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DensetsuNo
Joined: 11 Oct 2015
Last visit: 05 Aug 2023
Posts: 88
Given Kudos: 38
Status:2 months to go
Schools: HBS 2+2 '22 MIT Sloan MSMS"18
GMAT 1: 730 Q49 V40
GPA: 3.8
Updated on: 09 Aug 2016, 15:15
Originally posted by DensetsuNo on 03 Aug 2016, 18:12.
Last edited by DensetsuNo on 09 Aug 2016, 15:15, edited 5 times in total.
Last edited by DensetsuNo on 09 Aug 2016, 15:15, edited 5 times in total.
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Good morning guys,
after 2 months and a half with you I can finally write the word end on my GMAT journey!
A big thanks to everyone on the gmatclub who made these 2+ months pleasant and memorable.
I hope you'll find this message somewhat useful or motivating for your preparation.
I gave my GMAT today, 3rd of August, with a final result of: 730 (!) (Q49, V40), IR 8 & AWA (5).
European, 23y/o, Economics Major. I'm neither a math wiz nor a grammar nazi.
I'd rate my math just above average, nothing spectacular, and my verbal is just slightly better.
I say this to everyone who thinks you cannot ACE the GMAT unless you're awesomely smart. If I did it (and I'm no genius), everyone with the right preparation can.
Wanting to be done asap, I booked the first available spot at 9am, but due to some misunderstanding between GMAC and the Test Center, I had to wait some 40 minutes in front of the building as in August it opens 1 hour later than usual, but the time went by pretty fast as I was in the good company of all the other test takers (none of whom had been informed about the change in time
). Once the guy from the test center showed up, we were rushed into the center, went through the authentication, left all our belongings into the locker (it was quite small, but luckily I had left my backpack in the hotel), and we were finally logged in. Other than some initial questions regarding the schools and some final background questions the test was the same as the GMATprep, so no surprise here (a little surprise from the keyboard configuration that wasn't American but probably British, but as I only needed the () and the ' for the AWA, after a few random clicks I found where they were). In general, I found the math easier than most GMATpreps and the verbal harder. I finished both parts in time, rushing a bit the Verbal (and the last question of the Quant). I wasn't sincerely expecting a 730 as I had a general feeling of having messed up, but who cares, all's well that ends well.
The day before the exam I tried to relax as much as possible I skimmed through my error log and nothing else from the GMAT side, I went to the gym and watched a movie in the evening. For the exam I brought with me Water, a Go Cube and a Coke. I took the Go Cube before the Verbal to sustain myself throughout the last part and I've to say it worked, the coffee charge helped me maintain my hedge.
I started at the end of May and finished studying yesterday evening (August the 2nd), I worked 12 hours on the weekends and around 3-4 during the week.
As I was weaker on math than verbal I spent a larger percentage of my time trying to overcome Math's hurdles, but nonetheless I spent a significant amount of time devising strategies for SC and CR.
Online vs Offline Prep:
One of the biggest fears at the beginning of my journey was doing a Computer based test, I'm really lousy at keeping my concentration in front of a monitor for a long period of time. And as you probably know if you're prepping for the GMAT, the test is eternal. My solution to the problem was to use almost only computer based resources, from the prep course to the OG.
I can say that it definitely helped, at the end of my preparation I had more problems concentrating in front of a piece of paper that in front of the computer.
I gave my last math exam two years ago, so I was pretty much bad off when I first decided to prepare for the GMAT.
To be consistent with my usual exam approach I decided that at the beginning I would focus more on theory and then switch to a more exercise intensive approach toward the end of my prep.
I stuck to this approach as much as possible and whenever I made a mistake I would spend a lot of time reviewing the problem type and studying the underlying theory. The point here was to build a numerical sense as strong as possible through experience and deep understanding, to overcome through trial & error what to some people comes natural.
As I didn't have much time I went for a web based course, in my case Magoosh. I liked their approach and the huge pool of GMAT like questions with a similar interface to the test.
What's more I liked that every time you made a mistake below the explanation of the question there would be links to the related theory videos. Great work there mikemcgarry.
Other than Magoosh I used Nova’s GMAT Math Prep Book (obviously the Kindle edition) for the more advanced topics and the OG 2016 as the starting question bank.
From my point of view the best approach to PS is to build a strong math knowledge (using whichever prep you're using) and then doing as many questions as possible. GMATclub helps a lot when you want to focus on a specific topic (check out the "advanced search" tab).
The real game changer in DS is practice, testing cases in Y/N questions can be hard (there are tons of little traps), but once you've seen plenty of exercises everything becomes easier, and kinda repetitive (much more than in PS). Ron Purewall from Manhattan has done several videos in his "Thursday with Ron" series, one example is this Testing Cases. These videos can be useful to become better at DS strategies, but again focused practice is the key in DS. If you want to go more in details, Veritas Prep has a free ebook about DS, a great resource -> here.
To recap:
Keeping an error log proved useful in the days before the exam to review what were some of my weakest points.
Differently from Quant in Verbal I've always been a strong scorer, scoring a nice 37 in my first GMATprep.
But nonetheless I put some serious strategy to level it further. I almost didn't use Magoosh for theory in this part, but still I used it for some verbal practice.
I used Manhattan's SC guide the 2005 edition* (I skimmed really fast also the last two the 2010 and 2014 editions) but I feel the 2005 is the most useful for a simple reason, it is short (the following editions are longer). You can read it in a work-day and get out all the information you need. And anything not included in the guide cannot be taught in a grammar book (ie. it'd be related to idiomatic constructions and meaning in general). I bought it, but I'm pretty sure you can find it on Google.
*You simply have to remove the "Possessive Poison" chapter which has been eliminated from the following editions.
A second source of Grammar Counseling was Grammar Girl, a nice lady who helps writers to understand the correct use of grammar, very useful since she's really good at making things easy.
Here's is were I put a lot of strategy into, analyzing all the different types of questions creating a final framework for all the different questions.
I know a lot of people rely on the Powerscore CR Bible, but when I found out about its existence I had already found my way through CR.
I read the whole 2014 Manhattan CR Guide, but I must say that it doesn't compare to the SC guide, it felt a bit mechanic and too "stiff". But it's too early to discard Manhattan since the "Thursday with Ron" series regarding CR was incredible. Ron (a crazy 800 scorer who speaks a ton of languages) explains in a totally down to earth way how CR works, or better how every Question Type in CR works (since every type of question is different and relies on a different logic). I'm totally convinced that with his explanation of this section and a significant practice a 100% is achievable by anyone.
To cover all the topics of CR you can check out the following:
The CR book from Manhattan is good to organize all the concepts outlined by Ron in the videos, and to cover the few topics I didn't watch from the videos (eg. except questions).
Anyway, a few lines above I linked the official page, if you want to enter more in details there you can find all the videos he recorded, the ones I linked were the ones I felt were most useful.
Reading comprehension is one of my biggest regrets. I spent almost no time on it, I just watched these from Thursday with Ron Primary Purpose and Long Passages, Same for Short Passages, Inference Questions, which cover pretty much anything, but I surely lacked practice on this section.
Recap:
Verbal is the section where I could have improved more, 40 is a great score but I'm a sure that with a little(/lot) more practice on CR and RC a 45 in Verbal would have been attainable.
IR is the biggest mystery of my preparation, I never practiced it but always scored 8.
Here I cannot give you many tips, I just feel that if you're confident, relaxed and read everything carefully it is quite easy to score a full mark.
Stick to Chineseburned's guide. If you start with a structure in mind the whole writing process becomes much faster (and better). Remember that the GMAT scores the essay first with a computer and then with a rater who tries to stick as much a possible to the mark given by the computer. SO the most important thing in the AWA isn't content but structure!
I got carried away and wrote a poem, hope at least you enjoy it
Den
after 2 months and a half with you I can finally write the word end on my GMAT journey!
A big thanks to everyone on the gmatclub who made these 2+ months pleasant and memorable.
I hope you'll find this message somewhat useful or motivating for your preparation.
I gave my GMAT today, 3rd of August, with a final result of: 730 (!) (Q49, V40), IR 8 & AWA (5).
My profile:
European, 23y/o, Economics Major. I'm neither a math wiz nor a grammar nazi.
I'd rate my math just above average, nothing spectacular, and my verbal is just slightly better.
I say this to everyone who thinks you cannot ACE the GMAT unless you're awesomely smart. If I did it (and I'm no genius), everyone with the right preparation can.
The exam:
Wanting to be done asap, I booked the first available spot at 9am, but due to some misunderstanding between GMAC and the Test Center, I had to wait some 40 minutes in front of the building as in August it opens 1 hour later than usual, but the time went by pretty fast as I was in the good company of all the other test takers (none of whom had been informed about the change in time
). Once the guy from the test center showed up, we were rushed into the center, went through the authentication, left all our belongings into the locker (it was quite small, but luckily I had left my backpack in the hotel), and we were finally logged in. Other than some initial questions regarding the schools and some final background questions the test was the same as the GMATprep, so no surprise here (a little surprise from the keyboard configuration that wasn't American but probably British, but as I only needed the () and the ' for the AWA, after a few random clicks I found where they were). In general, I found the math easier than most GMATpreps and the verbal harder. I finished both parts in time, rushing a bit the Verbal (and the last question of the Quant). I wasn't sincerely expecting a 730 as I had a general feeling of having messed up, but who cares, all's well that ends well.The day before the exam I tried to relax as much as possible I skimmed through my error log and nothing else from the GMAT side, I went to the gym and watched a movie in the evening. For the exam I brought with me Water, a Go Cube and a Coke. I took the Go Cube before the Verbal to sustain myself throughout the last part and I've to say it worked, the coffee charge helped me maintain my hedge.
GMATpreps:
- 1 week in - GMATprep - 650 (Q44;V37)
- 1 month in - GMATprep 2 - 770 (Q49; V47) (Verbal hugely biased from already seen questions).
- 2 monts in - GMATprep 5 - 710 (Q47; V40)
- 2 months and 1 week in - GMATprep 6 - 710 (Q47; V41)
- Final exam - 730 (Q49; V40)
My journey:
I started at the end of May and finished studying yesterday evening (August the 2nd), I worked 12 hours on the weekends and around 3-4 during the week.
As I was weaker on math than verbal I spent a larger percentage of my time trying to overcome Math's hurdles, but nonetheless I spent a significant amount of time devising strategies for SC and CR.
A few starting lines:
Online vs Offline Prep:
One of the biggest fears at the beginning of my journey was doing a Computer based test, I'm really lousy at keeping my concentration in front of a monitor for a long period of time. And as you probably know if you're prepping for the GMAT, the test is eternal. My solution to the problem was to use almost only computer based resources, from the prep course to the OG.
I can say that it definitely helped, at the end of my preparation I had more problems concentrating in front of a piece of paper that in front of the computer.
Quant:
I gave my last math exam two years ago, so I was pretty much bad off when I first decided to prepare for the GMAT.
To be consistent with my usual exam approach I decided that at the beginning I would focus more on theory and then switch to a more exercise intensive approach toward the end of my prep.
I stuck to this approach as much as possible and whenever I made a mistake I would spend a lot of time reviewing the problem type and studying the underlying theory. The point here was to build a numerical sense as strong as possible through experience and deep understanding, to overcome through trial & error what to some people comes natural.
As I didn't have much time I went for a web based course, in my case Magoosh. I liked their approach and the huge pool of GMAT like questions with a similar interface to the test.
What's more I liked that every time you made a mistake below the explanation of the question there would be links to the related theory videos. Great work there mikemcgarry.
Other than Magoosh I used Nova’s GMAT Math Prep Book (obviously the Kindle edition
) for the more advanced topics and the OG 2016 as the starting question bank.- Magoosh is solid in all the main topics of Math, and again the integration between questions and theory is killer.
- Nova was incredible on words problems, after learning their approach and doing the problems inside the book I don't think I ever mistaken a word problem again, and in general it's useful on more advanced topics.
- The last resource that proved vital to score a 49 won't come as a surprise as it is this forum, Gmatclub, the strong analysis provided to any question was invaluable in building up my numerical sense.
PS:
From my point of view the best approach to PS is to build a strong math knowledge (using whichever prep you're using) and then doing as many questions as possible. GMATclub helps a lot when you want to focus on a specific topic (check out the "advanced search" tab).
DS:
The real game changer in DS is practice, testing cases in Y/N questions can be hard (there are tons of little traps), but once you've seen plenty of exercises everything becomes easier, and kinda repetitive (much more than in PS). Ron Purewall from Manhattan has done several videos in his "Thursday with Ron" series, one example is this Testing Cases. These videos can be useful to become better at DS strategies, but again focused practice is the key in DS. If you want to go more in details, Veritas Prep has a free ebook about DS, a great resource -> here.
To recap:
- Magoosh: covered ≈ 90% of the videos and almost 100% of the math questions.
- Nova: I'd say covered a 10% of the book mostly word problems, probability & combinations and sets theory.
- OG2016: Done around 80% of PS and DS.
- OG Online Q Bank: Some Hard questions.
- Gmatclub: Whenever I had a particular topic I wanted to focus on (eg. Set Theory) Gmatclub was fantastic, through the search you can find tons of great questions with great analytics, you there Bunuel? :D
- GMATclub Tests I didn't have time to test them as I would have liked, but from the two simulation I did they were really good, and really hard. So if you want to test yourself and prepare for the worst they are probably the best fit. (Great work there @bb).
Keeping an error log proved useful in the days before the exam to review what were some of my weakest points.
Verbal:
Differently from Quant in Verbal I've always been a strong scorer, scoring a nice 37 in my first GMATprep.
But nonetheless I put some serious strategy to level it further. I almost didn't use Magoosh for theory in this part, but still I used it for some verbal practice.
SC:
I used Manhattan's SC guide the 2005 edition* (I skimmed really fast also the last two the 2010 and 2014 editions) but I feel the 2005 is the most useful for a simple reason, it is short (the following editions are longer). You can read it in a work-day and get out all the information you need. And anything not included in the guide cannot be taught in a grammar book (ie. it'd be related to idiomatic constructions and meaning in general). I bought it, but I'm pretty sure you can find it on Google.
*You simply have to remove the "Possessive Poison" chapter which has been eliminated from the following editions.
A second source of Grammar Counseling was Grammar Girl, a nice lady who helps writers to understand the correct use of grammar, very useful since she's really good at making things easy.
CR:
Here's is were I put a lot of strategy into, analyzing all the different types of questions creating a final framework for all the different questions.
I know a lot of people rely on the Powerscore CR Bible, but when I found out about its existence I had already found my way through CR.
I read the whole 2014 Manhattan CR Guide, but I must say that it doesn't compare to the SC guide, it felt a bit mechanic and too "stiff". But it's too early to discard Manhattan since the "Thursday with Ron" series regarding CR was incredible. Ron (a crazy 800 scorer who speaks a ton of languages) explains in a totally down to earth way how CR works, or better how every Question Type in CR works (since every type of question is different and relies on a different logic). I'm totally convinced that with his explanation of this section and a significant practice a 100% is achievable by anyone.
To cover all the topics of CR you can check out the following:
- 1. Find the Assumption & Strengthen & Weaken (As FA questions and Draw the Conclusion / Inference Questions follow the same logic it is better to leave the S/W until part 4)
2. Draw the conclusion / Most strongly supported
3. Inference / "Must be True" Questions & Fill the Blank (Leave the Fill the Blank for the end)
4. Strengthen & Weaken & Evaluate the argument (Here I'd pick up the last part from the first video which helps making a connection from the first block of "formal logic" toward the second block of the "most probable interpretation")
5. Explain the Situation questions
6. Boldface Questions (the second approach he outlines is crazy and let you solve a boldface question in about 1 minute)
The CR book from Manhattan is good to organize all the concepts outlined by Ron in the videos, and to cover the few topics I didn't watch from the videos (eg. except questions).
Anyway, a few lines above I linked the official page, if you want to enter more in details there you can find all the videos he recorded, the ones I linked were the ones I felt were most useful.
RC:
Reading comprehension is one of my biggest regrets. I spent almost no time on it, I just watched these from Thursday with Ron Primary Purpose and Long Passages, Same for Short Passages, Inference Questions, which cover pretty much anything, but I surely lacked practice on this section.
Recap:
- SC: Manhattan Guide to SC (2005 edition) and Questions from the OG (60% done) and Magoosh (60%).
- CR: Thursday with Ron and the Manhattan Guide to CR (2014 edition), questions from the OG (60% done), Magoosh (60%) and 1000CR.
- RC: Thursday with Ron and questions from the OG (20% done) and a little from Magoosh.
Verbal is the section where I could have improved more, 40 is a great score but I'm a sure that with a little(/lot) more practice on CR and RC a 45 in Verbal would have been attainable.
IR:
IR is the biggest mystery of my preparation, I never practiced it but always scored 8.
Here I cannot give you many tips, I just feel that if you're confident, relaxed and read everything carefully it is quite easy to score a full mark.
AWA:
Stick to Chineseburned's guide. If you start with a structure in mind the whole writing process becomes much faster (and better). Remember that the GMAT scores the essay first with a computer and then with a rater who tries to stick as much a possible to the mark given by the computer. SO the most important thing in the AWA isn't content but structure!
Miscellaneous:
- I always read in debriefs that you can visit test center as you like, but when I tried to visit mine they told me that to visit a test center you need a special permit from Pearson, and that only people taking the test that day can enter the facility.
- They gave me two pens.
- In the test room there were more than 30 degrees (so the 23° promised by the GMAC can be only on paper).
I got carried away and wrote a poem, hope at least you enjoy it
Den
diegocml
Joined: 22 Apr 2016
Last visit: 22 Jun 2018
Posts: 122
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 392
Status:On a 600-long battle
Location: Hungary
Concentration: Accounting, Leadership
Schools: Erasmus '19
GMAT 1: 410 Q18 V27
GMAT 2: 490 Q35 V23
04 Aug 2016, 04:37
Kudos
Bookmarks
Congrats - great debrief and good luck with your applications!
By the way, did you order the Go Cube online?
By the way, did you order the Go Cube online?
DensetsuNo
Joined: 11 Oct 2015
Last visit: 05 Aug 2023
Posts: 88
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 38
Status:2 months to go
Schools: HBS 2+2 '22 MIT Sloan MSMS"18
GMAT 1: 730 Q49 V40
GPA: 3.8
04 Aug 2016, 06:12
Kudos
Bookmarks
diegocml
Hey Diego,
thanks, appreciated!
Yes, I bought Go Cubes on Nootrobox' website (https://nootrobox.com/go-cubes)!
Thanks and good luck to you for your applications and preparation in general
