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I took the online test in my basement on Wednesday early in the morning before my kids wake up for fear that my 5 year old may come to see me and cancel my exam. 
My preparation was mainly the GMAT Official Guide 2019. I took the two practice exams that came with it May 17 and June 1, about two weeks apart scoring a satisfactory 700 (Q45; V40) and 710 (Q44; V44). In June I took 2 o3 three more free practice tests that I found online and I scored between 650 and 700. During this period I realized that I had to pace myself because in some of these tests I was unable to finish. In one of them I think I only got to Q27. Therefore, I decided that on the exam one of the main objectives was to finish and take a guess on those questions that would take a lot of time to solve. I also realized that I had the tendency to make silly mistakes like the one I made when I took my college exam more than 20 years ago. I solved a polinome that most people were unable to solve and at the end I got to the ecuation 3x=6 and then the final line I wrote: x=3. Luckily at that time, they scored everything, not only the final result and I only lost 0.05 points for that, but still I ruined what could have been a perfect ten. So, I had to be extremely focused and to make sure that I see all the dots and coma's and that I understand exactly what I am asked to do and do not add an extra zero, etc, etc. So, my plan was: watch the time, stay focused, if a heavy problem that requires extra time comes your way, make an educated guess and move on. Nobody can solve them all. Even those who were able to score an 800 in the GMAT have had other situations in their lives that they were unable to figure out properly.
Regarding the online exam, I want to thank GMAC for allowing physical pads as my exam attempts have all been done with the online scratchpad and I always felt that I was losing lots of time with it. I used a 8x12 Staples pad that my wife bought.
The big day came, I woke up at 4 am. I am a morning person, but even for me, 4 am is night. But I had to wake up early enough to be fully woken up if you know what I mean. I got out of the house to get some fresh air, I made sure I drank one glass of water one hour before the exam and no more after that, although I put a full glass near my computer - I actually took a couple of sips during the IR section. I also prayed as I knew I needed God's help on this. I do not believe in miracles like: I pray and God will help me guess the right answers. But I believe that even if I prepare, I still need that peace of mind and power to focus and stick to my plan. In a pressure setting, those things can be quite volatile. And I believe that one can be very well prepared intellectually for the exam, but if one does not have the right mindset, with the kind of pressure that comes with GMAT, things can go south quite easily. In my case, I work full time, I have my family to take care of, my wife and two wonderful daughters. Not to mention that we have a backyard DYI project for the summer that I have been working on since the beginning of June. Some mornings before work I was practicing for GMAT, other mornings I would work in my backyard (above ground pool, new patio, pool deck, landscaping). The same goes for weekends, shared between GMAT and DYI project, but July GMAT has been a bit off the radar. So I prayed and I said: "God, I did my best in the circumstances, but I really need you. I know it is a tough exam and unless you help me, I cannot make it." After that, at 5 am, I started the check in procedures. Check in was a breeze. My exam started when it was supposed to. My proctor never said a word to me. The only small glitch was that I had to provide a second copy of my passport. Then the exam started.
Quant: Questions seemed quite easy in the beginning. I felt confident as I was solving them quickly and by the tenth or so question, I was expecting to get harder questions, but they didn't seem as hard as some of the questions that I had met in my mock test. A few of them did and I remember that I had to guess one of the DS as it was really tricky and I did not want to waste too much time on it. My target score was in the 650-700 range and I did not want to be penalized for unanswered questions. But then, again, I was almost at the end of the quant section and most questions did not seem to challenge me enough. I have always been good in math, but still I was expecting, based on many comments, that the real GMAT is harder than the mock tests. And it is more than math, it is Quantitative Reasoning. While I was solving, I had all kinds of thoughts that I must have missed some answers, hence the computer was not giving me harder questions. But I kept solving and I remember that arrived at the last question, I had the answer with about one minute left on the clock. I had time to check my answer again and then I even waited a few seconds before I confirmed it as a small mental break. I was partially relaxed because I had been able to finish. But I kept thinking about how unexpectedly easy it seemed. It was obviously not that easy, there were notions of geometry, functions, inequalities, powers, square roots, some interesting DS, but I think that based on what I had read, I got the idea that the real GMAT is significantly harder and usually your score will be 50 points or so lower than the one you get in the official practice tests.
Anyways, I did not have much time to lose, as the Verbal section was starting. Here I had a slightly different experience. I had a couple of questions in the beginning that seemed very hard for starters. Maybe I was a bit out of focus, and I remember that a couple of them I kind of guessed as time was flying by and I could not clearly decide the right answer. Then I tried to pace myself and to up my focus and I started to feel better. I was catching up. I went on, but as I had lost precious minutes in the beginning, I got to the last two questions with under two minutes. For the last one I only had 30-45 seconds and after I clicked on one answer, before submitting, I realized that I wanted to change it. But I guess I was unable to confirm it because time was up, so in my mind I did not respond to one question. But still, I was quite happy that I had been able to pace myself quite well.
Now there was time for a break. I accepted it, but after one minute and thirty seconds of stretching and deep breathing, I ended the break and decided to continue with the IR to finish before my family wakes up. I was much more relaxed as this section is not as crucial and I was able to finish the section being quite confident that I got most things right. Had one or two moments of doubt, but was determined to move on and slay the giant.
When the exam ended, I could not believe it ended so quickly. It was 8:09 or so.
Then I started wondering about the Quant section and reading all kind of blogs and posts of people with similar experiences that ended up having a worse score than expected because, according to what they said, they just missed enough questions to prevent the computer from raising the bar. I pictured myself sharing this experience. However I was puzzled because for most of my questions, I was pretty confident that I was able to solve them well (in a few cases, I even tested my answer and it was working). I was hopeful, but I had doubts. Had I missed something? I said to myself: I will wait and I will see. At 6 pm today, when I saw 770 (Q50; V47) I could not believe my eyes and I jumped for joy just like a kid that got a new toy. I am grateful for the experience and I give credit to God. Even my brain was made by Him after all.
I wish all of you the best of luck, but remember that the GMAT tests much more than Q and V skills. It tests our ability to work under pressure, our psychological and emotional strength, our capacity to self-control and to stick to a plan. For me, it has been an unexpectedly sweet experience and I thank God for that. I encourage you to prepare not only in terms of skills, but in terms of your attitude and mindset. Be humble and confident. Be prepared and be alert. Understand that however prepared, it may never be enough. Have a game plan. Obviously, if you are a believer.. well, this is one of those things in life where you do not want to be alone, even though you must be.
My preparation was mainly the GMAT Official Guide 2019. I took the two practice exams that came with it May 17 and June 1, about two weeks apart scoring a satisfactory 700 (Q45; V40) and 710 (Q44; V44). In June I took 2 o3 three more free practice tests that I found online and I scored between 650 and 700. During this period I realized that I had to pace myself because in some of these tests I was unable to finish. In one of them I think I only got to Q27. Therefore, I decided that on the exam one of the main objectives was to finish and take a guess on those questions that would take a lot of time to solve. I also realized that I had the tendency to make silly mistakes like the one I made when I took my college exam more than 20 years ago. I solved a polinome that most people were unable to solve and at the end I got to the ecuation 3x=6 and then the final line I wrote: x=3. Luckily at that time, they scored everything, not only the final result and I only lost 0.05 points for that, but still I ruined what could have been a perfect ten. So, I had to be extremely focused and to make sure that I see all the dots and coma's and that I understand exactly what I am asked to do and do not add an extra zero, etc, etc. So, my plan was: watch the time, stay focused, if a heavy problem that requires extra time comes your way, make an educated guess and move on. Nobody can solve them all. Even those who were able to score an 800 in the GMAT have had other situations in their lives that they were unable to figure out properly. Regarding the online exam, I want to thank GMAC for allowing physical pads as my exam attempts have all been done with the online scratchpad and I always felt that I was losing lots of time with it. I used a 8x12 Staples pad that my wife bought.
The big day came, I woke up at 4 am. I am a morning person, but even for me, 4 am is night. But I had to wake up early enough to be fully woken up if you know what I mean. I got out of the house to get some fresh air, I made sure I drank one glass of water one hour before the exam and no more after that, although I put a full glass near my computer - I actually took a couple of sips during the IR section. I also prayed as I knew I needed God's help on this. I do not believe in miracles like: I pray and God will help me guess the right answers. But I believe that even if I prepare, I still need that peace of mind and power to focus and stick to my plan. In a pressure setting, those things can be quite volatile. And I believe that one can be very well prepared intellectually for the exam, but if one does not have the right mindset, with the kind of pressure that comes with GMAT, things can go south quite easily. In my case, I work full time, I have my family to take care of, my wife and two wonderful daughters. Not to mention that we have a backyard DYI project for the summer that I have been working on since the beginning of June. Some mornings before work I was practicing for GMAT, other mornings I would work in my backyard (above ground pool, new patio, pool deck, landscaping). The same goes for weekends, shared between GMAT and DYI project, but July GMAT has been a bit off the radar. So I prayed and I said: "God, I did my best in the circumstances, but I really need you. I know it is a tough exam and unless you help me, I cannot make it." After that, at 5 am, I started the check in procedures. Check in was a breeze. My exam started when it was supposed to. My proctor never said a word to me. The only small glitch was that I had to provide a second copy of my passport. Then the exam started.
Quant: Questions seemed quite easy in the beginning. I felt confident as I was solving them quickly and by the tenth or so question, I was expecting to get harder questions, but they didn't seem as hard as some of the questions that I had met in my mock test. A few of them did and I remember that I had to guess one of the DS as it was really tricky and I did not want to waste too much time on it. My target score was in the 650-700 range and I did not want to be penalized for unanswered questions. But then, again, I was almost at the end of the quant section and most questions did not seem to challenge me enough. I have always been good in math, but still I was expecting, based on many comments, that the real GMAT is harder than the mock tests. And it is more than math, it is Quantitative Reasoning. While I was solving, I had all kinds of thoughts that I must have missed some answers, hence the computer was not giving me harder questions. But I kept solving and I remember that arrived at the last question, I had the answer with about one minute left on the clock. I had time to check my answer again and then I even waited a few seconds before I confirmed it as a small mental break. I was partially relaxed because I had been able to finish. But I kept thinking about how unexpectedly easy it seemed. It was obviously not that easy, there were notions of geometry, functions, inequalities, powers, square roots, some interesting DS, but I think that based on what I had read, I got the idea that the real GMAT is significantly harder and usually your score will be 50 points or so lower than the one you get in the official practice tests.
Anyways, I did not have much time to lose, as the Verbal section was starting. Here I had a slightly different experience. I had a couple of questions in the beginning that seemed very hard for starters. Maybe I was a bit out of focus, and I remember that a couple of them I kind of guessed as time was flying by and I could not clearly decide the right answer. Then I tried to pace myself and to up my focus and I started to feel better. I was catching up. I went on, but as I had lost precious minutes in the beginning, I got to the last two questions with under two minutes. For the last one I only had 30-45 seconds and after I clicked on one answer, before submitting, I realized that I wanted to change it. But I guess I was unable to confirm it because time was up, so in my mind I did not respond to one question. But still, I was quite happy that I had been able to pace myself quite well.
Now there was time for a break. I accepted it, but after one minute and thirty seconds of stretching and deep breathing, I ended the break and decided to continue with the IR to finish before my family wakes up.
I was much more relaxed as this section is not as crucial and I was able to finish the section being quite confident that I got most things right. Had one or two moments of doubt, but was determined to move on and slay the giant. When the exam ended, I could not believe it ended so quickly. It was 8:09 or so.
Then I started wondering about the Quant section and reading all kind of blogs and posts of people with similar experiences that ended up having a worse score than expected because, according to what they said, they just missed enough questions to prevent the computer from raising the bar. I pictured myself sharing this experience. However I was puzzled because for most of my questions, I was pretty confident that I was able to solve them well (in a few cases, I even tested my answer and it was working). I was hopeful, but I had doubts. Had I missed something? I said to myself: I will wait and I will see. At 6 pm today, when I saw 770 (Q50; V47) I could not believe my eyes and I jumped for joy just like a kid that got a new toy. I am grateful for the experience and I give credit to God. Even my brain was made by Him after all.
I wish all of you the best of luck, but remember that the GMAT tests much more than Q and V skills. It tests our ability to work under pressure, our psychological and emotional strength, our capacity to self-control and to stick to a plan. For me, it has been an unexpectedly sweet experience and I thank God for that. I encourage you to prepare not only in terms of skills, but in terms of your attitude and mindset. Be humble and confident. Be prepared and be alert. Understand that however prepared, it may never be enough. Have a game plan. Obviously, if you are a believer.. well, this is one of those things in life where you do not want to be alone, even though you must be.
10 Jul 2020, 22:02
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Wow!!! Congratulations! What was your IR Score and the QV Breakup?
Posted from my mobile device
Posted from my mobile device
