780 (Q50, V49) plus GMAT/GRE comparison

Question

I took the GMAT today and scored a 780 (Q50, V49)! Thank you to the regular posters in the GMAT Club community for your advice, practice problems, and debriefs. Your posts were very helpful during my preparation process, and I definitely would not have done as well as I did without y'all. I thought it would be helpful to share my prep advice with others who are still studying to take the test or thinking about starting to study. I also took the GRE recently, too, and I think there are pros and cons of each of the tests that I'll share after going through my GMAT prep program. 1. My GMAT Prep Experience First off, my background. I am a native English speaker who majored in a technical field at a US university. From the start, I knew I needed more work on math than on verbal. Don’t think that your degree in engineering will buy you a Q51 on the GMAT. GMAT math requires a very different set of skills than university-level math — you not only have to be a good problem solver, but also must be a fast thinker and have excellent intuition. You don’t have time to try three different approaches to attack a problem. If your first one isn’t right, you’ve just wasted a minute of valuable time. During my prep, I slowly learned that GMAT quant preparation is all about developing problem solving instincts so that your first stab at a problem takes you down the right road to a solution. In addition, I have a lot of thoughts about how your background might influence your decision to take the GMAT vs. the GRE; those views can be found in section two. A. Study Resources I started studying for the GMAT about a month ago, after having already studied for the GRE for a month before that. The primary study materials I used were the eight Manhattan Strategy Guides (I didn't buy Advanced Quant or the Official Guide Companion) and the Official Guide. In addition, I used the Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible and felt that it was incredibly helpful. The resources I found most useful were: The Manhattan Number Properties Guide — This book was incredibly helpful in shoring up the quant areas in which I was weak. I think that, even more than word problems, number properties problems are incredibly learnable if you are willing to put in the time. The Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible — Superb. These guys really know how to write a prep book. I feel that a lot of verbal prep materials are like 20 pages of actual solid strategies intermingled with 300 pages of BS. Not this one. There are so many gems in here. The most valuable strategy in the book, which I used a number of times during the test, is the Variance Test (I think this is discussed in reference to Evaluate the Argument-style questions). All OG problems — These were great and definitely resembled the problems on test. I don't have a lot to add to everyone else's effusive praise of the OG. Use it. Live it. Learn from it. The GMAT Club math book — there are a lot of fantastic strategies, formulas, and shortcuts in this PDF. I'd venture to say that it was more useful than the Manhattan strategy guides. GMAT Club 700+ math questions — I was very weak on rate/work DS problems, so I used the question tags and advanced search features on this forum to pull up lists of 700+ rate problems. Some of these are very hard, though, so don't let them get you down if you're struggling with them. B. Practice Tests I took a practice test about every five days. I found the Manhattan quant sections to be significantly more difficult than actual GMAT quant sections. My scores were: Manhattan CAT #1: 730 (Q45, V45) Manhattan CAT #2: 720 (Q44, V45) Manhattan CAT#3: 730 (Q45, V45) — I started to notice a pattern here :roll:

GMATPrep #1: 770 (Q50, V47) GMATPrep #2: 760 (Q49, V44) There are a few things to note here. First, I didn’t exhibit any noticeable improvement with my Manhattan CATs. I’m not sure if that actually means that they didn’t help me improve. On every CAT, I began to deploy new strategies that I was still getting adjusted to and, as a result, took longer on some questions and straight up just missed others that I would have nailed later on. Second, the Manhattan quant sections are, as everyone else seems to agree, way more difficult than the real thing . It’s really just ridiculous. The Manhattan staff insists that its scoring algorithm is an unbiased estimator of performance on the real test, but I have wonder how true that is on the upper end of quant. Perhaps undershooting performance for scorers who are on the upper end of quant is balanced out by overshooting performance for scorers who are on the lower end of quant. That said, I still think that the Manhattan tests (and, actually, the quant section in particular) are incredibly useful. They provide excellent tools for analyzing your performance and honing in on the areas in which you need to improve. I didn’t move on from any Manhattan exam I took before looking at the data from that exam and drawing a few conclusions about the directions in which I needed to take my prep. C. Study Methods I started off by using an error log in Excel, as everyone here recommends, but I didn’t actually like that format that much. I felt like it wasn’t giving me that much more insight into my strengths and weaknesses, and it just didn’t jive with me. I ended up switching to using flash cards, which are much more my style. If I got a problem wrong, and actually thought that I had something to learn from it, I made a flashcard out of that problem. I reviewed my stack of flashcards (which grew to about 200 by the end) every so often, and took flashcards out of the main stack once I felt that I had mastered them. In the two weeks leading up to my test, I did all of my quant studying using the Manhattan test simulation booklet and marker. These were GREAT. I introduced them around CAT #2, and while at first they were awkward to use (I wasn’t used to doing math in pen), they helped me get adjusted to the test environment well in advance of G-Day. I’d strongly recommend investing in these items and using them during your prep. I timed all of my practice sets, including flash card review sessions. The only time I didn’t use a timer was when I was straight up just learning a new concept. Time is such a key factor on this test that you have to get used to the time pressure from the start if you want to score well. 2. GRE vs. GMAT The most important takeaway here is that, if you are not a native English speaker, I would strongly recommend that you take the GMAT instead of the GRE . The GRE math section is definitely easier than the GMAT math section (I scored in the 97th percentile on GRE math vs. the 88th on the GMAT). On the other hand, the GMAT verbal section is significantly easier than the GRE verbal section (I scored well above the 99th percentile cutoff on the GMAT, while I scored in the 98th percentile on the GRE). The biggest difference between GMAT math and GRE math is that the latter is just a lot more straightforward. There are no DS problems, and you get to use a calculator. While it’s still an adaptive test, there is much less room for error (one mistake on the test knocks you out of the 99th percentile). Still, scoring in the 99th percentile on the quant section of the GRE is much more doable if you are not prone to making careless mistakes. On the verbal side, the GRE replaces SC questions with text completion/sentence equivalence questions. Text completions are essentially fiendishly difficult SAT vocabulary questions. While these questions might seem like they are just as— or even more — teachable than SC questions, not so fast. They require a deep understanding of English roots, relationships between words, and in the most difficult questions, a feeling for the different contexts in which near-synonymous words are used (e.g., when to use the word “mendicant” vs. when to use the word “vagrant”). The RC questions on the GRE are about as difficult as those on the GMAT. In my opinion, the major difference between the GRE and the GMAT verbal sections is that the former was designed to test individuals’ deep, well-ingrained knowledge of the English language, while the latter was designed to test individuals’ reasoning skills. If you are a non-native speaker, the latter test will almost certainly cater more to your strengths. Combine that with the fact that taking the GRE puts you in competition with people who are applying to PhD programs in English and History and the GMAT will almost always be a better choice for you if you are strong at reasoning but do not have as much experience speaking, reading, and writing in English. If, on the other hand, you are a native English speaker who is struggling on the GMAT math section, the GRE might be a good option for you. If you can shore up your weak areas a bit and get used to the different format of the GRE, definitely give it a try. Manhattan has a free diagnostic test that you can try out. GRE quant may very well be a breath of fresh air for you.

Laptophead · Answer

Congratulations - great brief!!
Have you still kept your flashcards ? Would be great if you are able to share 
thx

nyu2014 · Answer

One month of full time study?

freewinzy · Answer

I don't have them in electronic form, unfortunately, but I'm not sure how helpful they would be if you already are using prep books. Most of them are just duplicated questions from the OG and the Manhattan CATs.

Yeah. Definitely would have taken much longer (probably 4-5 months) if I'd been doing only an hour a day.

nyu2014 · Answer

I got two other questions for you on SC.

When you read the original sentence, do you just quickly skim it once to get a big picture on meaning/spot key words, error, and then read it again throughly?
When you start reading the the answer choices, do you generally just read the first couple words and last couple words vertically and decided from there?

Any suggestions on how to improve timing on SC? Thx

freewinzy · Answer

With SCs I think I'd generally just do one thorough read-through of the original sentence before diving into the answer choices. After reading the original sentence, I'd have some idea of what kind of corrections I'd be looking for, although often with harder questions I'd only have a general idea of the area of the sentence that was wrong but wouldn't get an actual firm grasp on how to correct the sentence until I read through the answer choices. As an aside, I think that an excellent way to practice your SC skills is to rewrite incorrect sentences from the OG and your practice tests, but that approach to problem solving simply is not a practical or efficient use of your time when you're taking the test.

After looking at the original sentence in an SC question, I'd almost always start with answer choice B and see if I could identify anything wrong with it. From there, I'd narrow down answer choices using  splits  while being aware of the fact that the GMAT authors know people use this strategy so sometimes will try to put in tricky near-splits that are actually grammatically different.

To be honest, I was never able to get down to the consistent 45-second SCs that everyone else seems to talk about during their debriefs. Especially with harder SCs, I think it's really important to put the answer choice you select back into the sentence to do a final sound check and make sure the sentence makes logical sense. With the most difficult SC questions I encountered during my prep (all of which required me to choose between two mechanically correct versions of a sentence where one version was more logically consistent than the other), I found myself spending around 1:30-1:45 to get to the right answer. To some GMATers, this use of time might sound absurd or even heretical, but I really think that, because SC questions are so learnable, you should be investing time on them and racking up all the points you can get, even if this approach might reduce the amount of time you're able to spend on harder RCs and CRs. By the way, this advice is entirely consistent with the recommendations MGMAT makes regarding time allocation on the test — don't try to finish the easier problems as quickly as you possibly can because you WILL make careless errors and these mistakes WILL hurt your score. You need to get the all of the "gimme" questions right so that you give yourself some leeway to get a few harder questions wrong down the line.

Still, this is just my personal view, so please don't take it as your hard-and-fast rule regarding verbal study if you don't feel that it makes sense to you. For the sake of full disclosure, I should mention that I am a relatively fast reader, so I was able to save a fair bit of time on RC and CR questions and thus devote more time than is typical on analyzing SCs.

honchos · Answer

gmatclub.com  certainly rocks.

AbhiJ · Answer

How much time on an average would you need to breeze through a RC passage. On a lighter note, I like your deliberate punchy writing style

.

nutrisoyboy · Answer

Great post and great job dood! Our study resources are almost the same.

Though I have been using MGMAT Advanced Quant. I wonder if you used this at all? My lastest score on MGMAT CATs is 740 (q46, v45). Haven't really done much GMAT club stuff other than a couple pages of practice problems. Do you think that is enough?

On the one hand I feel like going into the tests soon because it is wearing me out (been studying for 2-3 months), plus some app deadlines are coming up soon. On the other hand the gmat club qns seem to be more broad in scope than MGMAT.

Any advice?

freewinzy · Answer

Thanks!

I can't say that I had a standard time allocation per passage because not all passages were the same length. I don't think I ever spent more than a minute per paragraph, though. One trick that I found to be helpful was to always make sure that I was writing when I was reading RC passages. I would refuse to let myself write full sentences/phrases or even look down at the notepad, but just putting thoughts into word-form as I read helped me make sure that I was actually processing the information I was reading rather than simply scanning it over. I wouldn't let myself be slowed down by writing, though — I'd only end up writing down a few words per paragraph, but even then, if I felt that writing was slowing me down, I would pick my pen up and force myself to keep moving. Still, this technique ultimately helped me reduce the amount of time I spent on RC and CR passages because, by the end, I would rarely read a sentence and then have to force myself to read it again due to lack of comprehension. I always understood things on the first pass.

Your Q46 on your MGMAT CAT probably means that you're going to be pretty successful on the quant portion of the actual test. Verbal is way more variable, I think. Still, I felt that the PowerPrep exams were pretty reflective of the content of the verbal section on the actual GMAT, so I would see how you do on those tests. If you're satisfied with your verbal score and if you feel good about your pacing, you're definitely ready. You sound like you're in pretty much the same position I was in right before I took the test, so I wouldn't hesitate to just go in and take it, especially if you feel like you're nearing burnout. You want to be peaking right around G-Day.

With respect to GMAT Club questions, I definitely felt that the 700-level math questions were harder and broader (i.e. required you to integrate a greater number of concepts) than questions on the actual test. That said, however, I think that they are a very good way to build up your knowledge base in  particular areas  in which you're weak. I think just straight up doing sets of GMAT Club 700-level questions is a waste of time. But, for example, if you feel like you're weak in Combinatorics, searching for 700-level questions tagged with "Combinatorics" is an excellent way to find a bunch of really good problems that will test you in greater depth than almost any question on the GMAT would. In other words, don't use these problems to assay your abilities; use them to focus in on your weakest content areas and improve in those areas. I never felt like I was doing well on GMAT 700-level problems; even towards the end, my accuracy on these problems was only about 60% (NB: I only used them for math practice).

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