Debrief GMAT Preparation - 700 (Q49/ V36)

ladidadi, can you give tips on how you went from 43 - 49? Did you keep reviewing the MGMAT guides or did you pick it up after doing a lot of OG practice problems?

Regarding GMAT Focus, there is a slight overlap of questions with the OG12. During my 4 GMAT Focus tests I had 1-2 questions per test that I had seen already. Overall I can still recommend it, in particular if you want a reliable gauge of where you stand with your math preparation and do not mind spending the money of 25$ per test.

In terms of tips for the quantitative section, there are a couple of things that you have to focus on I guess. Timing is definitely crucial. In the first GMAT Prep test I spent way too much time on the first 2/3 of the questions and ended up rushing the last 1/3. I would say that the single most important thing in my preparation was to understand how the adaptive test works and what test taking approach it requires.

Hence I spent quite some time on analyzing the Manhattan GMAT test statistics. Besides general timing issues one thing that I found in my case was that I did better on the 700-800 questions than the 600-700. The 600-700 questions seemed to be more 'calculation heavy' whereas many questions among the 700-800s did not require any calculations at all, but rather an understanding of math principles or general logic. So practicing the 600-700 questions was the second most important thing for me, since getting more of them right simply increased the number of shots at more difficult questions.

In terms of preparation material I would say that Manhattan GMAT was great for understanding the basic/ advanced principles that are required. The same applies to the MGMAT question banks and CAT questions. They are good to practice your fundamental understanding. At the same time I had the feeling that going through the OG questions was more helpful in terms of actual test drilling. Another good source to practice more difficult questions where the 99 700+ questions from the GMAT Prep that you can find in this forum. I only managed to go through some of them, since I ran out of preparation time. But my feeling was that focusing on them for a couple of more days would have helped to score higher at math.

Congratulations on your score and thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Could you please describe your study routine in greater detail?

Also, could you describe your test day experience, your study/life/work balance, and how you managed your motivation during your relatively long preparation?

Thank you.

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Sure, but I am not sure whether I have a lot insights to contribute regarding motivation. My part-time preparation was pretty light I would say. I only spent time on reading the 8 MGMAT bocks and understanding the different concepts. I did not do any exercises during the first 3 months. Having that said, I do not think this was a very efficient way to prepare. In hindsight the best way to do it is probably to go through the theory in one or two weeks straight and then start with exercises. But at least I did not have any motivation issues during the 3 months, since I took it very easy.

My full-time preparation was different and also at least partially frustrating. I had to overcome one major setback. My original game plan was to beef-up my verbal skills and not focus on math too much. Incremental increases on verbal improve your overall score much more than increases on math. So that is why I chose to do it this way. Two weeks down the line I realized that this was not going anywhere. I had not achieved any improvements on verbal. Plus I was very annoyed by the RC section, since I always thought how easy it would be if you could do it in your native language. Anyways, I scratched by original game plan and started focusing only on math for the remaining two weeks. That went much better and since I could see improvements on a daily basis it was really easy to motivate myself to continue studying.

I am not sure whether there is any key learning. For my situation it would have been better to show a more balanced score between quant and verbal I guess. But I guess there was no way to force it. Had I stuck to my original plan, I am sure I would not have stayed motivated and focused.

On a completely different note, I think it is also important not to get too stressed out. I continued with sports for example and continued going out at least once week. I cannot tell, whether this is a make-or-break criteria, but for sure it helps to get some distraction every once in a while.

My study/ work-life balance is easy to describe. During the 3 months part-time preparation I was working. My work does not allow for much studying on the side, so usually I squeezed in 1 hour from 12:00 pm – 1:00 am before going to bad. And then another 5 hours spread across the weekend. During my 1 month full-time preparation I did not work at all. I focused on doing exercises usually around 10-12 hours during the week and around 6 – 8 hours during the weekend. I kept the routine up through-out the whole month and only kept the day before the actual test free. As I mentioned already above, I did verbal exercises during the first two weeks and math during the last two. Overall I felt, that I had squeezed in too much. Another 1 week for math would have been good. My preparation for verbal felt like a complete waste of time.

The test day went quite smooth. On the math part there was really nothing surprising at all. I felt a little nervous during the first couple of questions. I also did more checks before final answers than during test preparation and was watching the time more often. Verbal felt extremely tough. Two of the RC passages felt like a joke since I hardly understood a word. But even that was not too surprising. I had already mentally prepared myself for the worst in verbal. I can tell that for math my feeling was exactly the score that I got and for verbal my score actually exceeded my expectations.

Thanks a lot for your answers.



How did you measure your progress and improvement?

Also, didn't you feel tired after studying so intensively for one month? Or are you used to it?

Progress I measured with a test-log (excel test-log from this forum). I classified all questions by type, specific topic and difficulty. These data-points showed me pretty accurately where I was making progress. As I said I could see the 'stats' improving on a continuous basis. For the analysis you can just pivot-table the data and have a look at different splits.

The workload was heavy but I am used to it from my job. I usually work 70-90 hours a week. So the hours spent on GMAT prep fell exactly in that bracket. But again, I do not necessarily recommend my time schedule. Had I had the chance I would have taken more time off, but that was not an option in my case.

If you are pressed in time I would probably recommend you to focus on your area of strength rather than to try to improve your weakness. I think most people are strong in either math or verbal, at least in relative terms. Moreover, if your not a native English speaker and have limited time I think the only good chance you have is to beef-up your math game. I have seen this pattern not only in my case but also among friends and colleagues.

So every day you took questions from all math categories (e.g., mixture problems, geometry etc.) and compared them to your previous results in the same categories?

I started with taking a mix of all math categories. I used the MGMAT categories for that purpose. Once I had a good sample of data-points, I made some cuts: 1. Good 2. Mediocre 3. Bad. Then I focused on 2./ 3. and repeated the approach until I ran out of preparation time.

Could you elaborate on this more because I don't think I follow you? A small example would be great. Thanks.

Great debrief! Thanks for the details