690!

[candancezimmerman]

Hi all,

I've gotten a lot of the forums so I thought I'd contribute.

I took the GMAT a couple months ago and felt like it went so poorly I canceled. I was averaging around a 700 on Practice Tests, but felt like there were super easy questions on the math and I couldn't concentrate during verbal thinking about it. I canceled my score and was demoralized. I took a step back, did a lot of targeted practice and review for a month and a half, and took the test again today. I got within my goal range with a 690!

Test Day tips:

- Do NOT think about what score you are getting or whether you are getting easy questions during the exam. It won't help you and you can't tell. Tell yourself I am just going to do the test as that's what I can control.
- Keep time on verbal, even if you normally have extra time in practice tests. There's talk of verbal being more difficult now and I don't know if that's true, but I do know I had extra time in practice tests and not on the real thing both times. Maybe it's just being in the exam room or having experimental questions, but just have a method for keeping track of verbal time and stick to it.
- Do medium questions before the test instead of trying to memorize or read stuff off a summary page. Studying a sheet is just going to scare you, instead do questions that are comfortable so you think yeah I can totally do this. For me that was doing questions in the 40s range in the GMAT quant book. I just went to the test center an hour before and sat in a Starbucks next door doing a few of each question type.
- Study in places with distraction. I took practice tests in cafes, in conference rooms at work, in my apt. Just get a variety because you never know who's going to be next to you coughing, etc. Be prepared for the distraction of people getting up, sitting down etc. I used to need near silence to do work, so it can be learned.

Study Tips
- You don't absolutely need a class and people working full time have limited time so they need to be as focused in their study as possible. Try and follow the mgmat syllabus but it moves very fast, so doing on your own allows you leeway to take a little longer with the material and saves you cash. There are enough resources online for free or nominal cost. It's not about the money, it's about the time. If you do choose to study on your own invest in some or all of the following:
- mgmat books (great methods, good in action probs)
- OGs and reviews (best test-like practice) + mgmat og guide
- GMAT focus (great test-like timed practice, take near end of studying to get mixed prob sets)
- mgmat question banks (good for targeting weaknesses)
- mgmat flash cards (good to do in transit or week before test to review key concepts)
- Study verbal. Especially if you're better at it. It feels harder day of, you can't wing it, and it can really improve your score to push it up to 99%

That's all! Thanks to everyone on the forums.
Candance

[messi10]

Hi Candance,

Congratulations on a great score and best of luck with your admissions! :) I have been following some of your posts with Stacey and it seems you have bounced back extremely well from your first experience.

Can you please provide your Quant and Verbal scores and also elaborate a bit more on this Study Verbal that you have mentioned. Is this a book?

Thanks

Sunil