numi - fantastic scores. Did you initially take a test to “gauge” where you stood before studying? flynnch - I tend to agree you–I have seen some examples of not-so-bright-but-eventually-successful businesspeople. One person in particular: a guy who almost failed undergraduate civil engineering (where I live, civil is the least rigorous academically), achieved a low 500 score on the GMAT, and was put into the wait-list for entrance to a sh*tty MBA program. He eventually went on to make several hundreds of millions of dollars. How did he do it? He had a ton of drive, neglected his family (unfortunately), and most importantly, aligned himself with some very smart people. This example reminds me of ‘Outliers’ by Malcom Gladwell which I am sure many of you have already read. Also, I think you nailed it when you said that schools look at the GMAT over a population, rather than individual circumstances.
GMAT is a joke, but regardless of the joke one still have to go through with it and do well. I dont htink GMAT is test of IQ. Just a test of how well u can follow GMAT patterns.
I’d probably spend the time working on my vertical jump. Being able to dunk a basketball is a great thing to put on a resume.
ancientmtk, I continually hear that the GMAT is a “studyable” test, meaning there are test questions that are very similar to practice questions if one does enough practice. I haven’t taken any full tests online, but I’ve tried a few questions on a daily GMAT question site and I think I began to notice a pattern. Would you agree?
TheAliMan, regarding the GMAT, I didn’t take a practice test to gauge my “original score.” I started reviewing the whole Princeton Review textbook and then started going through the Manhattan GMAT book for sentence correction. I did pick up some useful tips along the way, but mostly I felt like I was teaching myself the rules of grammar/arithmetic when in fact I needed to teach myself test experience. Since then, what I’ve been doing since then is just working through all the questions in the Official Guide books (the main book as well as the verbal and quantitative review books), doing about 25-30 questions in each sitting and try to make sure that I’m spending no more than 1.25 minutes per question (I think on the actual test, assuming you spend equal amounts of time on every question, it averages out to be 1.5 minutes per question). I usually get about 5% of the questions wrong in any given sitting, so there is clearly room for improvement – and I always carefully review the answers to figure out what I’ve done wrong. Of both the math and verbal review books, my strongest section was critical reasoning, where I only got 2 out of 82 questions wrong; however, as I reflected on time, I was spending close to 1.5 minutes per question, mostly because I’m not a particularly fast reader (at least in my opinion). Going forward I really need to work on my speed without sacrificing accuracy, since I’m cutting it really close to the time limits. Anyway, a few months ago I laid out a plan of action to read a bunch of review books carefully, but what I’ve found most helpful so far is just to do practice questions and get test experience that way. In fact, the explanations for the solutions in the Official GMAT books are generally really good anyway, so you can pay close attention to those to learn the “rules” that way. In addition, I find that test-taking speed is a key consideration too, so doing practice questions or the GMATPrep practice tests are a good way to put yourself under pressure and see how you’ll really perform. My GMATPrep and Manhattan GMAT practice test scores have ranged anywhere from 710 to 770, but I believe that in reviewing my mistakes, I can do better. I still haven’t signed up for an actual test date yet, but will do so once I feel there’s a little less variability in my test performance. Anyway, that’s just my personal approach, but hopefully it helps…
You should also bear in mind that, given GMAT is taken in English, native speakers have certain advantage )
TheAliMan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > numi - fantastic scores. Did you initially take a > test to “gauge” where you stood before studying? > > flynnch - I tend to agree you–I have seen some > examples of > not-so-bright-but-eventually-successful > businesspeople. One person in particular: a guy > who almost failed undergraduate civil engineering > (where I live, civil is the least rigorous > academically), achieved a low 500 score on the > GMAT, and was put into the wait-list for entrance > to a sh*tty MBA program. He eventually went on to > make several hundreds of millions of dollars. How > did he do it? He had a ton of drive, neglected his > family (unfortunately), and most importantly, > aligned himself with some very smart people. This > example reminds me of ‘Outliers’ by Malcom > Gladwell which I am sure many of you have already > read. Also, I think you nailed it when you said > that schools look at the GMAT over a population, > rather than individual circumstances. Years ago I did a research paper using canadian income data from the census and it was clear that income increase with education up to a graduate degree and then gradually decreases into PhD. But I said on average because there are always a few outliers that have limited education but very high incomes.
eureka Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’d probably spend the time working on my vertical > jump. Being able to dunk a basketball is a great > thing to put on a resume. I spent the last 4 years 3 to 4 times per week getting a black belt over doing the CFA or an MBA. Doesn’t mean much in business but I enjoyed it and always wanted one. Always wanted to be able to dunk but could never get more than my wrist against the rim. I could kind of put a volleyball against the back of the rim on spring loaded floors at the local college.
I always find the most important thing with tests like this is reading the question correctly and keeping a steady pace but not going too fast on easy q’s but not getting bogged down with any one question.