GMAT test day :
12th December 2019Days to GMAT:
19Hours studied:
14Mood:
Feeling DeterminedPrep Tests:GMAT Prep 1: 620(Q37,V38) 19.11.2019
Hi Everyone,
I guess this thread will be the most interesting for people who are currently studying for the GMAT or for someone who wants to see an average joe's experience prepping for the test.
About me:
I'm in my last semester of my bachelor in an European university. Couple days ago, while talking with an old friend, I realized that I have a decent to good chance to be accepted to a good business school (in Europe) for my masters (planning on starting next fall). Well, apart from good grades, internships, extracurricular and work experience I need to score well on the GMAT. The caveat is that I am on a tight schedule. To be more precise 12th of December tight.
So, I ordered the
OG 2020 which arrived yesterday and signed myself up to take the GMAT. After a day of reading the "theory" sections of the verbal as well as quant part and doing some online exercises I decided to immediately take the first official prep test today for a baseline score. I got a Score of 620 Q37 V38. I'm pleased with my V38 for a start but not so much with my Q37 as I am usually a bit better in math test. I also felt that the further I was in the quant part the easier the questions got. I guess I did my big mistakes at the start of the quant section.
Now my goal is to score above 700!
The good part about still being a student is, that I can free up these 23 days quite well to only focus on studying for the GMAT.
For me, this thread will be mostly to keep track of my work progress and connect to fellow preppers.
Any advice on how I should tackle my preparation is highly appreciated :D.
Feel free to connect or just drop a hi, I'll definitely keep an eye on the thread.
My goal for tomorrow is to come up with a study plan and start to properly preparing myself.
Learn Journal:Day 1
Results of the day: 160 Quant questions, 34 wrong, 16 Pumpkins | level easy-medium
Goal for Tomorrow: Finishing the
OG 2020 Quant Book
I started the day off well, was feeling good and started tackling the Quant section. I need to find out where exactly I am bad at regarding question type as well as level of difficulty.
I took the
OG 2020 Quant book and started doing PS as well as DS question sets. I did 20 Questions from PS and then another 20 from DS in the sequence they come in the book.
I did 4 of these double sets with 5 to 10 min breaks in between. Overall time spent 5.5 hours.
First two sets went decent, with 3 respective 6 errors. The question felt on a easy, medium, hard scale rather easy.
Second set did not go as well, especially towards the end with 12 respective 13 errors. The difficulty was medium.
Thus, out of 160 Questions I got 34 wrong. Not good. I really noticed that 16 of my mistakes were done, not because I did not know how to tackle the issue but because I just was not concentrated enough and skipped either instructions
or stopped early with the calculations. I give these mistakes the word
Pumpkin. Pumpkin mistakes are stupid and should not occur again.
I also started a Log in which i will keep book about all the exercises I do and if I do them wrong i write down what kind of question it is and how I should improve. =>
Error LogI spent about another 2-3 hours on Veritas Prep YouTube videos and find them immensely helpful. (I do not count these hours as study hours as they are more passive than active)
Goal for tomorrow is to finish the
OG 2020 Q Book and know specifically where my weak spots are in quant.
I also need to figure a way out to be able to concentrate myself better towards the end of the study day.
Day 2&3Results of the days: 160 Quant questions, 65 wrong, 12 Pumpkins | level medium-hard
Goal for Tomorrow: Math; Statistics/Combinatorics, Revise Arithmetic
Finishing up to
OG Quant part really showed my where my weaknesses are regarding quant. In general, I far better in PS then in DS. It is also frustrating to see that from a good start in the first part my mistakes doubled!
A 31% error quota really dampens my optimism. The silver lining is, that the increase in mistakes corresponds with the A) perceived difficulty and B) with the stated difficulty of the
OG book. I am definitely proportionally weak regarding probability, statistics, combinatorics & number properties. My strength is definitely geometry where I did hardly any mistakes (also what I enjoy doing the most). Mistakes also occurred because I did not read the prompt carefully enough, which is throwing points out of the window. I got my hands on the quant part of the
Manhattan prep from a friend and will read up on the topics I am weak in. I am not sure how I shall increase my DS abilities.
Overall, I will focus now on the hard questions as spending time on the easy level does not seem to give me any benefit.
MaterialsExcercise QuestionsOG 2020 Quant: Mistakes (99/319) 31%
ErrorLogOG 2020:
OG 2020 Verbal
OG 2020 Quant
Wrong Once
PS:8,19,32,39,42,51,57,58,64,65,67,74,75,76,80,107,118,124,125,135,140,141,143,145,147,150,157,158,159,164,166,173
DS:183,185,189,191,200,202,206,219,222,226,233,234,242,246,247,251,252,254,255,266,268,271,287.296,298-305,307,308,315,317,319
P.S. Please apologize if my post might seem a bit chaotic, I guess they'll get a bit more structured as time progresses.
P.P.S. I will edit this post in the thread so that anyone who jumps in does not particularly need to scroll through all the posts