Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Preparing for the GMAT

I'm finally done with my GMAT and just put away all the books, papers, scratch pads, CDs and the assortment of study material that slowly but surely sucked the life out of me over the last couple of months and came perilously close to destroying the last few working grey cells in my brain. And I look around, and guess what, a lot of my friends have just started preparing for the test. There can be no greater joy than sitting there feeling all "I finished my exam and can party anytime!" smug. And ofcourse, dishing out advice is a surefire way to rub these guys the wrong way. So contrary to my NCMF attitude, I am going to share my test prep strategy. If you are desperate enough to read my blog to prepare or get inspired for GMAT, then things cannot get much worse for you anyway!

What's GMAT?
If you're reading this, you obviously know the answer to that. Its a silly aptitude test like any other. Just because you do well than your neighbor does not make you smarter, and vice versa. You do not need a 780 on GMAT. What I normally hear is 700 is a good score as far as MBA schools are concerned. After that, they will start looking at how well-rounded your overall application package is, rather than how much over 700 you managed to get. So don't sweat.

Material/Books:
There are tons of material out there, but some will do you more harm than good. I think everything you would need in your test prep is contained in the following list
1. The Official Guide for GMAT Review, The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review and The Official Guide for GMAT Quant Review. These are from the people who actually administer GMAT and are as close to the real questions as you can get.
2. Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT is a good book to get a general overview of various sections. Practice sections are easy in general, but if you get the CD with the book, it gives you 4 computer-based tests, which although very different from the actual GMAT, is still valuable practice.
3. Kaplan GMAT 2005 is also an excellent book to cover GMAT test basics, and it has some good exercises too. The CD comes with practice sessions and 4 full-fledged tests. These tests are tougher than the actual GMAT, but they are good to develop some mental toughness. Take them more like a challenge to your time management skills.

That's it. That's all the books you need. You can pick up the occasional grammar book or LSAT or Manhattan, but that's completely left to your discretion and is not absolutely necessary by any means.

Timeline:
The tricky part is when to schedule the test and how long do you need to prepare. If you can consistently manage 2 hours a day, then 2 months should be more than enough time to get a 700+ score. Ofcourse, I cannot generalize here, and people have different aptitudes for different things. So work it out for yourself. But one month into your prep, you should probably book your test date, so you cannot back out or procrastinate.

Test Prep:
1. First, scan through the Princeton Review book to get an idea of the test and what it really 'tests'. Try some of their question bins.
2. Register at mba.com and download the 2 free Powerprep tests they offer. Take one of them. These are much easier than the real thing, but would give you a good idea of where you stand. For example, a score of 680-700 should tell you that you can manage 730+ in the real GMAT if you give yourself 2 months. You can take the second test maybe a month later to boost your confidence.
3. Start on the Official Guide (or OG as it is known in GMAT speak!). My strategy was to divide up the questions so I could simulate the actual test everytime. So I would take 15 questions from each verbal section (3 x 15 = 45) and 20 questions from the two Quant sections (2 x 20 = 40) and take them without too many breaks. You could start timing yourself as well.
4. Maintain an excel spreadsheet (or a 4 squire notebook for the technologically challenged) to keep tabs on your performance in each section. I tracked things like my success percentage, average time taken per question etc. and I also noted down the questions I got wrong or had the most difficulty with. Revisiting them later helped me gauge my improvement. The 900 odd questons in the OG main book should take you around 10-12 days at this rate.
5. Now you can move on to the Kaplan book and go through their strategy, tips and practice questions. You can also simultaneously start working on the OG Verbal and Quant supplementary books.
6. You can start taking tests whenever you are comfortable. Apart from the 8 tests in the Princeton and Kaplan CDs, I also bought the 9 real GMAT tests available at mba.com. They tend to repeat some OG questions, but I found them to be good practice. There are also couple of GMATPrep tests by Pearson VUE you are free to download from gmat.com. These are supposedly the closest approximations of the actual test, so you should keep them for the last week. As you can see, there are around 20 tests already listed here. Going at an inhuman rate of about one test every alternate day, you will need 40 days just to complete these tests. So the earlier you start with them the better.
7. The week before the test, take the 2 GMATPrep tests as mentioned earlier. You will probably end up with a similar score in the actual test unless you screw up real bad.
8. Somewhere along the way, you also need to prepare for the 2 AWA sections. I read some sample essays given in each of the books listed earlier, and started typing away on notepad. It helps to write the essay sections as well for the last 4-5 tests, just to improve your stamina and longevity.

Other Resources:
GMAT Club was an excellent resource I visited once in a while. There are plenty others (like Scoretop). You can try answering the daily list of questions they put up in their discussion forum. I would suggest not overloading yourself with way too much information than you can handle.

Test day:
Show up early and DO NOT forget your passport. Take something to eat/drink. Don't get alarmed if the test seems harder and you feel like you're getting every answer wrong. You're probably doing better than you think. Your strong preparation will pull you through.

Remember, this is not the end of your life. And you can always retake the test if you fall short. Ofcourse, the next time around, do not follow my strategy :) And I have saved the best piece of advice for last - schedule your test on a Friday, so no matter how you do, you can get out and party in the evening!

If you need clarification on any of the above or feel that you could use my help, drop me a line in the comments section.

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congrats Man!!!

Can u share ur profile?
I can very well guess tht u r from Chennai. A person who is right now put up in Chicago. I can also guess tht u did ur undergrad in BITS. Other than tht i hav no idea :)

When r u planning to apply? US or Indian schools?

May be i hav asked a lot of questions. Do answer if u dont mind :)

3/9/06, 5:23 AM  
Blogger c2c said...

Hi anonymous - Thx for visiting my site. You're right so far. Also, I completed my Masters in UIC and have been working in the Chicago area for around 5 years. Am planning to app for Fall 07 to US schools. You can get in touch with me at karthikr11@yahoo.com

3/9/06, 2:57 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

ncmf / karthick,

Dont take the trouble of adding my blog. I dont & wont post regularly as u do :) Ane the topics i blog abt will be wierd :D
I'm the same anonymous commentor in ur blog.
I've added u in my Y! messenger.

- Murali

3/10/06, 1:28 AM  
Blogger finimits said...

Hi!
Nice round up. Thanks for all the information.
I started out doing math problem solving questions on Princeton review and Kaplan. They were OK. Then I stumbled upon 4gmat.com and tried the sample questions and free math quiz. It was much more tough than anything else I had seen for the GMAT.
If questions like that always came up on the GMAT, I'd better be studying from somewhere other than Kaplan and Princeton or the OG!
Can you verify if 4GMAT is a good guide or something intended for CAT(for MBA in India)?

Thanks so much,
Vivek
please email me if you can at bhaskar.vivek@gmail.com

12/19/07, 2:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well.. you havent told how much exactly did u manage to get and to which school did you get into.. that info might help..

1/23/11, 3:18 PM  
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