I did my GMAT last week and scored a 750. My preparation period was quite brief - so that could be interesting for some who are in the same situation (I decided I'd like to do a part-time MBA mid-July, went to an info session end of July and decided I'd go for it, so I scheduled a test a month later. They wanted 570 so I thought I'd do myself proud and aim for 670 at least, not knowing what that really meant)
Background
- no native English, but pretty fluent. I prefer to read literature in English, I'd say it's as good as it gets if you're not a native or a language student...
- solid engineering degree
This obviously gives an advantage, I don't find either of the two main GMAT sections particularly unpleasant or alienating. It one of them does make you feel unhappy you're probably going to struggle.
The two most important tips I'd give anyone attempting to do a GMAT in a few weeks time and believes he/she should be scoring 700+ is
1. understand what they will ask for, and understand where the GMAT won't go. This limits what you try to get in the toolbox again (as you need to have had the skill in your toolbox before - you're not going to be more of a wizard in four weeks time than you were earlier, so the best you can do is refresh the stuff you need to refresh and ignore the rest)
2. get used to the pacing. The quant section will be tough as you'll probably try to get all questions right - which won't work. The verbal section can be optimized by taking the time to really understand the questions and verifying your answers...
3. And there's one final second tip: get enough sleep the days before the test. And don't get stressed, it's only a test. It's probably not that you think your life depends on it if you believe you can score 700+ on a few weeks preparation. If your life depends on it you should get more preparation time and more practice to iron out the few things you know you won't be good at...
Anyway: my preparation:
* I have a busy life with a newborn, wedding parties, a job and the Olympics on television so I planned a few serious sessions instead of many small ones...
* I bought the Princeton review book. That was the only one in the shop that seemed relevant, and I didn't want to order online as I prefered to see what I was buying. There are probably better books if you score high, but it'll coach you along pretty well.
* I downloaded the GMAT prep package from MBA.com and browsed through the tutorial info stuff (it tells you a bit about what knowledge you need for the quant section, the verbal info is pretty useless)
* Ran a first full test from the GMAT prep package. Scored 720 (47/43 or something similar, don't remember exactly). This surprised me (positively ;-)), and I didn't think this was reliable but it definitely gave me confidence I'd manage the 650+. I decided I'd keep the other trial test for the day before the actual exam. I already learned the Q section has a serious pitfall with timing. Once it gets complicated - which it does if you're doing well... - you may lose time trying to answer questions that need five minutes to do and verify if you haven't seen the simple solution (if that exists ;-)). I still haven't found a good way to deal with that. I didn't answer all the questions and still got a reasonable score though.
* Started the real studying: I read through the whole Princeton book on a Sunday afternoon and tried to understand what mattered and made an inventory of all the math stuff I needed to know
- I found the math stuff really ok for the basic things but lacking on the complex stuff. To score better than what I did I would have needed to be a lot handier with inequalities, absolute values etc. I used a math book to fill in the gaps in the review book (lowest common denominator! actual basic goniometry! combinatorial statistics!). Remember, this was revision for me, not the first time I saw these concepts...
- The verbal info was useful, it had a few good tips on how to interpret the test, and what typical things you will see. A few practical things on "standard" errors were useful, the idioms were not comprehensive enough when I looked at the tests I did, so I decided I'd ignore that and just trust my feel for the language... Their tips on reading comprehension were common sense but good to have reinforced.
- In contrast to what they explain I found it easier to really read the RC parts and emerge myself into them. That takes a minute or two longer than reading quickly and vaguely knowing where the specific stuff is, but it makes the questions a lot easier to answer; you really know the text and you're not going to get caught on questions that link parts of the text together. You probably want to try both approaches and see what works best for you.
* I than ran tests quite regularly building up the "seriousness" towards the exam date. I initially ignored the verbal section as I felt I couldn't really train for that (and it takes a long time to finish ;-) )
- the quant part was still tricky, I kept getting stuck on questions where I spent more than five minutes not finding the answer. I'm not sure if the better tactic would be to call your losses and just move on to the next one. I scored 47 pretty consistently and got used to the time running out on me.
- the verbal section I found hard to concentrate on (I ran these tests in the evening, being pretty tired and thinking logically don't combine). I noticed I finished them with about half an hour to spare so I knew I had time + extra concentration to get me to a higher score. I didn't get stuck here as I either didn't know and made an educated guess between the two options I found equally good, or I just knew the answer.
- I did review most of the questions (quickly going through the ones that I had right, checking those that I had doubts about and really checking the ones I had wrong). This worked for the Verbal section as I made quite a few errors but the review told me what my typical errors were. If you've made them and know what they are it's easier to avoid them...
* I tried to get to test day with enough sleep, thinking clearly is a lot easier if you've had a few good nights. Baby-son didn't completely agree but I managed reasonably well.
Results
Online Test GMAT 8 8/7/2008 V:11 Q:42 450 (I didn't do the verbal section at all, randomly clicked the first eleven questions so I may have had a few right)
Online Test GMAT 9 8/12/2008 V:28 Q:47 610 (Did the first ten questions on the V section but was too tired to finish it)
Online Test GMAT 10 8/19/2008 V:36 Q:47 670 (first proper test)
Online Test GMAT 11 8/20/2008 V:30 Q:47 630 (got a crap Reading Comprehension section on bonds and shares that I really didn't grasp well enough)
GMAT Prep Test 8/21/2008 V:40 Q:51 730 (still didn't concentrate properly on the verbal section, but got the hang of it and felt ready)
Test day
GMAT test 8/22/2008 V:47 Q:47 750
I took the breaks, had a coffee and a bit of chocolate. I got stuck again in the Q section, with all the data consistency questions they throw at you once you're doing well, and one question that I missed the "simple" solution for. If I had practiced more I'd probably have developed an extra sense for the questions where they try to trick you into solving it the hard way (I fell for it ;-) ). In the end I had about seven minutes left for the final seven questions so I did educated guesses without calculating (read the question, remove the complete BS answers and click one of the remaining...) I wasn't too happy about that but I got myself into that situation. I definitely believe I could have done better if I had practiced more and had an agreed policy on getting-stuck questions, but hey if that's what happens that's what happens so I decided to ignore my feelings, concentrate and take on the verbal stuff.
The Verbal section just felt "easy", I did my best to re-read the questions and answer them very narrow-minded. Concentration works. I found I benefited from pacing myself and trying to re-assess my answers rather than going for the "gut-feel" approach that I used during preparation.
Anyway, I hope this helps a few of you, the people at the place where I'm going to do the part-time MBA were very pleased ;-)...