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Here is the essential guide to securing scholarships as an MBA student! In this video, we explore the various types of scholarships available, including need-based and merit-based options.
Today, after 8 months of intense studying, I scored a 550 on my first official GMAT.
Frankly I'm embarrassed to post this. But I'm doing it in case there is someone out there like me. Someone who is struggling and nothing seems to help him.
If there has ever been a thing in life I've wanted, it is this. I want this so bad I can't begin to describe. This is the most important thing in my life.
I'm not going to quit.
I'm singular in my mindset.
I'm clear in my purpose.
I don't care if it takes me 10 years and $10,000.
I will get a 700.
When I do, I will update this post and tell you why you can do it. Because I can do it.
Good luck to you all.
——————————————————————————————————————————
I got a 700 today and I’m overwhelmed with emotion. That's a 48Q/38V/6IR split. Hot damn this is one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt!
Today marks the end of a long road for me. I see posts on here all the time about people about their 6 week journey. Or their 3 month journey. Or sometimes their 1 year journey.
My journey lasted nearly 2 years. Not on and off for 2 years. I studied. Damn near every day. For 2 hours a day. For 22 consecutive months. If 700 doesn’t move your needle then thats fine. Move along. This winded after action report is meant to inspire the people gridlocked at a crappy score who don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. (See the first part of my post from a year ago.)
Attitude is everything. Don’t give up! If you don’t understand something, ATTACK IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE until it is second nature. There is no reason you can’t be like me! I’m not a “smart” person. There is nothing special about me. It’s all about work ethic. You CAN control that. You must!
Like I mentioned above, I studied intensely for 8 months and got a 550 on my first test. I was absolutely devastated. The n after 3 more months I scored a 560.I literally sobbed in my car for an hour. What kept me going was this thought. I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what it takes to get there. All I have to do is be willing to not stop until I do. Because here’s the deal guys. EVERY PROBLEM IS SOLVABLE. If you can get one right then you can get them all right.
——————————————————————————————————————————
My study plan was all over the map. I bought Veritas, Economist, Magoosh, Gmat Club, Manhattan’s prep books, the OGs, GMAC’s question pack, GMAC’s test packs 1 and 2, and the GMAT paper tests. Couple that with taking the official test 5 times and I spent a TON of money. I don’t want my struggle to sound like an indictment on these resources. I’m not a good test taker. My issue was never knowledge. It was application. Even up until 2 weeks ago I scored a 600 on a GMAT paper test. I’m inconsistent as HELL!
——————————————————————————————————————————
For example, one flash card would say simply “demand”. On the back I would say that demand is a subjunctive thus it must be followed by “that” and modify a verb in its infinitive form. In other words… anytime you see “I demand Alex will be eating.” I’d immediately know it is wrong and immediately know that the ONLY way to say this is “I demand THAT Alex EAT.”
But you hear all the time “don’t get bogged down in grammatical rules.” Are they right? Kind of. In the example above I talked about subjunctives, infinitives, modifiers blah blah blah. You don’t need to be able to break a sentence down like you’re an english professor. But you need to be able to immediately recall what should follow a given word base on that word alone.
Regardless, at the end of the day you need to master the 1000 foot view of an SC problem. This is how you truly master SC. This all comes down to one thing: commas. Complicated right? No. Don’t focus on when the precisely right and wrong time to use a comma is. I still can’t do that. Instead, focus on what is inside the commas. It is a module of the sentence. Take these modules and think “Why is this here? Shouldn’t this be over here? By this being here does it change the meaning of the sentence?”
When I made this change in mindset, I went from scoring 30s on verbal to almost never scoring below a 38 again on a practice or official test.
The key to mastering RC is taking notes. During my first 18 months of studying I refused to do so. I thought it was a waste of time. Plus, all the programs was on on said you don’t need to understand the passage the first time through anyways. Naturally, I thought whats the point because I’ll just have to refer back anyways.
No! You need notes for a different reason. It forces your brain to engage with the passage. Consequently you’ll understand the passage MUCH better after the first read. I made notes with no intention of ever reading them again and I rarely did. In fact I probably took way more notes than any program would tell you to. For a 3 paragraph passage I may write 30 words. Of course, always be fragmented using just one or 2 words to represent an idea.
Try it!
For example: “since” always indicates a premise. “Consequently” always indicates a conclusion. Knowing these is so important because will boost your ability in reading comp, integrated reasoning, and even the essay!
Secondly, you need to know the types of questions and how to combat them.
For example, if you need to weaken the conclusion you should know there are 4 way ways to do it. 1) add a premise that makes the conclusion less likely, 2) show a parallel case in which the conclusion does not hold, 3) identify an unstated assumption and rule it out, 4) offer an alternative explanation.
That’s the systematic approach you need to solve these problems. Of course you can find all of them in any decent prep program.
Other than that the only thing that helped me was repetition. What really on these last 2 tests is that I created an error log in an excel sheet and forced myself to explain why each and every answer choice on a given practice problem is right or wrong. It took FOREVER! (I did this with all quant and verbal too). Doing 15 verbal problems (5 being critical reasoning) would take me 1.5 hours to do and review. But it was perfect because it forced me to be able to not only identify incorrect answer choices, but understand why they are wrong and what they are doing.
When you do your initial read of critical reasoning, focus on identifying the logical gap. The correct answer is the one that ties both of these ends together. That sounds simple but I cannot overstate its importance. Plenty of times you get answer choices that look good but only identify one side of the gap. The correct answer always contains elements of both sides of the gap in logic.
——————————————————————————————————————————
But here’s what helped me. You need to know your math rules. You need to know your math rules well. You need to know your math rules very well! Often times the way to solve a problem is not by algebra but by principle. Focus on innately understanding what defines a positive, negative, a decimal, remainder, a mixed number, a prime number, etc. Make flash cards for these.
My biggest frustration with quant was wondering “how in the world was I supposed to know I had to do that?” The solution? Create “trigger principle” flash cards. If you get some sort of fangled algebraic equation you should immediately think to either simplify it, expand it, or rework it somehow to make the problem easier.
For example: is 1/x^2 < 1/(-y^2) given that y^2 < -x^2. If you don’t recognize immediately that you need to rearrange the first part you might not realize that the 2 equations say the exact same thing.
Long story long: come up with recognition rules. If you see x, do y.
—————————————————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————————————————-
What did I eat test morning? An ice-cream milk shake. Trust me its like a performing enhancing drug. Its got a ton of sugar and just enough protein to keep you full but not draw the blood away from your brain to your stomach to digest the food.
What did I drink test morning? A huge red bull but not huge enough to make me feel jittery.
Did I eat in my breaks? That’s a horrible idea. Eating takes blood from your brain to your stomach. That’s why you get sleepy after a big meal. I took a gulp of maple syrup. Its perfect because you need sugar for your tired brain but you don’t want to have to pee later and you don’t want to start feeling sleepy.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
The most liberating thing in the world is knowing exactly what you want, (for me that’s an MBA), knowing exactly what it takes (getting a great GMAT score), and being willing to not stop until you do. I was.
Is an elite MBA what you want? Then it’s simple. Don’t give up.
Frankly I'm embarrassed to post this. But I'm doing it in case there is someone out there like me. Someone who is struggling and nothing seems to help him.
If there has ever been a thing in life I've wanted, it is this. I want this so bad I can't begin to describe. This is the most important thing in my life.
I'm not going to quit.
I'm singular in my mindset.
I'm clear in my purpose.
I don't care if it takes me 10 years and $10,000.
I will get a 700.
When I do, I will update this post and tell you why you can do it. Because I can do it.
Good luck to you all.
——————————————————————————————————————————
UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got a 700 today and I’m overwhelmed with emotion. That's a 48Q/38V/6IR split. Hot damn this is one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt!
Today marks the end of a long road for me. I see posts on here all the time about people about their 6 week journey. Or their 3 month journey. Or sometimes their 1 year journey.
My journey lasted nearly 2 years. Not on and off for 2 years. I studied. Damn near every day. For 2 hours a day. For 22 consecutive months. If 700 doesn’t move your needle then thats fine. Move along. This winded after action report is meant to inspire the people gridlocked at a crappy score who don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. (See the first part of my post from a year ago.)
Attitude is everything. Don’t give up! If you don’t understand something, ATTACK IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE until it is second nature. There is no reason you can’t be like me! I’m not a “smart” person. There is nothing special about me. It’s all about work ethic. You CAN control that. You must!
Like I mentioned above, I studied intensely for 8 months and got a 550 on my first test. I was absolutely devastated. The n after 3 more months I scored a 560.I literally sobbed in my car for an hour. What kept me going was this thought. I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what it takes to get there. All I have to do is be willing to not stop until I do. Because here’s the deal guys. EVERY PROBLEM IS SOLVABLE. If you can get one right then you can get them all right.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Here’s how I went from 550 to 560 to 650 to 680 to 700 in 2 years. Every single one of those was an official test.
My study plan was all over the map. I bought Veritas, Economist, Magoosh, Gmat Club, Manhattan’s prep books, the OGs, GMAC’s question pack, GMAC’s test packs 1 and 2, and the GMAT paper tests. Couple that with taking the official test 5 times and I spent a TON of money. I don’t want my struggle to sound like an indictment on these resources. I’m not a good test taker. My issue was never knowledge. It was application. Even up until 2 weeks ago I scored a 600 on a GMAT paper test. I’m inconsistent as HELL!
——————————————————————————————————————————
Verbal was always my (relatively) best subject so let’s start with that.
Sentence Correction:
One of the keys to sentence correction was creating “trigger word” flash cards (I used a similar method for Quant). Here I challenged myself to instantly know all the grammatical and idiomatic rules based on only one word or two words of context.For example, one flash card would say simply “demand”. On the back I would say that demand is a subjunctive thus it must be followed by “that” and modify a verb in its infinitive form. In other words… anytime you see “I demand Alex will be eating.” I’d immediately know it is wrong and immediately know that the ONLY way to say this is “I demand THAT Alex EAT.”
But you hear all the time “don’t get bogged down in grammatical rules.” Are they right? Kind of. In the example above I talked about subjunctives, infinitives, modifiers blah blah blah. You don’t need to be able to break a sentence down like you’re an english professor. But you need to be able to immediately recall what should follow a given word base on that word alone.
Regardless, at the end of the day you need to master the 1000 foot view of an SC problem. This is how you truly master SC. This all comes down to one thing: commas. Complicated right? No. Don’t focus on when the precisely right and wrong time to use a comma is. I still can’t do that. Instead, focus on what is inside the commas. It is a module of the sentence. Take these modules and think “Why is this here? Shouldn’t this be over here? By this being here does it change the meaning of the sentence?”
When I made this change in mindset, I went from scoring 30s on verbal to almost never scoring below a 38 again on a practice or official test.
Reading comprehension:
Everyone dreads this one right? You have more to gain or lose in the 4 questions you’ll get per passage than anywhere on the test. So don’t fear this! Embrace this and the opportunity it presents!The key to mastering RC is taking notes. During my first 18 months of studying I refused to do so. I thought it was a waste of time. Plus, all the programs was on on said you don’t need to understand the passage the first time through anyways. Naturally, I thought whats the point because I’ll just have to refer back anyways.
No! You need notes for a different reason. It forces your brain to engage with the passage. Consequently you’ll understand the passage MUCH better after the first read. I made notes with no intention of ever reading them again and I rarely did. In fact I probably took way more notes than any program would tell you to. For a 3 paragraph passage I may write 30 words. Of course, always be fragmented using just one or 2 words to represent an idea.
Try it!
Critical reasoning:
If you’ve been in any GMAT program then you’ve heard of conclusion language. Just as important is premise language. Make one word flash cards that force you to recognize them.For example: “since” always indicates a premise. “Consequently” always indicates a conclusion. Knowing these is so important because will boost your ability in reading comp, integrated reasoning, and even the essay!
Secondly, you need to know the types of questions and how to combat them.
For example, if you need to weaken the conclusion you should know there are 4 way ways to do it. 1) add a premise that makes the conclusion less likely, 2) show a parallel case in which the conclusion does not hold, 3) identify an unstated assumption and rule it out, 4) offer an alternative explanation.
That’s the systematic approach you need to solve these problems. Of course you can find all of them in any decent prep program.
Other than that the only thing that helped me was repetition. What really on these last 2 tests is that I created an error log in an excel sheet and forced myself to explain why each and every answer choice on a given practice problem is right or wrong. It took FOREVER! (I did this with all quant and verbal too). Doing 15 verbal problems (5 being critical reasoning) would take me 1.5 hours to do and review. But it was perfect because it forced me to be able to not only identify incorrect answer choices, but understand why they are wrong and what they are doing.
When you do your initial read of critical reasoning, focus on identifying the logical gap. The correct answer is the one that ties both of these ends together. That sounds simple but I cannot overstate its importance. Plenty of times you get answer choices that look good but only identify one side of the gap. The correct answer always contains elements of both sides of the gap in logic.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Let’s talk about my least favorite subject: QUANT!
I’m not great at quant. In fact, the 48 I got is is the second highest quant score I’ve ever gotten on any test, practice or official.But here’s what helped me. You need to know your math rules. You need to know your math rules well. You need to know your math rules very well! Often times the way to solve a problem is not by algebra but by principle. Focus on innately understanding what defines a positive, negative, a decimal, remainder, a mixed number, a prime number, etc. Make flash cards for these.
My biggest frustration with quant was wondering “how in the world was I supposed to know I had to do that?” The solution? Create “trigger principle” flash cards. If you get some sort of fangled algebraic equation you should immediately think to either simplify it, expand it, or rework it somehow to make the problem easier.
For example: is 1/x^2 < 1/(-y^2) given that y^2 < -x^2. If you don’t recognize immediately that you need to rearrange the first part you might not realize that the 2 equations say the exact same thing.
Long story long: come up with recognition rules. If you see x, do y.
—————————————————————————————————————————
If you take one piece of my advice, take this:
The bottom line is you need to understand why you get problems right AND wrong. I’m not a huge fan of error logs because I’m NEVER going to read back through them because even if I do, I’ll be biased to what I already know to be the answer. However, I AM a fan forcing myself to explain why every answer is right AND wrong. I did this in an excel sheet. You might call it an error log. Whatever. I never looked back at any answers. This is incredibly tedious. 30 problems took my 3 hours to complete, review, and catalogue. This is beneficial because it forces your brain to do the mental gymnastics you need on test day.—————————————————————————————————————————-
Other Tips!
Intentionally get a really motivating song with no vocals stuck in your head. On test 3 I was pissed because I had Galantis saying “spread it like peanut butter jelly” suck in my head for the entire test. For test 4 I intentionally got “Brothers in Arms” from the Mad Max soundtrack stuck in my head. For test 5 I did the same with “Sun” by Thomas Bergensen. Honest to god this really helped my pacing.What did I eat test morning? An ice-cream milk shake. Trust me its like a performing enhancing drug. Its got a ton of sugar and just enough protein to keep you full but not draw the blood away from your brain to your stomach to digest the food.
What did I drink test morning? A huge red bull but not huge enough to make me feel jittery.
Did I eat in my breaks? That’s a horrible idea. Eating takes blood from your brain to your stomach. That’s why you get sleepy after a big meal. I took a gulp of maple syrup. Its perfect because you need sugar for your tired brain but you don’t want to have to pee later and you don’t want to start feeling sleepy.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Parting shot:
These last two years have been a roller coaster ride for me. At times I wanted to quit. Once or twice I almost did. When I was in tears of frustration and rage what kept me going was internalizing my failures but realizing that they can be overcome. And that’s the god’s honest truth. You CAN do it. In my first post (very top) I said I was going to do it even if it took me 10 years and 10,000 dollars.The most liberating thing in the world is knowing exactly what you want, (for me that’s an MBA), knowing exactly what it takes (getting a great GMAT score), and being willing to not stop until you do. I was.
Is an elite MBA what you want? Then it’s simple. Don’t give up.
27 Apr 2015, 23:12
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi, I am very sorry to hear that, but I just want to give you some support. First of all I think that 550 is not as bad as 440:)
There are some experiences here when a person had something around 400 and then he has reached 700 after having hard times of studying. May be it would be useful for you to read those reviews and review your strategy. Good luck! Looking forward to see your new topic where you will announce your new score over 700!
There are some experiences here when a person had something around 400 and then he has reached 700 after having hard times of studying. May be it would be useful for you to read those reviews and review your strategy. Good luck! Looking forward to see your new topic where you will announce your new score over 700!
re4Bschool11
28 Apr 2015, 08:38
Kudos
Bookmarks
what was your prep like? score breakdown? imagine plateau effect / burnout was a factor. 700 is no prob for anyone who wants it that badly. youll get it. I took it 3 times.
