Thank you MGMAT!! 660 to 740

[jl.e.castro]

Retook the GMAT this afternoon after nearly a year after my first take. Here's the breakdown:

First try - 660 (Q: 47, V:33)
Today - 740 (Q: 48, V: 44)

Thank you so much MGMAT - the new edition is great and really helped push me over the hump!

[me.prasanna]

Hi,
Congratulations for getting a good score.
Since you are crediting your success to MGMAT, can you please share your practical experience or strategies and exactly how the verbal books helped you to improve so much on your verbal section.

Thanks

[jl.e.castro]

Well, my specific issue was sentence correction; I was always strong in Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. I hardly studied RC, I spent a little bit more time on CR and I did see some improvement there. However, the vast majority of my time was spent on Sentence Correction. The MGMAT book is very good - go through the content meticulously. I didn't do every single problem in the book, but the ones I did do I made sure that I fully understood why the answer was correct. For the OG questions, I also tried to understand why each correct choice was right, but just as important, I looked at why each incorrect choice was wrong. I also noticed that I was having problems with a specific type of SC, so I spent additional time on this, doing whole problem sets of only this type of question.

As a supplement to the MGMAT material, I strongly recommend the PowerScore Sentence Correction Bible. Their perspective & content is a little different from MGMAT's, and I think the combination of PowerScore and MGMAT is a great way to master SC.

I had a bit of an odd studying regimen - after my first test I took a few months off. Between September and mid-March I studied on and off, sometimes going weeks at a time without picking up a book. On a whim, I decided to schedule an exam in 5 weeks. I buckled down for these 5 weeks and studied 2-4 hours per day (Aside: You don't have to go all out studying - I still managed to put in overtime at the office, was able to do my weekly volunteer work, and I even went out for the occasional drink with my friends during these last 5 weeks. What's important is that you take the proper approach: target your weaknesses and focus on quality studying rather than quantity studying)

I spent the first 2 weeks going through each of the MGMAT books and then I spent the last 3 weeks doing OG problems and going back over some key areas I needed to work on from the MGMAT books. I actually only took 1 practice exam during these 5 weeks, as I saw it more fit to work on my weaknesses rather than "exam conditioning." Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions