mbahunt Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 Long time lurker, first time poster... First, thanks to everyone here for their advice and tips. At the risk of repeating all other advice given here, I'm brain dumping. Hope someone finds something relevant or helpful. Know thyself. Don't try and pretend you are what you are not. Everyone has a very specific way they study and way of doing things, and not all things work for everyone. So, don't go casing around the forums looking for the best get-800-quick scheme, expecting that it will work for you. Case in point. I did start studying about 6-7 weeks ago and took a slow, methodical approach to studying, but I'd say a good 40% of my studying actually took place over the past 7 days, especially this last weekend. I'm a notorious crammer and I'm not going to deny that fact, so when people thought I was overdoing it in the days leading up to the exam, I told them to eat it, because that's when I'm at my best. In fact, it's proven that your short term memory has larger potential for picking up items faster and more easily and studying for the GMATs isn't like learning a language. In my opinion, you should cram all of those little equations and grammar rules in as quickly as possible. However, that's just my opinion; you have to what's best for you. Computer screens make your eyes bleed! If you do nothing at all, at the very minimum take a practice CAT! Reading and analyzing text on a computer screen is far different than doing the same on paper. From the fact that you look ahead instead of down to the eye strain and fatigue you experience, if you haven't taken a computer based test before, you better damn well try it out before you walk into that testing center. I spent about 3 weeks solely using the OG and the Kaplan books and I thought I was doing fairly well. I took my first practice CAT and it took no prisoners. Utterly violated and bruised, I had a new appreciation for the CAT. For some weird reason, I just couldn't concentrate on the screen the way I could on paper. Seeing how I spend 14+ hours/day on a computer, (F you, technology!) I didn't expect this at all. Slowly, though, I got used to it and obviously, it turned out ok, but I wish the first thing I would have done was take the practice CAT. Prepare for distraction. I have the attention span of a 6-year old on crystal meth. The earth's rotation is enough to distract me. The testing center will have a myriad of distractions from the screaming contest they're having in the adjacent room to the gorilla seated next to you who obviously has never used a computer before and prefers to type with a closed fist. Luckily, I live a crackhouse with lots of other people, so I was used to studying with a basic level of noise and interference. Take one of your practice tests in a Starbucks or a Barnes and Nobles. Get comfortable with earplugs. Whatever you do, don't let some minimal noise at the testing center destroy your focus, especially if you're prone to distraction. The GMAT is hard. It will f**k you. There is a good portion of people who will work very hard to study for this test. There is also a good portion of people who believe they are naturally gifted and will do a few problems and not think twice about it. I started in the latter group, but quickly sobered up to join the former group. You are not smart enough to take this test head on. This test was not designed to measure your raw intelligence. If you had all the time in the world, sure, your intellectual prowess would shine through, but this test rewards cutting corners and taking short cuts. I realize that most of the people on this forum are spending enough time preparing to realize how tricky this test can be, but I had some extremely bright friends go in with minimal preparation and get slammed. When you buy the OG, waste part of your money. Within each section, the questions in the OG are ordered from easiest to hardest. Don't even bother with questions 1 through 50. They are too easy. Not only are they a waste of time, but they will give you a false sense of being awesome. Shouldn't you be prepared for all questions, easy, medium and hard? No. Think of it this way. Question number 1 is a middle-of-the-road question in difficulty. If you get it right, it only gets harder from here. In theory, you shouldn't even see an easy question (unless it is an experimental, unscored question). If you have the time, or need some remedial help, I guess it would be worth the added practice, but if you do need remedial help, I hope you have the time too, because you've got a ways to go. Know where the damn testing center is. I had a friend who couldn't find the place on the day of her GRE. There are more stupid things you can do, but not too many. Go check it out the day before. Not only will you save $250 to only take it once, it's a lot more relaxing to go to a place you've already been. Speaking of relaxing... If you have a job, take the day off of work to take the test. There's just something that feels really good about not going to work. Your mindset is so important when you take the GMAT that it is worth doing everything you can to reduce your stress. If you are an undergraduate student, go ahead and miss the test. You'll be better off for it. Apparently, if you are stellar enough to get into a top MBA program without work experience, most other MBA students will hate your guts. This seems to be a recurring theme in my exposure to MBA graduates. Don't solve the DS questions. You are just wasting precious seconds if you do. Recognize solvable situations such as three variables and three equations or instances where two variables can be combined into one. DS Yes/No Trap = Death The question every DS problem is asking is: can you answer this question with the given information? The problem is NOT asking: is the answer to this question 'yes'? It is really easy to say, "Q: Does x equal 5? No, x does not equal 5, so... this statement gives me nothing. E." The GMAT writers are bastards, but are also very smart. In the verbal section, negate every wrong answer before confirming your selection. Many questions have 2 answers that could be right. Remember that the answer they want is the answer that is MOST right. In an effort to ensure you don't run out of time, you may blow your load on the second best answer. Make your little chart and start crossing off letters until you're left with only one. Your score will thank you. Gauge you time wisely. This one's a no brainer, but lots of people I talked to ignore this. Know how much time you should have left after 10, 20 or 30 questions. Sure, you don't want to run out of time, but it is just as damaging to not spend enough time carefully thinking through your choice. Some questions (especially early on) have the ability to drastically change your score---supposedly up to 30 or 40 points in some cases. If you complete the test with 20 minutes to go, take that erasable marker and draw a star on your forehead, because that's all you get. Well, it's time for bed. This euphoria will eventually wear off and I won't be so cavalier, but if you found any of this useful, please share it. Good luck to everyone and their upcoming exams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamGmat Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 very well written and congrats for the awesome score Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imjimmy Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 Great score and an excellent debrief.. I like the somewhat humorous vein in your writing. Make your little chart and start crossing off letters until you're left with only one. Your score will thank you What's ure strategy for this one. Do you make a grid of ABCDE for all answers before you start the test - or is it wise to write ABCDE for each question as it comes and then use POE instead of writing the entire thing for 41 questions before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbahunt Posted September 8, 2006 Author Share Posted September 8, 2006 What's ure strategy for this one. Do you make a grid of ABCDE for all answers before you start the test... It's all about speed, so I just set up one line of answer boxes before the exam starts. You have to do what you can to move as quickly as possible, and while I know it seems time-consuming to negate every wrong answer, I still think it's worth it. I think most testing sites give you laminated yellow notebooks with a marker. The notebooks look like graph paper, so there are solid lines for you to use. Check out the attachment to see exactly what I do. (This is just on regular notebook paper from one of my practice tests; I obviously couldn't take a picture of my actual scratch paper.) I find this strategy especially invaluable on the Sentence Correction questions. It provides me with a very quick way to narrow down my choices. It's much easier to focus on 2 possible answers instead of 5. Let me give you an example from the OG (#61). Q: Since 1986 enrollments of African Americans, American Indians and Hispanic Americans in full-time engineering programs in the United States has steadily increased... A.) has steadily increased... B.) has steadily increased... C.) increased steadily... D.) have steadily increased... E.) have steadily increased... If I'm keeping a close eye out for the major grammar rules that are usually tested, I can see that there is a subject-verb disagreement as "enrollments" requires a plural verb. I intentionally left off the end of each answer choice to prove that once I've recognized the error, I can quickly scan the part of the choices where I know an error has been committed and immediately cross off A and B, because they both contain the singular verb "has". In addition, I can see that the sentence starts with the word "since," which signifies the fact that the action of the verb should have started in the past. I can cross off C immediately because it is only using the simple past. Notice that I could have done that just by looking at the first word of each answer choice! Granted, not every problem is this cut and dry, but many are. In less than 5 seconds after I have read the sentence, I've already eliminated 3 choices and I only have to concentrate on the ends of choices D and E. Admittedly, the verbal section is the weaker of the two for me, so any quick narrowing down I can do is a huge advantage. If you are a verbal pimp and a half, you may not have to do this. But if you're not the smoothest on the verbal part, you might find this as good of a strategy as I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaragorn Posted September 8, 2006 Share Posted September 8, 2006 Great score, Great debrief and thanks for that tip on tackling SCs. All the best for your apps MBAHUNT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay711 Posted September 8, 2006 Share Posted September 8, 2006 your note is exactly what I do with "x" and "?" congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rishi_gk Posted September 8, 2006 Share Posted September 8, 2006 But if you're not the smoothest on the verbal part, you might find this as good of a strategy as I did. That's very helpful..Thanks for taking the time out and showing us with a screenshot. What i did till now was to write out A B C D E on my scratch paper for each question, while solving the question, and then crossing the choices out. Your method looks more neat for sure. BTW what were ure scores in CATs like Kaplan and GmatPrep.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbahunt Posted September 8, 2006 Author Share Posted September 8, 2006 BTW what were ure scores in CATs like Kaplan and GmatPrep.. GMATPrep Test 1: Not good. Since I'm a moron, I accidentally did not score myself on this test, but I do know that I only got about 22 questions right in each section. I'm estimating that correlates to a score of the low 500s. Kaplan CAT Test 1: 40Q, 30V, 580 Kaplan CAT Test 2: 50Q, 36V, 660 Kaplan Book Test: 49Q, 44V, 690 Kaplan CAT Test 3: 50Q, 35V, 640 GMATPrep Test 2: 49Q, 44V, 760 Take these scores with a grain of salt. I can't say that any of these scores were a good indicator of my final score, as there were some issues with each test. The GMATPret test uses some of the same questions from the OG, so if you've gone through the entire book, you will see some familiar questions pop up, which will artificially inflate your score. I found the questions to be significantly harder on the Kaplans than on the real thing---especially the Reading Comprehension section. I swear I thought I forgot how to read when I was doing the Kap tests. In addition, there are typos and weirdness in the questions themselves. Remember that Kaplan just made these questions up based on actual questions; they are not actually questions you would find on the exam! I only used the OG and the Kaplan overview book (not the 800 or the section specific ones). I heard that PR isn't targeted for those who wish to score above 700, so I didn't bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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