730 Q48 V42 -Thank you from a guy who studied GMAT for 3 yrs

3 years, I started my GMAT journey back on June 12, 2007 and finally put an end to it last week on January 13, 2009.

620 Q47 V28 AWA 4.5 -> 650 Q50 V 28 AWA 5.0 -> 730 Q48 V42 AWA 5.0

My GMAT experience:
My test experience started back in 2007 after I passed my CPA exam in January 07 on my first try. I took couple months break and started to think about graduate school. I opened the Princeton Review book in June and started my intensive study around October 07 with the aim of scoring a 700+ on December 5th. I took a whole week off in November and went back to my old college to study in the library for 8+ hours a day. I end up scoring a 620 which I wasn’t too happy about. I think I was lucky back then because the verbal was easier and I even got the exact same essay question as one that I practiced off from the back of the Official Guide although I only scored a 4.5 on AWA. After my December 2007 exam it was clear to me that entering business school in 2008 wasn’t possible for me, so I took several months off. I didn’t restart my studying process until May and didn’t start to get serious about studying until August 08. My goal was to get the exam done by August then spends several months doing volunteer stuff before applying for MBA in October 07. I pushed the exam to October because I came across the 2nd person that I wanted to marry in my life. In October 07, I walked in the test center for the second time with the expectation that it would be my final test because I put in a lot more effort on my second attempt. I did very well in Math because I was got almost every question right without guessing. I was even able to get the last question correct by randomly plugging in answers. The verbal part was completely unexpected as I ran into questions that is much harder that those that I practiced. Especially on the reading part, I ran into a question that was full of quotations from different people with different ideas. I never saw such difficult passage before and it asked all global and inference questions which are the worse type of question to answer after reading a passage that I couldn’t understand. I think I bombed the entire passage and got some really easy sentence correction and critical reasoning near the end. I end up getting a 28 in verbal, which is exactly what I scored nearly a year ago with a lot less study. I was so unhappy and about to give up the exam. Then, I came across some encouragement on the GMAT forum where a member on the forum said success might be just around the corner and encourage another member to give the exam an extra shot. I kept that believe in my mind and prepared to take my exam for the 3rd time.

Test center experience:
My experience for the third exam wasn’t that good. I visited the test center back in mid December 08 to make sure it was quiet and nice enough for exam. However, the test center had some excessive banging noise when I was taking my Math part and I had to guess several questions just to not fall behind too much. I thought I was going to do bad but I still managed to catch up the math and finish all questions. I complained to the test center administrator about the noise and she said it was caused by heater. I knew that wasn’t true because the noise occurs at various frequently and intensity. I even heard someone dropping a hammer on the floor. After Math section I took around 7 out of 10 minutes for break. My goal was to maximize every possible break because my brain performs better when I take frequent long breaks. My focus this time is to treat the Verbal part as an independent exam. I tried not to let my bad Math score influence my Verbal performance. After I finished the Verbal the question of whether I want to report/cancel my score appear on the screen. I stared at the screen for 5 minutes before proceeding. During that time I think back to all the preparation that I had done for GMAT and pray that I don’t have to retake this exam again. I expected a 670 +- 30 points so when I saw a 730 on the screen I couldn’t help but to raise both of my hands up in the air because I was relieved that my GMAT journey is finally over.

Background:
I am a 26 year old that lives in New York City. If you ever wonder how a family of four with $10,000 annual income can survive that’s me. Born in one of the poorest family in the United States, I am neither a gifted student nor a child from a family that can afford any tutoring. I failed the English regent twice in high school. I was not motivated because racial discrimination was high in my neighborhood. I get punch and pushed around for being the minority in my school on a regular basis. Most of my friends dropped out of high school because they could not take the beating in school. I was one of the few that survived. I went to an average public state university in upstate New York with SAT score around 1100 from the old SAT that had no essays and graduated in May 2004.


Approximately time spend studying:
860 hours, yes I am crazy enough to time myself to the minutes. Over 90% of my time is spent over the 2-3 months right before each exam so I often spend over 30 hours per week to study while working full time.

I would like to thank everyone on GMAT forum, especially to klb15 and Ntang who encouraged me during the darkest time in my life. Without you guys things might have been different. I am so glad that I am finally able to move on with my life.

If I can do it you can do it too because this club is full of talented people I was scoring 25% tile on the GMAT club challenge and still managed get a 50 on Q on my second try.

Thank you guys!!!

Material that I used: