ZeroGee Posted September 14, 2004 Share Posted September 14, 2004 I took the GMATs on Friday September 10th after about a month and a half of preparation. I will be applying to the top tier business schools next fall with plans to begin my graduate education in September of '06. My first choice is Harvard by a large margin, as I am interested in "General Management" much more so than anything relating directly to Marketing or Finance. I would like to eventually start a Space Tourism company. With that out of the way, I received a 760, with an identical breakdown (Q49, V44) to the PowerPrep 2 test I had taken 4 days earlier. It is said that a good GMAT score can't get you into Business School, but a bad one can keep you out. In addition, as an engineer, I believe that the high verbal score will reflect positively on me and present me as a "well-rounded candidate." With that in mind, I am happy with my score, and I recognize that getting a few more questions right wouldn't change anything about my chance of admission; still, I am surprised how flustered I got during the exam. The essay section was actually enjoyable, as it was a low-stress way to ease into the testing. The quantitative section started fine, but then I hit a problem-solving question that seemed easy, and I continually seemed to make mistakes. Rather than give up and go on, I fought through it, and then suffered from time pressure. This in turn raised my stress levels considerably, and I wish I had just made an educated guess and moved on. I rushed through the next few problems in an effort to "get back on pace," which was also a mistake. When I got to the final question, I actually had eight minutes left, which just goes to show you that you need to go with the flow, and not worry too much about your preconceived notion of where you should be. Verbal was as I thought it would be. Two fill-in-the-blanks, one bold-faced question, and fairly easy Reading Comprehension passages. I was in a bit of a trance at this point and moved pretty quickly, and ended up finishing with sixteen minutes still remaining, even though I left at one point to take a quick bathroom break. There were a few sentence correction questions I had to guess on, but I didn't brood over them too long, and I think this helped keep my blood pressure down. When I saw my score, I was relieved. I don't know what I'm going to do with all this free time I now have on my hands! Preparation: I started with the "Master the GMAT CAT" book from Arco, which was pretty bad. The format of the CAT tests from the CD is terrible, the scrollbars don't work too well, and some of the questions have missing sentences. It pretends to be an "adaptive" test but on one practice test after getting 5 very difficults right, it moved me down to difficult and kept me there despite only getting one wrong the rest of the test. I wouldn't put too much stock in the score it suggests -- I got 670 - 690 on three separate occasions. I took PPrep 1 and scored a 710. The next day, I found this website, and started using it frequently. I would wager that the biggest reason for my jump in score from 710 was this website, where I would take the time to reflect on each question presented and decide why each wrong answer was incorrect, and then post my thoughts. I think everyone should do this, as teaching others is one of the best ways to learn. I also used the Kaplan 800 book, and I highly recommend it. It has some good questions in there and it'll keep you on your toes. A few other last pieces of advice: Do PPrep 2 a few days before your exam in as much of an exam-like setting as you can create. I cleared EVERYTHING off my desk, made sure my room was as quiet as possible, and then went to sleep early the night before. I woke up, ate breakfast, dressed nicely (as I strongly believe that you perform better when you are well-dressed), and then started the exam. My score was identical to the actual exam (49, 44) -- so it sounds like this is a pretty darn good predictor. Don't get flustered. You never know if you'll hit a run of easier questions and get right back on track. I told myself "don't get upset," but did anyway. That probably cost me a few points. When you post questions here, PLEASE PLEASE respond with the answer in a timely fashion. It is quite frustrating to do analysis on a project, see that others have differing views, and then not get confirmation of the correct answer. If you don't know the answer, POST THAT FACT with the initial problem. Similarly, PLEASE PLEASE make sure that you use proper spelling and grammar when posting both verbal and math questions. Trying to answer someone's question only to be confused by an incorrect transcription is very discouraging. If you want help, spend the extra one minute to double-check what you copied in. I'll probably pop in occasionally to stay sharp, because I'm thinking about tutoring some coworkers for their test. I would like to thank everyone who answered my questions and posed their own for helping make this test as painless as possible. ZeroGee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
friendlydragonca Posted September 14, 2004 Share Posted September 14, 2004 Way to go, zero gee! Actually, you got the exact same score as I did - I mean your verbal and quant subscores were the same as mine. But you finished the verbal with 16 min to spare? My hat is off to you - I had to pretty much use every second available for both sections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdanquah Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 ongratulation zerogee. Very impressive score and what a way to finish the much dreaded verbal. Good luck and continue comming to the forum to help us out. Bye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vingmat Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 Excellent Zerogee...from my interaction with you on this forum i somehow felt you were a very amicable and intelligent fellow... Pray for me...my Pressure Cooker is on 27, Sept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroGee Posted September 15, 2004 Author Share Posted September 15, 2004 Vingmat, Based on your responses I'm sure you'll do fine as well. Another tip to possibly avoid the terrible feeling I got when stuck on a question -- make sure you do your best to answer it, but then say to yourself, "What the heck, it's just an experimental question anyhow... it doesn't matter!" Click Answer, Confirm, smile to yourself, and then tackle the next one thinking you know something that ETS doesn't know -- you can't be harmed by one stupid little question! Taking that sort of attitude might help reduce the "pressure" a bit. It's not a 79 question, 150 minute test -- it's a 60 question, 120 minute test ... you just don't know when the test starts and when it ends :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erin Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 Awesome score, ZeroGee, and great advice. I especially like the part about helping others. :D And you're right--many of the high-scorers here have said that they learned a lot simply by teaching others. I know from experience that there's no better way to learn something inside and out than to teach. Congrats again. I'll be keeping an eye out for a space tourism company with a CEO from HBS. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crackGmat Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 Great Score ZeroGee, Based on u'r performance looks like you had good speed even in u'r practice tests ? Keep lending u'r knowledge on this forum which helps many of us here and this way we mutually benefit from everyone. Keep up u'r thoughts on Harvard.. work toward u'r apps right from now. U have a good time to introspect and prepare an overall excellent app Once again congrats. -shree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abhishek_jha Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 Wow, Awesome score and another V44 in the forum. 16 minutes to spare in Verbal, is it phenomenal or what ! Many congrats and all the best for your apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bevo Posted September 16, 2004 Share Posted September 16, 2004 You better take some law classes if you plan to take people into space..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroGee Posted September 16, 2004 Author Share Posted September 16, 2004 That's interesting that you say that, Bevo. The advice given to me by a Fortune 50 CEO was "Think about a law degree instead of a business degree, or a Joint JD/MBA." Still, I'll just have to hire a darn good lawyer to take care of those issues. I have about 15 years before I need to worry about it. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vingmat Posted September 16, 2004 Share Posted September 16, 2004 "It's not a 79 question, 150 minute test -- it's a 60 question, 120 minute test ... you just don't know when the test starts and when it ends :-)" ZGee...that's a very interesting perspective... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMAT-HELP Posted September 16, 2004 Share Posted September 16, 2004 Awesome score, ZeroGee, and great advice. I especially like the part about helping others. :D And you're right--many of the high-scorers here have said that they learned a lot simply by teaching others. I know from experience that there's no better way to learn something inside and out than to teach. Congrats again. I'll be keeping an eye out for a space tourism company with a CEO from HBS. :) ZeroGee: '0g', U defy all laws of gravity & GMAT traps! Awesome score! Good luck with your space program! Thanks, GMAT-HELP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosalie127 Posted September 16, 2004 Share Posted September 16, 2004 :crazy: I need some help!!!!!! How do I improve my time. I've used the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] and the PR for the techniques, but I really need help/advice because I spend 3min average on each question. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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