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Updated on: 12 Jan 2015, 19:50
Originally posted by toshimelonhead on 04 Sep 2014, 11:23.
Last edited by toshimelonhead on 12 Jan 2015, 19:50, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by toshimelonhead on 12 Jan 2015, 19:50, edited 1 time in total.
Kudos
Bookmarks
Section 1: Background
Section 2: Study Materials and Habits
Section 3: Practice Tests
Section 4: Test Day
Section 5: Results and Takeaways
- 670 (48Q / 35V / 6IR / 5.5AWA)
- Took test right after graduating from school when relatively less busy.
- No relevant work experience but good to take before working and a good way to learn how to study before the big bad CFA exams come in June.
- ~3.0 GPA, Economics / History double major. Investing junkie with some good leadership experience with school investing club.
- I had a lot of experience with prior standardized tests (30+ ACT, many AP credits coming in to college, Passed FM)
- Study time: ~6 weeks (from registration to test). Easy to “study” without putting a real date down. Don’t waste your time studying without an exam date set.
Section 2: Study Materials and Habits
- Primary study tools (GMAT Pill, GMAT Club Tests)
- GMAT Pill is excellent for Verbal, since once you reach a high enough score on Quant (46+) Verbal is the only thing that really matters for scoring higher.
- Watched all of the Verbal videos, did some Quant videos / questions but didn’t finish.
- Only suggestion for GMAT Pill: Have Coursera-style speed options (1.25x speed, 1.5x speed, etc.). Dunno if this was intentional or not, but liked how the audio went choppy when browsing other windows to keep me focused.
- GMAT Club Tests: Best quant resource out there. These really help you get the fundamentals down and provide enough of a challenge to keep those aiming for a top score engaged.
- Study habits
- I kept study sessions short, no more than 2 times a day for 2 hours at a time (exception: practice tests). Any more is extremely demotivating. Learned that from taking actuarial exams.
- If I had to do it again / had more motivation: Redo the practice pill problem questions in all verbal sections. I went through the SC / CR practice pill questions once, but doing them twice would have helped with retention.
- Did most of my studying online. I had the OG and did not use it much. It’s an online test, so use online resources!
- Days off of studying are very good things. Use them.
- Exercise is good, too. The GMAT scores skew heavily towards the Verbal, hence why I'm sure they put it last (/sarcasm). Mental toughness for verbal is just as important as practicing questions. Try practicing Verbal when you are tired once in a while to get the feel of what that last hour feels like.
Section 3: Practice Tests
- Took diagnostic year before with Manhattan and scored 590 (40Q / 30V).
- After graduation, took GMAT Pill practice diagnostic and scored 570 (39Q / 29V).
- Takeaway: GMAT is a learnable test. It is designed to give schools an idea of your capabilities of handling first-year graduate school coursework. Respect the GMAT even if the concepts seem basic. Very easy to get “entitlement tilt.”
- Quant: 21, 41, 47, 33, 51
- Verbal: 34, 32, 36
For the single subject practice tests, I noticed that whenever I studied a particular subsection in depth, I would get around a 20-30% boost in that subsection. The boost did not last, though, and if I take the exam again, I would focus more on mastering a set of verbal problems instead of running around and attempting every unique question I could find on the internet.
GMAT Prep scores - GMAT Prep 1: 680 (47Q / 37V / 8IR)
- GMAT Prep 2: 720 (49Q / 39V / 8IR)
- Don’t let the IR section fool you. It’s the exact same for both sections, but I found the real exam IR tougher than the GMAT Prep software.
- Did not do the essay and while the essay was no issue, fatigue might have been for verbal. Chineseburned’s template is all you need here. If you don’t want to write the essay on your practice test, I guess staring at a screen for 30 minutes would do the same thing to simulate the fatigue factor. For the essay, they give a poor argument and your job is to take those reasons, from last presented to first presented, and tear them individually down using Chinseburned's template.
- GMAT Prep was very representative for quant, but there were 2-3 questions that were representative of the GMAT Club tests.
- I would not worry about scores on non-GMAT Prep tests. The GMAT scoring algorithm is as tough to replicate as the questions themselves. Focus on getting the questions right and reviewing the ones you get wrong.
GMAT Club Tests:
Section 4: Test Day
- Test center was only ~5 minutes away, so I did not bother to check that the site had closed before I took my test! Note, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHERE THE TEST SITE WILL BE.
- Luckily, I still made it to the new test location on time with no other issues.
- For breaks, realize that 8 minutes goes much faster than you think it does, especially if you put your ID in your locker or have trouble getting the locker open.
- For the scratchpad, a good way to simulate that is to do the math in pen. Had a professor once joke in college that you could use a pen on exams “if you don’t make any mistakes.” That's what taking a test with that scratch pad felt like (both the inability to erase and the pressure of not making mistakes).
- Finished all sections on time, Verbal 10 minutes early. The biggest time crunches for me were the IR and Quant sections. I kept one rule of thumb: spend no more than 2 times the average amount of time per question on each section (IR would be max 5 minutes, Quant max ~4 minutes). Knowing when to quit on a question is a very good skill.
Section 5: Results and Takeaways
- I am generally pleased with my results. 670 is a good score. It’s also relatively balanced (around 75th percentile in each section). I talked with someone associated with a grad school before taking the test who estimated my score at around 580-610. Felt good surpassing that without much trouble.
- However, I feel like I can do better IF I really want to retake this a few years from now. “80/80” and 700+ are both realistic goals for a future test date.
- Next steps: CFA Level 1, most likely in June. Now time to go job hunting!
- Shout out to Zeke Lee for the GMAT Pill.
- Suggestions for potential school ideas in the future? I'm open to a lot of ideas at the moment, either employment wise or grad school.
