710 with 3 months study... and 750 two months later

Question

The beginning/pseudo-study.  I started my GMAT journey sometime in first quarter last year as I made the new year's resolution of getting into an MBA program in the-then next admissions cycle (Fall 2016 matriculation). I wanted to be frugal about it all (bad decision) while aiming for 700+, and I saw courses such as MGMAT as too expensive, so I signed up for Magoosh's self-study course, bought OG13, and scheduled 3 exams in October, November, and December so I'd have the option to cancel and not screw myself over for Round 2 deadlines.

By June I had watched a few of the videos, did a CAT as a benchmark (~600), and did some questions, but I hadn't actually engaged in any real studying up to the point. At the urging of my girlfriend, I signed up for an online course that would help keep me accountable with regards to study (Manhattan Review as MGMAT's time slots didn't suit me) and bought the MGMAT book set.

Actual study.  Both the arrival of my books and my first class fell on the last days of June, marking the beginning of the 3 months of intense study leading up to Test 1. For those 3 months I lived, ate, and breathed GMAT - besides the 3 hours of online class I had on Saturday mornings, I spent every lunch break with an MGMAT book, reading through all the chapters and doing all the practice problems, while at night after work I'd hit one of the OG13, MGMAT, or Magoosh question banks for continued practice of concepts I had just learnt. During my long work days (12-14 hours a day) I'd also try to sneak in some study, whether it was gmatclub's QOTD or the aforementioned question banks, with the added threat of my boss (who sits next to me though faces away from my computer) catching me an excellent way to force some mental math practice.

1.5 months out.  After a month and a half I had finished all the MGMAT books and attempted a CAT (I believe from MGMAT) 660. Still not good enough. I doubled down on studying, now using my lunch breaks to hit the question banks (I think I actually finished one or two), also adding a recent discovery, the VeritasPrep free question bank app, to my mix. I kept an informal log of how comfortable I felt with the different concepts - for those I had difficulty with I honed the question banks to give me only those types of problems (e.g. combinatorics), while those I had ease with I practiced along with other concepts I had mastered. If I started seeing I kept on getting problems wrong with concepts I thought I "mastered", I took them out and isolated the problem type again.

1 week out.  Coming into the week before my exam, I felt better about knowing the concepts and I attempted another CAT (either OG or MGMAT) - back to 600. Not a great sign. I also had a new dilemma - what would be the lowest score that I could accept? Normally I would just cancel until I breached 700, but I only had three tries to do so and if indeed I continued to score between 600-660, maybe I should take something close to 700 so I'd have a decent score. Settling on 680/690 I continued my study, which now involved a finer targeting of what I struggled with while maintaining intensity as well as the general question bank study I had been doing up until then.

Test 1.  I'm a morning person by virtue of my job, so scheduling morning sessions for all three tests was a given. I prepared my most comfortable set of clothes - apart from the obvious I wore jeans (cold testing center) and had both a cardigan and a hoodie so I could finely adjust once I got there. I also brought food (2 x cereal bars), a bottle of water, and eyedrops for the breaks. I read somewhere that standing confident helps trick you into confidence and forcing a smile can actually make you happier, so when it came time to take my picture I forced the cheesiest smile I could muster with a confident (back straight, chest out) sitting posture, which actually did make me feel a little better. Timing-wise I did alright. IR I ended up rushing but likely because I tried to mental math it out, though both Q and V I finished with a minute or so to go on both.

Somehow I got a 710.

Between Tests 1 and 2 (3-4 weeks).  I barely studied during this month - work had picked up and I was a bit behind as I allocated some time to GMAT study closer to the date. I also needed to get started on my applications and making plans to speak with current students and alumni, attend infosessions, and plan class visits. Did some daily question banks in the week leading up to Test 2.

Test 2.  A repeat of Test 1. Same clothes, same food/water/eyedrops, same break routine, and same cheesy smile. Timing improved with no more rush on IR (likely helped by actually using the on-screen calculator this time), while Q and V remained within the limit by a minute or two - 720.

Between Tests 2 and 3 (3-4 weeks).  I actually studied even less (almost not at all). I was very behind on my essays/applications (I was applying to several schools), and my full focus was on that. I reviewed my study concept "cheat sheet" the night before, and was ready for a sub-700 score that I would cancel.

Test 3.  Again, a repeat of Test 1 & 2, though oddly I felt much calmer - almost as if I didn't care - I think I even finished both Q and V sections with a lot of time to spare (5-10 minutes). Imagine how surprised I was when I saw that 750 pop up on the screen.

Looking back.  While all the question banks were very helpful, if I had to do it again I'd take the MGMAT online course with the books combined with free online resources (VeritasPrep, gmatclub, etc.). I'd also obviously start studying much earlier as well... heck I'd take it during my senior year of college.

Given the nature of the test and my test-taking style, I think I hit the right approach throwing continuous questions at myself, though some sort of foundation is definitely needed first (hence the MGMAT books).

At the end of the day one of those 5 answers is always correct, so skills developed through question bank practice like digesting the information (prompt and answer choices) quickly and correctly, identifying what skills are needed, eliminating bad answer choices and number sense are incredibly important, more so than being able to work out the whole thing. On the test I saved a lot of time being able to, after doing 30-seconds-1 minute of work, see that 3 or 4 answers were incorrect and answer that way. Some quant questions I could even bypass doing any math at all by just looking at what makes/doesn't make sense. It's the same with verbal (except no number sense needed here) - being able to quickly identify what you need to do, what relevant information is present, and what answers just look flat out wrong helps cut down time. GMAT is more a test of logic than anything else.

Product comments.  Starting from scratch the MGMAT books was hands down the best way to quickly teach me all the necessary concepts I'd need to know for test. Magoosh is a much stronger resource with regards to difficult quant questions (700+) as the explanations are incredible. Both question banks also have questions that are much more difficult which helped me operate better with those questions, though the downside is that there were some more difficult concepts I barely ran into on all three (hence wasted time/energy, but I'm sure I'd be singing a different tune had there been more).

As for the OG guide, it is the closest thing to the actual test (from what I've heard), but the question bank was much easier than the other two. Manhattan Review (online course) was good as well (good instructor), but given that my purpose was to keep me on track with studying, if I could streamline it with MGMAT (or Magoosh) I would. If you have good study habits and self-control (I don't) then an instructor-led course isn't necessary.

gmat730must · Answer

Congrats on the great score. What did u do differently during the final attempt that made all the difference? Also if you were to suggest one resource each for quant and verbal which could help cross 700, which would be those?

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lamderson · Answer

I think it was the fact that I achieved my initial goal of 700+ in my first attempt. In my second and third attempts I was much more apathetic and I think that lent to myself being less nervous/stressed about it all.

I was much less nervous, almost apathetic about the attempt, like as if I was just playing a game and trying to win. It was mainly because I reached my initial goal of breaching 700 in my first attempt. Additionally with only a month gap in between I was pretty used to the rhythm of the test, was more able to "let go" of frustrating problems, and was better at judging which questions I should try to solve and which would be more efficient to eliminate answers/use my best guess for (as such used the latter method more than before).

My English is pretty solid so the MGMAT verbal books were it for me. Magoosh for quant though the MGMAT books are also pretty good.

gmat730must · Answer

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a tendency to spend too much time upfront on questions, specially on problem solving in quant and on CR and RC in verbal, and usually end up with 12-13 questions to be done in 3-4 mins in both sections. Recently my score on Mick dropped from 730 to 640 :-(

As you mentioned that you had time to spare at the end of the section, it would really be interesting and helpful if you could let me know your time management tactics. Also i recently I have seen many posts which claim that the real exam was tougher than the GMAC mocks. Did you experience the same? Thanks Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

gmat730must · Answer

Please read Mick as mock..... The damn auto correction thing on the mobile kills me all the time

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lamderson · Answer

For this it takes a lot of knowing your own strengths and weaknesses with regards to question types. When I hit a question type I know I can solve quickly and correctly I do it very fast - within a minute or a minute and a half. If it's a question I can't do anything about (no idea how to solve, can't eliminate any answers) - this isn't too common though - I just straight up guess, which takes less than 10-20 seconds tops. Everything in between it's a mix - maybe I know I can solve the initial part of the problem that will help me eliminate more answer choices, then I do that and guess, if I have no idea how to solve the problem correctly but can see some answers don't make sense, I similarly eliminate and guess - either way this usually takes within 2 minutes.

This actually adds up to give you a nice time buffer for problems I'm confident I can solve but may take a bit longer than the 2 min/problem guideline, giving anywhere from an extra 10 seconds to a full minute on some questions that I know I can solve. I don't take it as a hard and fast rule, but if I find myself spending more than 2 minutes on a problem I start evaluating whether its worth finishing or if I should guess.

For verbal, except for the first question of a passage, I don't think it takes longer than 2 minutes per question, but I do the same with easy questions - solve ASAP, building up a time buffer for say, passages I need more time comprehending. As you can see it's probably easier to end verbal with more additional time than quant.

I'm not actually thinking actively about whether a problem is easy or not, just after enough practice you sort of "know" right off the bat how easy or hard a question is  for you.  Which is also why I like to use question banks as the main bulk of my study.

As a habit (not sure if it's good or bad - might not work for everybody), I'm also checking the time a lot, quickly making a mental estimate of time left and available time per remaining question, purely as a sanity check.

To be fair I didn't find GMAC questions very challenging so I just did the diagnostic CAT on that and didn't use their question bank as much as I did MGMAT, Magoosh, and VeritasPrep, which were all more difficult than the actual test.

SamirAbrahao · Answer

Because these question banks are all from 3rd parties, they obviously cannot mimic the real thing, and this is why I haven't tried them yet...

So you're basically saying that these 3rd party companies make their questions harder to make up for the differences compared to the real questions?

lamderson · Answer

No I'm not saying that at all. What I mean is that in my experience the questions from third-party providers seem harder compared to the real test based on my experience (for obvious reasons I can't do a finer comparison of the test vs. third party question banks). If I were to compare third-party resources against the OG question bank, I'd also say the OG questions are easier, but that's just my perception.

I'm not sure how third-parties actually generate their questions, though it is in their best interest to formulate questions that in their view mimic real-test questions in terms of form (I don't think it's a huge leap to speculate some people who worked for GMAC before now work for these third-party providers). As to overall question difficulty, third-party providers are in the business of helping you get a higher score (just look at all their ads about their students scoring 700-800), so why wouldn't they give you harder questions if their purpose is to make you better at answering questions of that level?

I can't make any assumptions on how the OG questions are distributed in terms of difficulty, but keep in mind that the only reason they mimic the real test the closest is that all the questions are retired GMAT questions, the GMAC doesn't advertise the OG as a way to a higher score, and that the main business of GMAC is administering the GMAT. It's a great guide, but for me I preferred something that helped me get used to a harder set of problems.

Note that this is just how I see it for how I know I perform/study, I'm sure there are plenty out there who feel the OG is sufficient enough preparation for a 700+.

ranaazad · Answer

Congratulations. Great score!! What materials did you use for RC? ls there any particular strategy you followed for attacking verbal questions?

Thank you.
Regards.

710 with 3 months study... and 750 two months later

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