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Hi all,
Today was my test day - got 740 (Q 48, V 44), but really messed up with AWA. The scores for AWA are not coming before cancellation deadline, so I would really appreciate advice on retake strategy. With GMAT Online not having AWA section, do admission officers look at AWA from GMAT at all these days? My dream is TOP 3 in the US. I think I could end up with as low as 1 or 2 on AWA, because by the time I was doing AWA (this was my last section) I got completely burned out and could only write something from templates plus one or two sentences off the top of my head...
On a more happy note, here's a summary of my GMAT adventure.
GMAT Prep
I am a Russian female, a lawyer in an international law firm, working with English law and hence English language on a day-to-day basis. I took GMAT for the first time straight after getting bachelor's degree in 2012 (don't ask, I honestly don't know why I did that) and scored 570, with both Q and V at the average level. But then when I decided to start serious preparation in 2020 and took the first mock, I scored 710 (Q 42, V 46) with preparation only focused on quant and no preparation on verbal. This verbal score is a reflection of an advantage of someone with legal background I guess, legal drafting involves a lot of critical thinking that, to me at least, seems very similar to GMAT logic in verbal.
As I mentioned, I scored 710 (Q 42, V 46) on the first mock after already some preparation on math. I thought there was no use to take the mock before going through math concepts, as I knew nothing - literally nothing - math related. I am a person who really struggles with math, as a lawyer who wants to change the career path but who did no math for 12+ years I felt completely frustrated with having to start learning math from the very basics, eg re-learn how to do long divisions... But GMAT Club really helped me to overcome this frustration. I started carefully reading all Share GMAT Experience posts and got the impression that a lot of people struggle with math and still get a good quant grade.
I was preparing with focus on math for about 5 month by my first attempt today, but this time includes a number of breaks inbetween. All in all, I studied for about 200 hours. No magic in my math preparation, I just followed recommendations from the other Share GMAT Experience posts, so any improvement in quant for me is really thanks to GMAT Club members!!
My preparation was as follows:
- Manhattan set on quant (the old series of 5 books I got a while ago, not the All the Quant new edition - I cannot comment on that);
- OG 2020;
- Kaplan 800 (this helped to get from Q 44 to Q 48);
- Manhattan Advanced Quant (this was unnecessary - did not help to increase Q 48 any further);
- finally, a printout with some 300 700-level questions on Arithmetic/Algebra/Geometry, a material passed to me by a friend - consisting as I found out mostly of the questions that could also be found here on GMAT Club, perhaps some old OG questions.
To my surprise, this was enough to get Q 48!! My strategy takeaway from the books was that GMAT tests not just math, but GMAT-math - there's a pattern in question types, common traps and so on. From my converstation with friends who also took GMAT, being a non-quant person has its advantages - you don't know how to solve questions before preparation, but then you learn how to solve GMAT-way, quick way, while quant people could (as I imagine) have some solution paths they are used to which take longer. Of course it would have been a dream to score higher, but I could not manage to improve Q 48. Apparently, a jump from Q 48 to Q 51 is the hardest part... With my verbal score, Q 48 seems sufficient, but hey those scoring at upper levels - wow
My mock results were as follows:
- 01/04 - GMAT Prep 1 - 710 (Q 42, V 46) (the first mock after already some preparation on math)
- 13/04 - MGMAT 1 - 700 (Q 44, V 41)
- 20/06 - GMAT Prep 2 - 730 (Q 44, V 45)
- 09/07 - GMAT Prep 3 - 750 (Q 48, V 45)
- 30/07 - GMAT Prep 4 - 720 (Q 48, V 41)
- 04/07 - GMAT Prep 5 - 750 (Q 47, V 47)
Test Day
Contrary to recommendations from the wise GMAT Club members, I messed up my sleep schedule the week before the exam. I tried to get good night sleep before test day, but I just could not fall asleep until 2 am, while my test was scheduled at 10am. Nevertheless, I decided to wake up 2.5h in advance of the test, to take cold shower, do some yoga and complete a warm-up (ie do 3 math questions). I think the warm-up really helped to overcome the fear, when I started quant it was as if I am just continuing the practice questions I started home. Yoga also helped, for those interested in yoga, 10mins video on Youtube that is good to wake up and focus - Yoga with Adriene / Yoga For Focus & Productivity.
I got to the test center in advance, check-in went smoothly, I chose sections order Verbal, Quant, IR, AWA, the same as I practiced on mocks.
On verbal, I got extremely slow compared to my home practice. I think it may have to do with the fact that I got V 47 the day before the test, which made me subconsciously striving for perfection. I got stuck on one of the questions for so long that it ruined my whole pacing, and finally, on question 31/36, I had 6 minutes left, and question 31 turned out to be another (4th) RC passage!! I tried to keep calm, visually scrolled through the passage and tried to make educated guesses on 3 RC questions, then solved 1 SC and had to guess the last two questions.
I took the break before quant. When I came out of the test room, I thought I'd probably have to retake because of verbal, but I knew if I held on to that thought I would ruin the rest of the test, so I did my best to forget about verbal. Quant was not as bad as I thought, I had to guess on a number of questions but my pacing was fine. IR was not as bad either, I could not get higher than IR 5 on mocks and tended to run out of time, but on the test day it went smoothly, I think the key to IR is realizing that to get IR 8, you do not have to solve all the questions, so let go of the harder ones if need be (if only I followed this simple logic on verbal...) I started AWA by writing the essay structure using the templates, re-read the argument and my brain froze... AWA was a disaster.
Then the exam results show up and wow, 740 (Q 48, V 44), perfect considering I had to guess a lot on verbal!! I could not ever dream of this score a couple of years back, and always thought 700+ is for quant people only. This is so much ought to the tons of helpful material provided by this forum, thank you so much everyone. I never wrote posts here before, thought I have nothing to add, but I was an attentive reader for a long time.
I know this is only the first step for applications. The book recommended here by someone - Snapshots from Hell/The Making of an MBA by Peter Robinson - reveals MBA is generally painful, but more so for 'poets' (non-quant people). But well, I guess I am an optimist
Today was my test day - got 740 (Q 48, V 44), but really messed up with AWA. The scores for AWA are not coming before cancellation deadline, so I would really appreciate advice on retake strategy. With GMAT Online not having AWA section, do admission officers look at AWA from GMAT at all these days? My dream is TOP 3 in the US. I think I could end up with as low as 1 or 2 on AWA, because by the time I was doing AWA (this was my last section) I got completely burned out and could only write something from templates plus one or two sentences off the top of my head...
On a more happy note, here's a summary of my GMAT adventure.
GMAT Prep
I am a Russian female, a lawyer in an international law firm, working with English law and hence English language on a day-to-day basis. I took GMAT for the first time straight after getting bachelor's degree in 2012 (don't ask, I honestly don't know why I did that) and scored 570, with both Q and V at the average level. But then when I decided to start serious preparation in 2020 and took the first mock, I scored 710 (Q 42, V 46) with preparation only focused on quant and no preparation on verbal. This verbal score is a reflection of an advantage of someone with legal background I guess, legal drafting involves a lot of critical thinking that, to me at least, seems very similar to GMAT logic in verbal.
As I mentioned, I scored 710 (Q 42, V 46) on the first mock after already some preparation on math. I thought there was no use to take the mock before going through math concepts, as I knew nothing - literally nothing - math related. I am a person who really struggles with math, as a lawyer who wants to change the career path but who did no math for 12+ years I felt completely frustrated with having to start learning math from the very basics, eg re-learn how to do long divisions... But GMAT Club really helped me to overcome this frustration. I started carefully reading all Share GMAT Experience posts and got the impression that a lot of people struggle with math and still get a good quant grade.
I was preparing with focus on math for about 5 month by my first attempt today, but this time includes a number of breaks inbetween. All in all, I studied for about 200 hours. No magic in my math preparation, I just followed recommendations from the other Share GMAT Experience posts, so any improvement in quant for me is really thanks to GMAT Club members!!
My preparation was as follows:
- Manhattan set on quant (the old series of 5 books I got a while ago, not the All the Quant new edition - I cannot comment on that);
- OG 2020;
- Kaplan 800 (this helped to get from Q 44 to Q 48);
- Manhattan Advanced Quant (this was unnecessary - did not help to increase Q 48 any further);
- finally, a printout with some 300 700-level questions on Arithmetic/Algebra/Geometry, a material passed to me by a friend - consisting as I found out mostly of the questions that could also be found here on GMAT Club, perhaps some old OG questions.
To my surprise, this was enough to get Q 48!! My strategy takeaway from the books was that GMAT tests not just math, but GMAT-math - there's a pattern in question types, common traps and so on. From my converstation with friends who also took GMAT, being a non-quant person has its advantages - you don't know how to solve questions before preparation, but then you learn how to solve GMAT-way, quick way, while quant people could (as I imagine) have some solution paths they are used to which take longer. Of course it would have been a dream to score higher, but I could not manage to improve Q 48. Apparently, a jump from Q 48 to Q 51 is the hardest part... With my verbal score, Q 48 seems sufficient, but hey those scoring at upper levels - wow
My mock results were as follows:
- 01/04 - GMAT Prep 1 - 710 (Q 42, V 46) (the first mock after already some preparation on math)
- 13/04 - MGMAT 1 - 700 (Q 44, V 41)
- 20/06 - GMAT Prep 2 - 730 (Q 44, V 45)
- 09/07 - GMAT Prep 3 - 750 (Q 48, V 45)
- 30/07 - GMAT Prep 4 - 720 (Q 48, V 41)
- 04/07 - GMAT Prep 5 - 750 (Q 47, V 47)
Test Day
Contrary to recommendations from the wise GMAT Club members, I messed up my sleep schedule the week before the exam. I tried to get good night sleep before test day, but I just could not fall asleep until 2 am, while my test was scheduled at 10am. Nevertheless, I decided to wake up 2.5h in advance of the test, to take cold shower, do some yoga and complete a warm-up (ie do 3 math questions). I think the warm-up really helped to overcome the fear, when I started quant it was as if I am just continuing the practice questions I started home. Yoga also helped, for those interested in yoga, 10mins video on Youtube that is good to wake up and focus - Yoga with Adriene / Yoga For Focus & Productivity.
I got to the test center in advance, check-in went smoothly, I chose sections order Verbal, Quant, IR, AWA, the same as I practiced on mocks.
On verbal, I got extremely slow compared to my home practice. I think it may have to do with the fact that I got V 47 the day before the test, which made me subconsciously striving for perfection. I got stuck on one of the questions for so long that it ruined my whole pacing, and finally, on question 31/36, I had 6 minutes left, and question 31 turned out to be another (4th) RC passage!! I tried to keep calm, visually scrolled through the passage and tried to make educated guesses on 3 RC questions, then solved 1 SC and had to guess the last two questions.
I took the break before quant. When I came out of the test room, I thought I'd probably have to retake because of verbal, but I knew if I held on to that thought I would ruin the rest of the test, so I did my best to forget about verbal. Quant was not as bad as I thought, I had to guess on a number of questions but my pacing was fine. IR was not as bad either, I could not get higher than IR 5 on mocks and tended to run out of time, but on the test day it went smoothly, I think the key to IR is realizing that to get IR 8, you do not have to solve all the questions, so let go of the harder ones if need be (if only I followed this simple logic on verbal...) I started AWA by writing the essay structure using the templates, re-read the argument and my brain froze... AWA was a disaster.
Then the exam results show up and wow, 740 (Q 48, V 44), perfect considering I had to guess a lot on verbal!! I could not ever dream of this score a couple of years back, and always thought 700+ is for quant people only. This is so much ought to the tons of helpful material provided by this forum, thank you so much everyone. I never wrote posts here before, thought I have nothing to add, but I was an attentive reader for a long time.
I know this is only the first step for applications. The book recommended here by someone - Snapshots from Hell/The Making of an MBA by Peter Robinson - reveals MBA is generally painful, but more so for 'poets' (non-quant people). But well, I guess I am an optimist
06 Aug 2020, 09:31
Kudos
Bookmarks
shharf
Congrats on your great score of 740. Still you have scope to improve in Quant. Coming to your AWA score, top schools always check all the score including IR and AWA. So, considering your strength in verbal, score improvement scope in quant and your mocks, It is better to take test one more time. all the best.
06 Aug 2020, 11:19
Kudos
Bookmarks
mangamma
Thank a million! I was hesitating but after giving it some thought and reading this comment, decided to retake indeed. Last thing I want is to have a low AWA score be a decisive factor in the admissions process. So let the GMAT journey - part 2 begin. I have just booked the retake for 17/09 and bought GMAT Club tests.
Let’s see where I get after more practice...
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