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10 Nov 2015, 00:28
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I took the GMAT earlier today, and was looking forward to not having to deal with the GMAT any more. My performance was a bit disappointing, so it looks like I will be taking the GMAT one more time. My plan has been to apply to schools next fall for matriculation in 2017, so this is not too much of setback. I am writing this to help me reflect on my experience thus far, and to share with the community as I have benefitted from reading of others experiences.
A bit of background on myself. I majored in Computer Science as an undergraduate at a top 5 school. I've been working as software developer for the last year and a half. At this point, I'm still haven't decided if I will pursue an MBA but I am seriously considering it. I am taking the GMAT now just to give my self options.
In August I registered to take the GMAT today, Nov 9th. At this point I had not begun studying yet. To prepare, I bought the OG13, Official Verbal and Quantitative Review Second Edition, MGMAT 5th Edition set, and MGMAT Advanced Quant. The only books I actually used were the OG13, MGMAT SC, MGMAT CR, MGMAT Advanced Quant. Taking an initial CAT to get a baseline, Q had strong foundations, RC was good but could improve more, CR was okay and needed to improve, SC was terrible and improvement here was the priority. My review consisted of skimming through MGMAT Advanced Quant, skimming through MGMAT CR, and working completely through MGMAT SC. This was done in the first month of preparation, taking maybe 20 hours.
In terms of practicing on problems, I made problem sets out of the OG that I would try to do 3 or 4 of each week. Each problem set had 10 PS questions, 5 DS questions, 1 RC passage, 4 CR questions, and 5 SC questions. Each problem set would take me about 30 minutes to finish and about 30-60 minutes reviewing. I worked my way through the questions in OG and completed every question. I also did 6 of the Advanced Quant problem sets. Aside from the CATs, this was the extent of my preparation. I probably spent maybe ~40 hours doing these sets.
Tendencies that I saw in my preparation. For quantitative, my foundations were strong. For the majority ( >95%) of the problems I worked, I knew what the correct approach to take would be. I think in the OG, there were only like 4 Q questions I did not have an approach for. The majority of the Q questions I get wrong are from execution or mental mistakes. For CR, I improved to where I knew the answer or narrowed down to the answer and my gut choice. Still not perfect but better than when I began. For SC, I am still struggling. I have improved in identifying grammatical errors in the different answer choices, but still cannot not identify all errors. There are still too many questions where I select my gut choice. However, my gut choice is now significantly more accurate than before.
I took CATs throughout my preparation. Each CAT was taken with AWA and IR.
08/16/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 1: 690(Q49,V34,IR7) This was taken prior to preparation
08/23/2015 MGMAT CAT 2 : 680(Q44,V38,IR2.9)
09/05/2015 MGMAT CAT 3 : 680(Q46,V36,IR4.4)
09/26/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 2: 740(Q50,V40,IR8)
10/10/2015 MGMAT CAT 4 : 650(Q44,V35,IR3.24)
10/18/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 3: 740(Q49,V41,IR6)
11/07/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 4: 760(Q50,V41,IR6)
I was happy where I stood at this point. I saw solid solid progress in my GMAT Prep scores. My MGMAT scores were lower than I would have hoped for, but wasn't too concerned because GMAT Prep is supposed to be more accurate. I head read that MGMAT is supposed to be a harder grader and that MGMAT are hit-or-miss in terms of predictive ability. Going into the exam, I thought that a realistic score for me could be in the 730-760 range.
I took the day off form work to take this exam. I picked a Monday so that I could have an extended weekend to relax ahead of the exam. I took the last GMAT Prep exam on Saturday.
I got a good night's rest and had a good breakfast ahead of the exam. I took a banana, trail mix bar, and a gatorade to the test center arriving half an hour early. Throughout the exam, I had trouble reading where I stood. In the CATs, I could kind of gauge how the exam was going, but could not on the actual exam. The IR section had a few tough questions that took a bit long, and I blindly guessed on the last two. I felt I did horribly on the IR section. The Quantitative section seemed similar to my experience on the CATs. High difficulty throughout the exam, but had an approach to every problem. Finished with fifteen minutes to spare. I felt I had performed really well on the Quant section, thought I could be in the running for Q51. The Verbal section seemed to start strong. Questions started getting more difficult. Around question 15, I was presented with a very long passage that was painful to get through. I felt like I missed all 4 questions associated with this passage. The verbal seemed to go downhill after this. There were a few hard questions after this, but the difficulty on all questions tapered down quite a bit. I finished the Verbal section with about 7 minutes left. I thought it was not my best, but better than where I began.
11/07/2015 GMAT Exam : 700(Q49,V35,IR8)
I was very shocked by my performance and opted to cancel my score.
The exam score was really surprising. I don't even remember the percentiles that were listed. I apparently did well on the IR. The Quant section was within the range I was expecting, though a little disappointed that it was on the lower side of that range. Don't even know what went wrong with the Verbal section.
After the exam, I guess my feelings could be summed up as being a mixture of frustration and disappointment. Disappointment because this is not the best performance I could have given. Frustration because I kind of just want to be done with the GMAT at this point and was looking forward to not having to deal with it anymore after today. It is what it is, every once in a while you're dealt a set back and you just have to deal with it. Fortunately this doesn't seem to be too bad as far as set backs go, so I'll give it another go.
I have already reserved an appointment to retake the GMAT a little over a month from now. The plan is take the next week or two off from studying. After that, need to really drill down my Verbal section. I'll work through MGMAT SC again, pay more careful attention this time. Plan to go through the Official Verbal/Quant 2nd Edition guides. My main concern at this point point is that I only have MGMAT CAT 6 left. Anyone have any advice on what to do once you run out of CATs? At this point, study strategy is still a work in progress, and will revisit once I take some time away from the GMAT.
Writing this down has really helped me gather my thoughts. Hopefully my experience is useful to someone else.
Background
A bit of background on myself. I majored in Computer Science as an undergraduate at a top 5 school. I've been working as software developer for the last year and a half. At this point, I'm still haven't decided if I will pursue an MBA but I am seriously considering it. I am taking the GMAT now just to give my self options.
Preparation
In August I registered to take the GMAT today, Nov 9th. At this point I had not begun studying yet. To prepare, I bought the OG13, Official Verbal and Quantitative Review Second Edition, MGMAT 5th Edition set, and MGMAT Advanced Quant. The only books I actually used were the OG13, MGMAT SC, MGMAT CR, MGMAT Advanced Quant. Taking an initial CAT to get a baseline, Q had strong foundations, RC was good but could improve more, CR was okay and needed to improve, SC was terrible and improvement here was the priority. My review consisted of skimming through MGMAT Advanced Quant, skimming through MGMAT CR, and working completely through MGMAT SC. This was done in the first month of preparation, taking maybe 20 hours.
In terms of practicing on problems, I made problem sets out of the OG that I would try to do 3 or 4 of each week. Each problem set had 10 PS questions, 5 DS questions, 1 RC passage, 4 CR questions, and 5 SC questions. Each problem set would take me about 30 minutes to finish and about 30-60 minutes reviewing. I worked my way through the questions in OG and completed every question. I also did 6 of the Advanced Quant problem sets. Aside from the CATs, this was the extent of my preparation. I probably spent maybe ~40 hours doing these sets.
Tendencies that I saw in my preparation. For quantitative, my foundations were strong. For the majority ( >95%) of the problems I worked, I knew what the correct approach to take would be. I think in the OG, there were only like 4 Q questions I did not have an approach for. The majority of the Q questions I get wrong are from execution or mental mistakes. For CR, I improved to where I knew the answer or narrowed down to the answer and my gut choice. Still not perfect but better than when I began. For SC, I am still struggling. I have improved in identifying grammatical errors in the different answer choices, but still cannot not identify all errors. There are still too many questions where I select my gut choice. However, my gut choice is now significantly more accurate than before.
CAT Scores
I took CATs throughout my preparation. Each CAT was taken with AWA and IR.
08/16/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 1: 690(Q49,V34,IR7) This was taken prior to preparation
08/23/2015 MGMAT CAT 2 : 680(Q44,V38,IR2.9)
09/05/2015 MGMAT CAT 3 : 680(Q46,V36,IR4.4)
09/26/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 2: 740(Q50,V40,IR8)
10/10/2015 MGMAT CAT 4 : 650(Q44,V35,IR3.24)
10/18/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 3: 740(Q49,V41,IR6)
11/07/2015 GMAT Prep Exam 4: 760(Q50,V41,IR6)
I was happy where I stood at this point. I saw solid solid progress in my GMAT Prep scores. My MGMAT scores were lower than I would have hoped for, but wasn't too concerned because GMAT Prep is supposed to be more accurate. I head read that MGMAT is supposed to be a harder grader and that MGMAT are hit-or-miss in terms of predictive ability. Going into the exam, I thought that a realistic score for me could be in the 730-760 range.
GMAT Exam Day
I took the day off form work to take this exam. I picked a Monday so that I could have an extended weekend to relax ahead of the exam. I took the last GMAT Prep exam on Saturday.
I got a good night's rest and had a good breakfast ahead of the exam. I took a banana, trail mix bar, and a gatorade to the test center arriving half an hour early. Throughout the exam, I had trouble reading where I stood. In the CATs, I could kind of gauge how the exam was going, but could not on the actual exam. The IR section had a few tough questions that took a bit long, and I blindly guessed on the last two. I felt I did horribly on the IR section. The Quantitative section seemed similar to my experience on the CATs. High difficulty throughout the exam, but had an approach to every problem. Finished with fifteen minutes to spare. I felt I had performed really well on the Quant section, thought I could be in the running for Q51. The Verbal section seemed to start strong. Questions started getting more difficult. Around question 15, I was presented with a very long passage that was painful to get through. I felt like I missed all 4 questions associated with this passage. The verbal seemed to go downhill after this. There were a few hard questions after this, but the difficulty on all questions tapered down quite a bit. I finished the Verbal section with about 7 minutes left. I thought it was not my best, but better than where I began.
11/07/2015 GMAT Exam : 700(Q49,V35,IR8)
I was very shocked by my performance and opted to cancel my score.
Post Exam Reflection/Retake Strategy
The exam score was really surprising. I don't even remember the percentiles that were listed. I apparently did well on the IR. The Quant section was within the range I was expecting, though a little disappointed that it was on the lower side of that range. Don't even know what went wrong with the Verbal section.
After the exam, I guess my feelings could be summed up as being a mixture of frustration and disappointment. Disappointment because this is not the best performance I could have given. Frustration because I kind of just want to be done with the GMAT at this point and was looking forward to not having to deal with it anymore after today. It is what it is, every once in a while you're dealt a set back and you just have to deal with it. Fortunately this doesn't seem to be too bad as far as set backs go, so I'll give it another go.
I have already reserved an appointment to retake the GMAT a little over a month from now. The plan is take the next week or two off from studying. After that, need to really drill down my Verbal section. I'll work through MGMAT SC again, pay more careful attention this time. Plan to go through the Official Verbal/Quant 2nd Edition guides. My main concern at this point point is that I only have MGMAT CAT 6 left. Anyone have any advice on what to do once you run out of CATs? At this point, study strategy is still a work in progress, and will revisit once I take some time away from the GMAT.
Writing this down has really helped me gather my thoughts. Hopefully my experience is useful to someone else.
11 Nov 2015, 12:24
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Bookmarks
Hi feliped,
First off, a 700/Q49 is an outstanding score (it's just shy of the 90th percentile overall), so you could comfortably apply to any Business School with this score. As such, a retest is probably not necessary - and you might want to consider paying the $100 and reinstating this score.
1) What School(s) are you planning to apply to?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
First off, a 700/Q49 is an outstanding score (it's just shy of the 90th percentile overall), so you could comfortably apply to any Business School with this score. As such, a retest is probably not necessary - and you might want to consider paying the $100 and reinstating this score.
1) What School(s) are you planning to apply to?
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
11 Nov 2015, 21:40
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Hi Rich,
Thanks for the encouragement. I realize that 700 is an outstanding score by many measures, and its borderline irrational to cancel such a score. However, I'm just a competitive person and scoring a 700 knowing I could do better was disappointing. If I do pursue business school, I will apply to Stanford, Harvard, and Wharton (and maybe Texas if I decide to stay in Texas). To be comfortable applying to these schools, I want to score at or above the median GMAT score at these schools. I understand that it is not necessary to score at that level to gain admission to these schools, but it would make me more confident in applying to these schools if I have score at that level.
Thanks for the encouragement. I realize that 700 is an outstanding score by many measures, and its borderline irrational to cancel such a score. However, I'm just a competitive person and scoring a 700 knowing I could do better was disappointing. If I do pursue business school, I will apply to Stanford, Harvard, and Wharton (and maybe Texas if I decide to stay in Texas). To be comfortable applying to these schools, I want to score at or above the median GMAT score at these schools. I understand that it is not necessary to score at that level to gain admission to these schools, but it would make me more confident in applying to these schools if I have score at that level.
