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Updated on: 29 Nov 2010, 07:38
Originally posted by paulobajasaeusb on 28 Nov 2010, 19:17.
Last edited by paulobajasaeusb on 29 Nov 2010, 07:38, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by paulobajasaeusb on 29 Nov 2010, 07:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Hello, Gmatclub community. I've been a silent observer for a year now, learning and understanding the GMAT through this forum and its topics.
A little about me: Venezuelan, 25yo Male, Production Engineer, 3 years as business consultant (Undergrad's are 5 years here)
I first took the test a couple months ago, especifically in September. It didnt go that well, I must say. I had been studying for 2 months (took 1 month off work thanks to expired vacations) and went All in on the Manhattan Gmat books. All of them. Seriously, they are a must if you are serious about this stuff, which i later found out through my first attempt at GMAT. I did all the 8 books in that month off work, did all the OG problems twice (14-16 hours a day worth of studying) and after a 8 hour study session on a saturday, decided to take my first serious gmat prep.
I got a 590. Q47 V25
Not sorprisingly, I was devastated and it was definitely a wake up call for the verbal section, for which I hadnt prepared with that much enthusiasm, as i thought my english level was not that bad. I knew I needed help, so I returned to Gmatclub for it. Here i found slingfox's and Gin guides, which at the moment, I only read a couple of times.
I studied a little more, and took another Gmat prep and got a 670, Q48 V35. Now things were clicking.
I went to the job since my vacation time had expired, and somehow along my consulting schedule (12 hour a day minimum, as you may imagine) found the way to take manhattan tests. I took all of them within a two week period, and got 680 on 5 of them and a 700 on the last one (with a Q51). One thing about these tests that has already been mentioned a lot in this forum: Quant is ridiculously hard. I actually did Quant untimed as I was more interested in understanding and learning from the excersises than anything else; for Verbal i did it timed.
As I went through the Manhattan tests, i found a pattern for the scoring that may be relevant. If the Real GMAT is any like the Manhattan mechanism for scoring each section, the FIRST Questions are very important. It seems that it is a ponderated average of your percentile, since the effect of a wrong question is more important in the first ones than on the last ones. Here is a chart for both my verbal and quant percentile variation throughout each of the Manhattan tests; hopefully it is visible the principle im trying to explain here.
After scoring a 700 , 730 and a 720 on Gmat prep and believing in the most naive way that I would get at least a 680 in the real thing, I booked the beast and took it on a wednesday afternoon. Took all day to be rested for the exam, arrived early, brought some red bull, food, the works.
I had never done the essays, I just read chineseburned AWA guide two days before and did my own template. AWA went good, then came Quant, wich i thought was relatively easy, and then verbal. I dont know what happened, but I just couldnt decide in at least 60% of the questions for a right anwesr choice, specially in SC. RC was incredibly tough (I didnt understood anything of two of the passages that i got), and throughout the test I knew that I was bombing verbal. It was impossible for me to get the questions right if i didnt understood the texts... and there it was, at the end of the test a respectable but not good enough for me 640 (Q48 V31). 5 Days later came the AWA at 5.5.
To say the least is to say that I was shattered. I think i was in denial for 4 days straight, just out of my mind trying to figure out what had happened. Then it hit me: I didnt understand the basics enough as to be able to rule out every question on Verbal. Verbal it is not about getting the right answer, it about ruling 4 wrong answers.
So I took some advice from this faithfull and committed community, and decided to retake the exam. I studied for 2 months SC and RC. I did about 100 excersisses from 1000 RC's and all 200 from the SC guide that has every difficult GMAT prep question. This I combined with reading Manhattan Gmat SC 5 times, and reading SlingFox and RC guide's on SC twice a day each (Yes, twice a day each) for 3 weeks prior to the exam.
I took the exam on thursday and got a 720 (Q49 V38) . I just couldnt believe the score when I saw it; thought it was a joke.. I was expecting a 680-690 tops, since i tend to get nervous during exams. This time the test deffinitely seemed easier, maybe because i really knew what I was doing and why I was doing it during the whole test. Quant was super easy (around 500-600 level questions from Manhattan Gmat) and Verbal was on par with OG and Manhattan Gmat. I dont know, things just clicked this time.
Now on to the Stanford essays, I already did IE and IESE ones; hopefully I'll be able to hit the RII deadline for Stanford.. we'll see.
I have only 2 advices (that I at least think that havent been mentioned before) for people out there:
Read the Manhattan SC book and Slingfox-Gin SC guides a lot; know them by heart, almost to a point where you can close your eyes and picture all of the things stated in the guides.
Im a pro First questions kind of guy. I know it is a myth, I know it has been debunked by a lot of people, but if the scoring mechanism is any like the manhattan one, it is an important matter, as you start on a 100 percentile and go downwards from there, with each subsequent question affecting less than the one preceding it; Im pretty sure it is a ponderated (weighted) average. Or at least it seems to be.
Thanks to you all who without knowing helped me achieve the 700 mark,
Cheers!
Curves:
QUANT: https://imgur.com/IiqyX&u2cwG
VERBAL: https://imgur.com/IiqyX&u2cwGl
A little about me: Venezuelan, 25yo Male, Production Engineer, 3 years as business consultant (Undergrad's are 5 years here)
I first took the test a couple months ago, especifically in September. It didnt go that well, I must say. I had been studying for 2 months (took 1 month off work thanks to expired vacations) and went All in on the Manhattan Gmat books. All of them. Seriously, they are a must if you are serious about this stuff, which i later found out through my first attempt at GMAT. I did all the 8 books in that month off work, did all the OG problems twice (14-16 hours a day worth of studying) and after a 8 hour study session on a saturday, decided to take my first serious gmat prep.
I got a 590. Q47 V25
Not sorprisingly, I was devastated and it was definitely a wake up call for the verbal section, for which I hadnt prepared with that much enthusiasm, as i thought my english level was not that bad. I knew I needed help, so I returned to Gmatclub for it. Here i found slingfox's and Gin guides, which at the moment, I only read a couple of times.
I studied a little more, and took another Gmat prep and got a 670, Q48 V35. Now things were clicking.
I went to the job since my vacation time had expired, and somehow along my consulting schedule (12 hour a day minimum, as you may imagine) found the way to take manhattan tests. I took all of them within a two week period, and got 680 on 5 of them and a 700 on the last one (with a Q51). One thing about these tests that has already been mentioned a lot in this forum: Quant is ridiculously hard. I actually did Quant untimed as I was more interested in understanding and learning from the excersises than anything else; for Verbal i did it timed.
As I went through the Manhattan tests, i found a pattern for the scoring that may be relevant. If the Real GMAT is any like the Manhattan mechanism for scoring each section, the FIRST Questions are very important. It seems that it is a ponderated average of your percentile, since the effect of a wrong question is more important in the first ones than on the last ones. Here is a chart for both my verbal and quant percentile variation throughout each of the Manhattan tests; hopefully it is visible the principle im trying to explain here.
After scoring a 700 , 730 and a 720 on Gmat prep and believing in the most naive way that I would get at least a 680 in the real thing, I booked the beast and took it on a wednesday afternoon. Took all day to be rested for the exam, arrived early, brought some red bull, food, the works.
I had never done the essays, I just read chineseburned AWA guide two days before and did my own template. AWA went good, then came Quant, wich i thought was relatively easy, and then verbal. I dont know what happened, but I just couldnt decide in at least 60% of the questions for a right anwesr choice, specially in SC. RC was incredibly tough (I didnt understood anything of two of the passages that i got), and throughout the test I knew that I was bombing verbal. It was impossible for me to get the questions right if i didnt understood the texts... and there it was, at the end of the test a respectable but not good enough for me 640 (Q48 V31). 5 Days later came the AWA at 5.5.
To say the least is to say that I was shattered. I think i was in denial for 4 days straight, just out of my mind trying to figure out what had happened. Then it hit me: I didnt understand the basics enough as to be able to rule out every question on Verbal. Verbal it is not about getting the right answer, it about ruling 4 wrong answers.
So I took some advice from this faithfull and committed community, and decided to retake the exam. I studied for 2 months SC and RC. I did about 100 excersisses from 1000 RC's and all 200 from the SC guide that has every difficult GMAT prep question. This I combined with reading Manhattan Gmat SC 5 times, and reading SlingFox and RC guide's on SC twice a day each (Yes, twice a day each) for 3 weeks prior to the exam.
I took the exam on thursday and got a 720 (Q49 V38) . I just couldnt believe the score when I saw it; thought it was a joke.. I was expecting a 680-690 tops, since i tend to get nervous during exams. This time the test deffinitely seemed easier, maybe because i really knew what I was doing and why I was doing it during the whole test. Quant was super easy (around 500-600 level questions from Manhattan Gmat) and Verbal was on par with OG and Manhattan Gmat. I dont know, things just clicked this time.
Now on to the Stanford essays, I already did IE and IESE ones; hopefully I'll be able to hit the RII deadline for Stanford.. we'll see.
I have only 2 advices (that I at least think that havent been mentioned before) for people out there:
Read the Manhattan SC book and Slingfox-Gin SC guides a lot; know them by heart, almost to a point where you can close your eyes and picture all of the things stated in the guides.
Im a pro First questions kind of guy. I know it is a myth, I know it has been debunked by a lot of people, but if the scoring mechanism is any like the manhattan one, it is an important matter, as you start on a 100 percentile and go downwards from there, with each subsequent question affecting less than the one preceding it; Im pretty sure it is a ponderated (weighted) average. Or at least it seems to be.
Thanks to you all who without knowing helped me achieve the 700 mark,
Cheers!
Curves:
QUANT: https://imgur.com/IiqyX&u2cwG
VERBAL: https://imgur.com/IiqyX&u2cwGl
28 Nov 2010, 21:31
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Chamo reventaste la liga!!! Yo apenas estoy estudiando, igual que tu soy un silent observer. Espero tener un logro similar!. Keep us posted. Cheers and congrats!
Posted from my mobile device
Posted from my mobile device
28 Nov 2010, 22:50
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I am at your 640 level right now. I haven't found any approach to crack RC questions. I am neither practicing nor identifying any approach for RC. I have to some how find motivation to work on RC questions from today.
