down just because of silly mistakes in the first few questions. When I switched to Verbal first and then Quant, I noticed a significant improvement, most likely because doing Verbal first got me into "Test Mode" and made me more relaxed for the next section. This is a very personal choice though so you should definitely experiment with the section order on your practice CATs.
Here are the best Practice CATs to use (in my opinion):
1. GMATPrep CATs. I purchased the full Practice CATs packages along with my EMPOWER course at a discount and these are by far the most accurate representation of your future score. However, they are PRACTICE tests and therefore sometimes the questions, algorithm, sections may seem a little off or different and it is important to remember that this does not represent 100% what the actual test will be like.
2. Kaplan CATs. The Kaplan CATs are good representations of the type of questions that will show up and unlike the GMATPrep they give you explanations to each question and advanced stats on which questions you answered correctly and in how long. This is a good way to analyze your work and identify your areas of weakness.
3.
GMATClub Tests. The GMATClub Quant tests are HARD. They contain a lot more 700 level questions so do not be discouraged if you bomb the first couple of tests. Some of the questions are also poorly worded or may seem just way too hard. However, if you want to bump up your quant score, do these tests!! The concepts they test highlight the tiniest little tricks and hacks that will come in helpful on the real test! One of my questions of the actual test was so similar to a question I had seen (and gotten wrong) on a GMATClub test that I was able to solve it in under a minute and felt really really good. Purchasing GMATPrep CATs along with the GMATClub access to tests is the best combination of practice you can get. GMATClub explanation and forums are also very helpful.
Overall, it is possible to beat the GMAT with a lot of confidence and determination! I hope my tips can help you and good luck!!!!
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03 Dec 2018, 23:03
