Finally seeng the light at the end of the tunnel

[GMAT Eater]

Hello everyone, I would like to share my yet successful and unfinished GMAT rollercoaster ride.

I am currently a MGMAT student and I started out at 600 (MGMAT CAT)

I have been out of job (intentionally) as a IT consultant for a last two months to dedicate myself to GMAT.
I even turned down a nice job offer from Disney just to study for the GMAT.

I have studied like hell. But I have been reading it takes 150 hours of studying to score 700+.

So I went through all the OG problems, Verbal and Quant Review, and MGMAT study guides.

Then I took the GMAT Prep and I scored a 640. It was really depressing. Actally it really sucked.

Then I put in 40 hours of depression filled hours of GMAT studies going over the OG again and retook the GMAT Prep.

This time I scored 680.

OK, it still sucked in my opinion, but at least I was improving.

Then I came to a conclusion that the OG problems were too easy!

I was easily able solve OG problems and get 94%+ correct. The 6% wrong mostly had to do with careless error.

But the GMATPrep problems, particularly its Quant and SC were noticeably tougher.

So I bought GMAT Focus (two sets for $62 each) and EZ Advanced GMAT Math.

Now these two contained really tough 650-800 problems. But I put in 150 hours of study just for the two (my studies now total 350 hours) for the 450 problems.

My GMAT Focus scores have been steadily rising. Yesterday, I took my 6th and last GMAT Focus exam and received 47-51 (2 wrong) with 15 minutes left over! Previous to that, I received a 45-50 with 5 minutes left over. Now I am a GMAT Quant jock!

So I decided to take the GMAT Prep again. I did have some overlap from the previous exam (not much though since I was doing so much better this time around), and I scored a whopping 780.

So my lesson is that people CAN improve their GMAT scores with a lot of effort.

My GMAT scheduled on 10/6.

Wish me luck everyone!

[s]

Wow! Thats terrific! I am planning to take it on 10/6 as well. I took the GMAT Prep1 last week and scored a 690. I hope to score atleast a 700 on the real exam. How was the EZ Advanced Math book? Is it worth buying with only 2 weeks to go? My quant score on Prep 1 was 49 and on the MGMAT exams also I have been consistently in the 48-50 range. Thanks & Good Luck!

[GMAT Eater]

If you are soring in the 48-50 in Quant then EZ Math probably will not help you much. Besides it hs 300 really tough problems which took me a good 70 hours to solve and understand.

But I think GMATFocus had different types of GMAT problems which you may find helpful.

Good luck in your exam.

[nadontheway]

Hi,

I bought Gmat focus and scored 31-39 on the first bundle. I did all Mgmat cats and I scored from 31 to 43. On gmat prep 2 I scored 44 in Q. I really need to boost my quant (my verbal too). Is EZ Advanced GMAT Math close to gmat questions? Shouldn't be enough to redo Mgmat cats since Quant is pretty high level?

Good luck!!!

[Guest]

If you are soring in the 48-50 in Quant then EZ Math probably will not help you much. Besides it hs 300 really tough problems which took me a good 70 hours to solve and understand.

But I think GMATFocus had different types of GMAT problems which you may find helpful.

Good luck in your exam.

Congrads GMAT EATER! i wish you the best of luck on your upcoming gmat. my gmat is coming up next week and i need to seriously improve my sc! i got 8 sentence correction problems wrong in my 2nd GMAT prep. I've done all of OG, verbal questions. any last minute tips for sc improvement?

thanks

[GMAT Eater]

I suggest buying an entire GMAT Focus bundle. It is a ripoff, but a well worth one.

But use the bundle wisely. You want to use it so you can get the toughest GMAT problems, not the sub 600 level ones you can easily get from your OG. You should take them after you finished with the EZ Advanced Math.

EZ Advanced GMAT is around 30 bucks and yes they are very similar to the real thing. They put their own twist to make the questions a little harder, but it really helped me.

To everyone, I do not work for EZ.

Hi,

I bought Gmat focus and scored 31-39 on the first bundle. I did all Mgmat cats and I scored from 31 to 43. On gmat prep 2 I scored 44 in Q. I really need to boost my quant (my verbal too). Is EZ Advanced GMAT Math close to gmat questions? Shouldn't be enough to redo Mgmat cats since Quant is pretty high level?

Good luck!!!

[GMAT Eater]

SC is still my weakest area but I have improved a lot.

I think Manhattan GMAT's SC workbook is awesome. I ran through Verbal Review and OG SC problems around 6 times and each time I learned something new. Now, I can solve sub 700 SC problems very easily and quickly.

Additionally, MGMAT has a online SC workshop which is really the best of the bunch.

The problem is that I am near perfect with my RC and CR, so I end up getting 700+ SC problems!

I have been getting 60% of SC problems correct.

If you are soring in the 48-50 in Quant then EZ Math probably will not help you much. Besides it hs 300 really tough problems which took me a good 70 hours to solve and understand.

But I think GMATFocus had different types of GMAT problems which you may find helpful.

Good luck in your exam.

Congrads GMAT EATER! i wish you the best of luck on your upcoming gmat. my gmat is coming up next week and i need to seriously improve my sc! i got 8 sentence correction problems wrong in my 2nd GMAT prep. I've done all of OG, verbal questions. any last minute tips for sc improvement?

thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Interesting conversation. Good luck to those of you with upcoming tests - let us know how it goes!