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21 Dec 2015, 12:50
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Although this is my first post, I have used GMATClub extensively and I wanted to take a minute to pass along my own experiences. I started studying in August 2015 and took the GMAT twice, first in November 2015 when I scored a 740 (7IR, 45Q, 47V) and then again in December 2015 when I scored a 770 (8IR, 48Q, 51V). I have been out of school for over 6 years so needless to say, my experiences may be most relevant for those who need to take a little extra time to relearn material from their high school/college days.
Materials/Resources Used:
Manhattan Basic Course
Manhattan Books (including Advanced Quant Guide)
OG15/V15/Q15
OG16/V16/Q16
Kaplan GMAT 800
Practice Tests (and approximate dates):
MGMAT 1 (8/15 before course started): 660
MGMAT 2 (10/7): 640
MGMAT 3 (10/22): 700
GMAC CAT 1 (11/02): 720
GMAT EXAM 1 (11/09): 740
MGMAT 4: (11/19): 720
GMAC CAT 2 (11/27): 770
GMAC CAT 3 (12/5): 760
GMAC CAT 4( 12/9): 730
GMAT EXAM 2 (12/16): 770
1. For anyone who has been out of school for a while it may take you a few months to get to where you want to be on the GMAT. I found it really helpful to have 3-4 months set aside for studying. I would also recommend that if you have been away from the material for a while that you take some type of prep course. For me the advantage was that the course I took (Manhattan) gave me a very detailed syllabus that laid out "do this during Week 1, this during Week 2, etc." The course started with the basics and worked from there.
2. No matter how busy you are you can still get the GMAT done and get the studying done. I routinely work 70-80 hour weeks and have a family so needless to say I did not have the most advantageous study schedule. The key for me was making the time count. That is where the syllabus really helped. Overall I would say I studied 12-18 hours per week.
3. The first 9 weeks of my studying was focused on learning the material. The last 6 weeks was focused on reviewing. Once I had a handle on the material the key was doing hundreds (if not thousands) of practice problems and taking atleast one practice test per week to familiarize myself with the the test atmosphere.
4. Don't get discouraged, especially if your practice test scores go down. I scored lower on a practice test in week 6 than I did at the beginning before I knew anything. I also scored lower on a practice test the week before my actual exam than I did two and three weeks before my exam. The key is viewing each exam as an opportunity to learn something new (about the material, timing, etc.) and then trying to make sure that those mistakes are not repeated in the future.
4. Quant: This was definitely the harder of the two sections for me. Overall I spent 70% of my time on quant. First I had to relearn math concepts. Then I had to learn the types of questions on the GMAT. The key for me was the review period in weeks 10-16. I did hundreds of problems and using an error log, eventually got to where I either a) knew what the problem was asking and how to do it or b) I knew that I needed to take an educated guess and move-on. At some point the OG problems just aren't enough. That is where the MGMAT tests are very helpful. Although I found the math on these to be much tougher than the real test (I routinely scored 4-5 points lower on MGMAT quant than on the GMAC exams) they do teach you how to think. Also, the Advanced MGMAT Quant guide is a great resource.
5: Verbal: Here are some takeaways from my studies (note this is what worked best for me but it may not work best for you)
a. Overall takeaways: I really feel the key is finding questions that are similar in difficulty to the questions you will see on the actual test. After a couple months of studying I only did problems that were very difficult. I used the OGs, the Verbal supplements, the Kaplan 800 book (while I thought this was a mediocre resource for quant it is a GREAT resource for harder verbal questions and I really believe it helped raise my verbal score), and the practice tests. If it wasn't a higher difficulty question I didn't study it. I think this helps because many of the traps the GMAT has on harder questions are different than they ones they have on easier questions. If you answer enough hard questions you begin to recognize these traps and understand what the question writer is doing. Also, whenever I got an SC or CR question wrong I would write it down in a notebook and then review it repeatedly over the coming days/weeks.
b. Reading Comprehension: In terms of strategy for RC I read the passage and then answer the questions. I don't take notes. I found that this saved me a ton of time and made it easier for me to concentrate on the material in the passage rather than trying to write something on my paper. Initially I used the OG and the Verbal supplements for passages and then once I had exhausted those resources I used the Kaplan 800 book and the MGMAT and GMAC practice tests (I would go back and do questions over again).
c: Sentence Correction: Initially I went through the MGMAT SC Guide and took notes on all of the rules and the types of questions found on the GMAT. Then I answered as many of the harder OG and Verbal supplement questions as I could find. Then I used the Kaplan 800 book and the MGMAT and GMAC practice tests to find even more tough questions. Anytime I got a question wrong I wrote it down and then came back to it repeatedly. For example, it I got a question wrong because I used "like" instead of "such as" I would write down the question, memorize the rule, and then review the question at a later date.
d: Critical Reasoning: Similar to RC, I read the question and then answer it, I do not take notes. The only exception is questions that involve some type of statistics (i.e. bread sales go up X% over this five year period, population goes up X% over this five year period, etc.). Once again I used the OG and supplements, the Kaplan 800 guide, and practice tests. Also, like SC, I wrote down questions I got wrong and then came back to them at a later date.
6. Random takeaways: I found that I learned material faster when I broke up my studying into one hour chunks rather than a single long session. I found it really helpful to do all of my practice tests and practice quant problems using the MGMAT exam booklet and marker modeled after the actual ones you get at the testing center. Anything you can do to make the practice test environment more realistic is very helpful.
I hope this helps!
Materials/Resources Used:
Manhattan Basic Course
Manhattan Books (including Advanced Quant Guide)
OG15/V15/Q15
OG16/V16/Q16
Kaplan GMAT 800
Practice Tests (and approximate dates):
MGMAT 1 (8/15 before course started): 660
MGMAT 2 (10/7): 640
MGMAT 3 (10/22): 700
GMAC CAT 1 (11/02): 720
GMAT EXAM 1 (11/09): 740
MGMAT 4: (11/19): 720
GMAC CAT 2 (11/27): 770
GMAC CAT 3 (12/5): 760
GMAC CAT 4( 12/9): 730
GMAT EXAM 2 (12/16): 770
1. For anyone who has been out of school for a while it may take you a few months to get to where you want to be on the GMAT. I found it really helpful to have 3-4 months set aside for studying. I would also recommend that if you have been away from the material for a while that you take some type of prep course. For me the advantage was that the course I took (Manhattan) gave me a very detailed syllabus that laid out "do this during Week 1, this during Week 2, etc." The course started with the basics and worked from there.
2. No matter how busy you are you can still get the GMAT done and get the studying done. I routinely work 70-80 hour weeks and have a family so needless to say I did not have the most advantageous study schedule. The key for me was making the time count. That is where the syllabus really helped. Overall I would say I studied 12-18 hours per week.
3. The first 9 weeks of my studying was focused on learning the material. The last 6 weeks was focused on reviewing. Once I had a handle on the material the key was doing hundreds (if not thousands) of practice problems and taking atleast one practice test per week to familiarize myself with the the test atmosphere.
4. Don't get discouraged, especially if your practice test scores go down. I scored lower on a practice test in week 6 than I did at the beginning before I knew anything. I also scored lower on a practice test the week before my actual exam than I did two and three weeks before my exam. The key is viewing each exam as an opportunity to learn something new (about the material, timing, etc.) and then trying to make sure that those mistakes are not repeated in the future.
4. Quant: This was definitely the harder of the two sections for me. Overall I spent 70% of my time on quant. First I had to relearn math concepts. Then I had to learn the types of questions on the GMAT. The key for me was the review period in weeks 10-16. I did hundreds of problems and using an error log, eventually got to where I either a) knew what the problem was asking and how to do it or b) I knew that I needed to take an educated guess and move-on. At some point the OG problems just aren't enough. That is where the MGMAT tests are very helpful. Although I found the math on these to be much tougher than the real test (I routinely scored 4-5 points lower on MGMAT quant than on the GMAC exams) they do teach you how to think. Also, the Advanced MGMAT Quant guide is a great resource.
5: Verbal: Here are some takeaways from my studies (note this is what worked best for me but it may not work best for you)
a. Overall takeaways: I really feel the key is finding questions that are similar in difficulty to the questions you will see on the actual test. After a couple months of studying I only did problems that were very difficult. I used the OGs, the Verbal supplements, the Kaplan 800 book (while I thought this was a mediocre resource for quant it is a GREAT resource for harder verbal questions and I really believe it helped raise my verbal score), and the practice tests. If it wasn't a higher difficulty question I didn't study it. I think this helps because many of the traps the GMAT has on harder questions are different than they ones they have on easier questions. If you answer enough hard questions you begin to recognize these traps and understand what the question writer is doing. Also, whenever I got an SC or CR question wrong I would write it down in a notebook and then review it repeatedly over the coming days/weeks.
b. Reading Comprehension: In terms of strategy for RC I read the passage and then answer the questions. I don't take notes. I found that this saved me a ton of time and made it easier for me to concentrate on the material in the passage rather than trying to write something on my paper. Initially I used the OG and the Verbal supplements for passages and then once I had exhausted those resources I used the Kaplan 800 book and the MGMAT and GMAC practice tests (I would go back and do questions over again).
c: Sentence Correction: Initially I went through the MGMAT SC Guide and took notes on all of the rules and the types of questions found on the GMAT. Then I answered as many of the harder OG and Verbal supplement questions as I could find. Then I used the Kaplan 800 book and the MGMAT and GMAC practice tests to find even more tough questions. Anytime I got a question wrong I wrote it down and then came back to it repeatedly. For example, it I got a question wrong because I used "like" instead of "such as" I would write down the question, memorize the rule, and then review the question at a later date.
d: Critical Reasoning: Similar to RC, I read the question and then answer it, I do not take notes. The only exception is questions that involve some type of statistics (i.e. bread sales go up X% over this five year period, population goes up X% over this five year period, etc.). Once again I used the OG and supplements, the Kaplan 800 guide, and practice tests. Also, like SC, I wrote down questions I got wrong and then came back to them at a later date.
6. Random takeaways: I found that I learned material faster when I broke up my studying into one hour chunks rather than a single long session. I found it really helpful to do all of my practice tests and practice quant problems using the MGMAT exam booklet and marker modeled after the actual ones you get at the testing center. Anything you can do to make the practice test environment more realistic is very helpful.
I hope this helps!
26 Dec 2015, 18:42
Kudos
Bookmarks
Congratulations! Great debrief. Best of luck on your future endeavors.
30 Dec 2015, 10:10
Kudos
Bookmarks
Amazing score congratulations !!
The post is quite imapirational. I really struggle with quant particularly because if my non math background.
Would be great if you could give some tips particularly for quant !!
Once again congrats on the amazing score , stay blessed.
Regards
G
The post is quite imapirational. I really struggle with quant particularly because if my non math background.
Would be great if you could give some tips particularly for quant !!
Once again congrats on the amazing score , stay blessed.
Regards
G
