GMAT experience and some advices

[SethK233]

Hi all, first time posting here.

I took an online class from late April to early July from Josh Braslow. Having studied LSAT a few years ago and graduated from an Ivy engineering program, I really didn't feel that taking a course was necessary but decided to do so just to put some discipline on myself - at least for me, it would've been a lot more difficult to voluntarily spare time to study after work if I didn't take a course.

Here's my progress.

CAT 1: I procrastinated and took CAT 1 on 6/23 untimed and got 730 (Q49 and V40). I've been in finance post college and forgot A LOT of algebra stuff.

CAT 2: 6/29. first timed with IR. Got 5.13 on IR and 680 (Q45 and V37). Really shocked and started actually doing 10-20 problems after work on weekdays with going through explanations even on correct choices. IR seemed pretty difficult.

CAT 3: 7/7. Got 4.5 on IR and 720 (Q47 and V42). Going through some LSAT CR sets helped, I guess. LSAT is significantly harder than GMAT verbal, but does contain unnecessary materials, such as parallel, agree/disagree, etc. Still not satisfied with Quant.

GMATPrep 1: 7/27. Got 5 on IR and 670 (Q48 and V34). I was being distracted while doing the verbal section because my friend was over... Anyhow, I was still pretty disappointed with my IR score and didn't know where to improve!

CAT 4: 8/1 - the day before actual GMAT. Got 4.57 on IR and 740 (Q46 and V45). Verbal came out to be 99% percentile, making me very happy. I knew I could improve Quant by just reviewing specific type problems (rate, combination, etc.) and geometry.

The day before, I took a vacation day and did the following:
[*] Looked at some example essays and templates on GMAT Club. Up to this point, I didn't write a single essay.
[*] Reviewed CAT 4 entirely.
[*] Did 10 or so Quant challenge problems.
[*] Reviewed some Quant sections on OG 13.

I felt "whatever" on my IR scores, so didn't do much on that. My sub-section scores varied quite significantly, but I was targeting ~Q48-49 and V42-43 for ~750.

On my actual exam, I got 8 on IR and 740 (Q51 and V39).

Here are my takeaways:
[*] MGMAT IR seems much harder than the actual exam. Didn't even expect I'd get the highest score. But I did get a problem which I didn't really understand. Just guessed answer choices quickly and moved to another one. You don't need to get all of 12 questions correct to get an 8 - you can easily forgo 2-3 problems if you're comfortable with the remainder.
[*] I don't know why but MGMAT Quant seemed harder also. Or perhaps because I focused on math yesterday. Actual test questions seem quite easy so I was wondering if I was missing many questions.
[*] Because my point above, challenge problems seemed quite worthless. The difficulty was not even close. If you're in sub-48 or so range, don't bother going through challenge problems. Just know your weak areas, understand by reading the OG and do some problems. I did focus on rate and combination problems and sure enough both came up on my actual. Time was a challenge for me on practices, but I actually had ~5 minutes left at the end of my Quant section.
[*] I totally bombed Verbal. Reading was easy and I didn't necessarily feel that SC and CR questions were tricky, but it turned out pretty low. I was darn disappointed because 45 on the last CAT would put me on 770-780 range. I had about 10 minutes left at the end of the Verbal section.
[*] At least for me, my previous practice exams didn't really provide a good indicator for how I'd do on the actual because sub-scores fluctuated so much.
[*] For a bit, I wondered if I'd go for another try to shoot for 760+, but soon decided I'd rather focus on my applications than another 5 weeks on GMAT. 99% and 97% do make me feel the difference, but 740 seems a tricky score to retry.

All of my (ex-)colleagues and friends who did MBA or are starting MBA got 730-750 and went to top 10 programs. I talked to 2 of them today and they just advised me to focus on apps (essays) and not to look back on GMAT.

Happy GMATing!

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, I'm sorry I'm only getting to your post now - have been traveling for the past week.

Nice job on your test! Really great work. And thanks for giving us the run-down of your experience.

I agree that LSAT CR is harder than GMAT CR. It also has some differences that could mess you up on GMAT CR, so it's just important to make sure that you know what the GMAT test writers want for this question type.

Also agree that our IR is harder - we're trying to get people to take it seriously. Too many people are blowing it off ahead of time, and then on real test day, their Q and V scores drop because they spend so much mental energy trying to do IR for real for the first time.

Our quant section also feels harder to many people. If you are going to get a high quant score (which you did, of course!), then your experimental questions are (on average) likely to be easier than the questions you are earning (the counted questions)...but our tests don't have experimental questions, so you really are answering 37 very hard questions.

The challenge problems on the website are really designed more for fun / edification, but are generally much harder than anything you'd see on the real test. The Advanced Quant book is designed for people who are at or above about 47-48, yes.

You finished verbal 10 minutes early and didn't really feel that it was extra tricky...that sounds like mental fatigue, which often results in people working more quickly (because you just "don't care" as much and don't take the time to work as carefully as possible) - and that, of course, leads to careless errors, bringing your score down.

On your practice tests, your verbal scores mostly went up pretty steadily except for that day that your friend was distracting you during the verbal section.

I don't think you need to re-take the test at all. You are above the average for every school out there, so there's really no good reason to re-take. No school is going to reject you for that GMAT score. (That doesn't mean they're going to let you in of course :) but they're not going to reject based on that score!)

Good luck on applications!