640 --> 710 in 3 months while working FT

[O&G MBA]

Hey everyone, throughout my GMAT experience, I have read a ton of these test day/prep strategy posts, so I figured I would post mine since I got the results I wanted.

Prep
I took the Manhattan GMAT course from June - August of 2016, and took the GMAT at the end of August. I scored a 640 (41Q, 37V, 8IR). I was not pleased at all since I am looking to go to a top 15 b-school. My instructors (Stacey and Brett) as well as my PCA tutor (cannot recall his name, but he was right!) told me I was rushing my test by taking it too soon (just 3 weeks after the session had ended), but due to work and extra curricular demands I saw this as my only shot for a number of months to take the exam. So I rescheduled for today, December 3, and scored a 710 (49Q, 38V, 4IR). Can you guess what area I focused on? Haha.

For quant, the name of the game is practice problems. Do them. Lots of them. Then when you think you have done enough, do some more practice problems. And then, for dessert, do some more practice problems. Be absolutely sure you are doing timed sets of 4-8 problems a piece and benchmark your timing. Due to my work schedule, I had to wake up at 4:00AM to get 2 hours a day in, but it was absolutely worth it.

For verbal, I could have done a lot more. The MGMAT SC guide is better than any tutorial out there. Again, practice problems help, but for verbal, there is a lot of understanding that must be found through the tutorials and guides provided by MGMAT.

Test Day
For the first exam, I took the afternoon off from work to take the test. BIG MISTAKE. My mind was not where it needed to be - work had zapped a lot of my mental energy and focus. For the second exam, I went on a Saturday morning at 8:00. This played right into my study schedule of waking up at 4:00AM to study - I could be awake and focused by the time to took the exam! On test day, I woke up at 4:00 and did what I called "batting practice". This consisted of working relatively easy problems (lower number problems in the OG and quant supplement) to get into the mode of recognizing certain principles, solution methods (SN, plugging in, working backwards), just like a baseball player warms up before a game hitting toss-ups. I had a simple breakfast and in the two days leading up to the exam I did not get too adventurous with any food or social events.

As for the second test - I took the mentality that I was just answering more practice problems. This kept me extremely calm relative to my first exam and really helped me keep the GMAT in perspective.

Overall, please remember that the score you get does not define you as a person. Relax, enjoy the ride, and if you are reading this and are scheduled to take the GMAT, go do some practice problems.

[NiranjanK818]

Hi,

What do you mean by more practice problems?. Are they from OG problems or something else ..?