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30 Jul 2016, 12:14
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Yesterday I sat for my first, and thankfully only, official GMAT exam. For your reference, my actual exam and practice CAT results are shown in the table below (note that every practice exam was taken under realistic exam conditions, AWA included). What follows is a not-so-brief debrief (say that 7 times fast) for those who might find it useful.
I finally decided I wanted to pursue business school June 1st of this year, after toying with the idea for the better part of the last year. I work in consulting as a credentialed actuary, so studying for standardized exams is a major part of my professional life. As a brief aside about my study methods and learning style, I am not someone for whom rote memorization comes easily, nor am I someone who necessarily has a confident grasp of anything in particular (that is to say, I have vague intuitions about things that often turn out to be right, but I can't necessarily articulate why or how I know them without some reflection, and I'm usually not confident that I'm 100% correct). With those things in mind, my approach toward most tests of this nature always begins by finding a quality practice exam, taking it, and developing from the results a set of clear goals to maximize efficiency in studying.
In this case, I found the GMATPrep software and took the first practice exam, scoring a 710 with equal scores for the quant and verbal sections. For me, the major wake-up call was that I ran out of time with 7 questions remaining in the quant section. As I pointed out above, I'm not great at memorizing things, and much of the math knowledge that one needs to quickly utilize for this exam has never really occupied a central place in my brain. Certainly as a math undergrad I had to have an understanding of much of it, but university exams were always structured with ample time to discover from first principles many of these concepts on an as-needed basis. For example, I still don't remember the quadratic formula, but I could derive it in maybe two minutes. So, my initial goal was to spend some time familiarizing myself with the question types and frequently used concepts of the quant section to speed up the process (i.e. turn that 44 into a 51):
As shown in the practice exam scores, it took about a week to get up to speed on the quant section. I oscillated between a 50 and 51, and figured that was good enough. Certainly I would have loved a 51 on the actual exam, but as I said I'm prone to calculation error (especially so when under time pressure). I made the decision during the exam that I would complete the questions quickly and hope for the best; I just didn't want to run out of time on the off chance that I got stuck on a few questions toward the middle/end.
After meeting my quant goals, I spent a week just sort of casually doing practice problems, and in late June I took inventory of my verbal strengths and weaknesses. Looking at my subscores for the three question types, it was apparent that my only deficiency was in sentence correction. In fact, of the 8 verbal questions I got wrong on the latest exam up to that point, 6 were from sentence correction (the two that weren't SC were from CR and RC, and the correct answers were clear to me upon second look). My progress on SC, however, was neither as clear nor as quick as on the quant section. It did follow the same pattern of daily practice questions, attempting to isolate and target particular areas of deficiency, and filling in the gaps. However, for me the body of testable SC knowledge in the GMAT wasn't as clearly defined, and despite ample online research, including youtube videos, free Vertias Prep and Manhattan prep materials, gmatclub guides, etc., I just couldn't really get a handle on it. That isn't to say I didn't improve, I did. I just wasn't as confident that my improvement was X or Y% of what was needed to have a solid chance of scoring perfectly.
In early July, after a few weeks of targeted SC study, I took a practice exam and got a perfect score. I missed one question on the entire exam, and it was an IR question. Seeing that score sort of threw me for a loop, because it didn't really give me any additional information on which to base my continued study. From that point on my "studying" consisted of daily gmatclub practice sets to ensure that my skills remained honed for the actual exam day (interestingly, my gmatclub estimated score at that point was 800, and by test day it was 780). At some point during those weeks, I began practicing for the AWA.
For the AWA, I ended up writing some code in excel VBA which utilized the set of available topics from GMAC (144 in all), and upon the click of a button it opened a window with a randomly selected prompt and timer. When the timer hit zero, the window closed and the prompt and response were logged in a textfile named "AWA Sample Prompt #???". I wrote maybe 6-8 sample prompts before I was confident that the likelihood of my scoring below a 5 was minimal. A week before the exam, on a day when I'd gotten very little sleep the night before, I decided on the fly to take one last practice exam. Tired, and certainly not at my best (perfect exam day conditions!), I scored a 780 50/47/8. The only thing left was ensuring physical preparedness.
In the week leading up to the exam, I got in bed promptly at 21:30 each night without phone or computer. I ate a solid breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I continued with daily practice questions, but tried to minimize the time spent thinking about the exam. I took a vacation day the day before and the day of the exam. The day before, I spend the day walking, reflecting on life, watching Stranger Things on Netflix, and just taking inventory of myself. Although I managed to get to bed by about 22:30, I ended up waking up at 03:00 and was in-and-out of consciousness until about 06:00 when I woke up for the day. I spent the morning doing the same things as the day before, making sure to eat lunch a few hours before the exam to ensure peak mental alertness. I also brought a Kind Bar and apple juice to the exam, to be eaten and drunk during the first and second breaks, respectively.
In the end, I missed out on the perfect score that I'd secretly hoped for after that practice test several weeks earlier. Although I could have seen the math score go either way (given my preference for speed early on to mitigate risk), there was a critical reading question toward the end of the verbal section, when I was fatigued and distracted by other thoughts, that I just couldn't seem to focus on. Time ticked down and I eventually had to give it my best guess, because I started to feel myself falling into an anxiety loop. With 10 questions and 20 minutes left, I just couldn't waste the time. At that point, I knew that an 800 was out of reach, but I was pretty confident that I'd score well.
I finally decided I wanted to pursue business school June 1st of this year, after toying with the idea for the better part of the last year. I work in consulting as a credentialed actuary, so studying for standardized exams is a major part of my professional life. As a brief aside about my study methods and learning style, I am not someone for whom rote memorization comes easily, nor am I someone who necessarily has a confident grasp of anything in particular (that is to say, I have vague intuitions about things that often turn out to be right, but I can't necessarily articulate why or how I know them without some reflection, and I'm usually not confident that I'm 100% correct). With those things in mind, my approach toward most tests of this nature always begins by finding a quality practice exam, taking it, and developing from the results a set of clear goals to maximize efficiency in studying.
In this case, I found the GMATPrep software and took the first practice exam, scoring a 710 with equal scores for the quant and verbal sections. For me, the major wake-up call was that I ran out of time with 7 questions remaining in the quant section. As I pointed out above, I'm not great at memorizing things, and much of the math knowledge that one needs to quickly utilize for this exam has never really occupied a central place in my brain. Certainly as a math undergrad I had to have an understanding of much of it, but university exams were always structured with ample time to discover from first principles many of these concepts on an as-needed basis. For example, I still don't remember the quadratic formula, but I could derive it in maybe two minutes. So, my initial goal was to spend some time familiarizing myself with the question types and frequently used concepts of the quant section to speed up the process (i.e. turn that 44 into a 51):
- Daily practice questions from gmatclub, GMATPrep Software, and GMAT 2016 Official Guide.
- Arithmetic drills to improve speed and reduce errors (Have never been, and am still not, free from errors in this area, unfortunately. My 780 on the SAT math section still haunts me).
- Determine those problems where I have a conceptual framework that is insufficient for speed calculation: e.g. rate problems, some geometry (lots! of derivable info that should just be memorized for this test), number theory, etc.
- Fill the gaps.
As shown in the practice exam scores, it took about a week to get up to speed on the quant section. I oscillated between a 50 and 51, and figured that was good enough. Certainly I would have loved a 51 on the actual exam, but as I said I'm prone to calculation error (especially so when under time pressure). I made the decision during the exam that I would complete the questions quickly and hope for the best; I just didn't want to run out of time on the off chance that I got stuck on a few questions toward the middle/end.
After meeting my quant goals, I spent a week just sort of casually doing practice problems, and in late June I took inventory of my verbal strengths and weaknesses. Looking at my subscores for the three question types, it was apparent that my only deficiency was in sentence correction. In fact, of the 8 verbal questions I got wrong on the latest exam up to that point, 6 were from sentence correction (the two that weren't SC were from CR and RC, and the correct answers were clear to me upon second look). My progress on SC, however, was neither as clear nor as quick as on the quant section. It did follow the same pattern of daily practice questions, attempting to isolate and target particular areas of deficiency, and filling in the gaps. However, for me the body of testable SC knowledge in the GMAT wasn't as clearly defined, and despite ample online research, including youtube videos, free Vertias Prep and Manhattan prep materials, gmatclub guides, etc., I just couldn't really get a handle on it. That isn't to say I didn't improve, I did. I just wasn't as confident that my improvement was X or Y% of what was needed to have a solid chance of scoring perfectly.
In early July, after a few weeks of targeted SC study, I took a practice exam and got a perfect score. I missed one question on the entire exam, and it was an IR question. Seeing that score sort of threw me for a loop, because it didn't really give me any additional information on which to base my continued study. From that point on my "studying" consisted of daily gmatclub practice sets to ensure that my skills remained honed for the actual exam day (interestingly, my gmatclub estimated score at that point was 800, and by test day it was 780). At some point during those weeks, I began practicing for the AWA.
For the AWA, I ended up writing some code in excel VBA which utilized the set of available topics from GMAC (144 in all), and upon the click of a button it opened a window with a randomly selected prompt and timer. When the timer hit zero, the window closed and the prompt and response were logged in a textfile named "AWA Sample Prompt #???". I wrote maybe 6-8 sample prompts before I was confident that the likelihood of my scoring below a 5 was minimal. A week before the exam, on a day when I'd gotten very little sleep the night before, I decided on the fly to take one last practice exam. Tired, and certainly not at my best (perfect exam day conditions!), I scored a 780 50/47/8. The only thing left was ensuring physical preparedness.
In the week leading up to the exam, I got in bed promptly at 21:30 each night without phone or computer. I ate a solid breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I continued with daily practice questions, but tried to minimize the time spent thinking about the exam. I took a vacation day the day before and the day of the exam. The day before, I spend the day walking, reflecting on life, watching Stranger Things on Netflix, and just taking inventory of myself. Although I managed to get to bed by about 22:30, I ended up waking up at 03:00 and was in-and-out of consciousness until about 06:00 when I woke up for the day. I spent the morning doing the same things as the day before, making sure to eat lunch a few hours before the exam to ensure peak mental alertness. I also brought a Kind Bar and apple juice to the exam, to be eaten and drunk during the first and second breaks, respectively.
In the end, I missed out on the perfect score that I'd secretly hoped for after that practice test several weeks earlier. Although I could have seen the math score go either way (given my preference for speed early on to mitigate risk), there was a critical reading question toward the end of the verbal section, when I was fatigued and distracted by other thoughts, that I just couldn't seem to focus on. Time ticked down and I eventually had to give it my best guess, because I started to feel myself falling into an anxiety loop. With 10 questions and 20 minutes left, I just couldn't waste the time. At that point, I knew that an 800 was out of reach, but I was pretty confident that I'd score well.
| Date | Source | Total | Q | V | IR |
| 07/29/2016 | Official Exam | 780 | 50 | 47 | 8 |
| 07/23/2016 | GMATPrep Exam Pack 2 - Exam 5 | 780 | 50 | 47 | 8 |
| 07/09/2016 | GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 - Exam 4 | 800 | 51 | 51 | 8 |
| 06/26/2016 | GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 - Exam 3 | 770 | 50 | 44 | 8 |
| 06/19/2016 | VeritasPrep Practice Exam 1 | 750 | 51 | 42 | 7 |
| 06/15/2016 | GMATPrep Practice Exam 2 | 760 | 48 | 46 | 8 |
| 06/12/2016 | GMATPrep Practice Exam 1 | 710 | 44 | 44 | 8 |
30 Jul 2016, 12:54
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Congratulations on the very impressive score! Are you an Associate or Fellow by the way? It's not everyday that we run into an actuary who is also really skilled at the English language! Do you proofread emails for colleagues much? 
The one CR question you struggled with may have been an experimental question by the way. It is possible that you scored perfect on CR but lost points on other Verbal subsections.
Any idea where you may have scored less than perfect in the Math section?
Posted from my mobile device
The one CR question you struggled with may have been an experimental question by the way. It is possible that you scored perfect on CR but lost points on other Verbal subsections.
Any idea where you may have scored less than perfect in the Math section?
Posted from my mobile device
30 Jul 2016, 14:09
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HanoiGMATtutor
Thank you! To answer your first question, I'm an Associate. I never decided which Fellowship track I wanted to pursue, and while reflecting on that choice I slowly came to the realization that I'd be much happier pursuing my MBA and potentially doing work in operations management; during my tenure at this firm, many of my pet-passion-projects have been in the area of improving and streamlining operations. Also, you'd be surprised how many actuaries actually (something else to say 7 times fast) are quite well spoken, although perhaps the fact that I work in actuarial consulting provides me with an unrepresentative sample?
You're right about the CR question, and I didn't really think about that fact during the exam. There are certainly other questions I missed on that section, but none that I didn't think I knew the answer to (and in my experience, when I get those questions wrong it is usually because of some stupid mistake, and not because I don't know what I don't know).
As for the math section, who knows? In the last practice CAT I took, when I got the exact same score as in the official sitting, I missed three quant questions, each of which appeared to be simple enough on review. I'm just prone to making stupid mistakes when under time-pressure (a burden I've carried for the last two decades, since beginning standardized testing). There was one practice question about an airline that was slowly replacing one fleet of aircraft A with another B by decreasing the former by 3 and increasing the latter by 4 each year, with starting counts of 50 and 0 respectively. It asked how many years into the process would fleet A comprise less than 50% of the combined fleets A and B, i.e. what minimum integer value of x satisfies the inequality \(50-4x < 3x\) ==> \(50/7 < x\) ==> \(x = 8\). However, during the exam I decided to count down and up explicitly to avoid error (oh the irony), but ended up miscounting as follows:
| Year | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| A | 50 | 47 | 44 | 41 | 38 | 35 | 38 | 35 | 32 | 29 |
| B | 0 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 28 | 32 | 36 |
Sometimes my brain just has a hiccup... oh well. I like to think it's those sorts of little errors that inspire some of the more creative parts of me, since the creative spark, at its heart, seems to be the distortion of the observed world in some unintended way.
