As mentioned in a previous post, I've been helping out the potential MBA/GMAT-taking community on Quora as I've been on the questioning side and totally get the confusion/anxiety of being an applicant. Unexpectedly, my contributions to the community have led to a potential opportunity.
The CEO of a GMAT prep school liked my writing and has reached out regarding working together to help promote their GMAT prep program via Quora. Mostly just doing the same helpful question answering as I'd been doing, but having a link to their GMAT prep program in the signature. What I like is that their GMAT prep philosophy aligns with mine and there isn't going to be a hard sell plugging of their GMAT prep. Plus their prep program doesn't seem too bad either. Getting paid to do what I'm already doing sounds good :)
I'm looking forward to seeing how this one goes as it would be pretty awesome to be able to have some sort of income while I'm at the MBA and writing doesn't necessarily take up too much time. Watch this space to see how it goes!
Showing posts with label GMAT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GMAT. Show all posts
Monday, 9 May 2016
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Studying for the GMAT Part 3: A Note on Free Diagnostic Tests
I have probably taken all the free GMAT diagnostic tests (a.k.a CAT) there are out there while I was preparing. I did almost one every week. The important thing to note about CATs is that they're designed to allow you to practice under "real" test conditions so don't get too caught up in your final score and focus more on the thought processes for solving questions and your test-taking strategy.
The best diagnostic test is of course the one from GMAT itself since nothing can beat the real thing after all. Problem is that you only have 2 free ones so you want to save at least 1 for closer to your actual test date. Manhattan Prep and Veritas both offer 1 free test which are probably the closest to the actual GMAT.
That being said, I found it useful to train on harder CATs too, though I took the scores with a grain of salt. The Kaplan free CAT and Economist Tutor CAT are good for verbal training. The options presented are quite close so you shouldn't be disheartened if you don't score well.
GMAT Pill also offers 5 free tests that are quite challenging. Again, don't be surprised if you don't score well. You however need a paid membership to access more than 10 free solutions. However if you are able to figure out why you went wrong and how you should get the right answer, the 10 free solutions should cover the ones where you're really stuck.
I also found the GMAT Club tests really useful and they had explanations too. They simulate the GMAT environment the best but the questions are tougher than the actual GMAT.
You can find a list of diagnostic tests here on the GMAT Club forum.
And that's all I'm going to say on GMAT as there's lots of material about the GMAT out there already.
The best diagnostic test is of course the one from GMAT itself since nothing can beat the real thing after all. Problem is that you only have 2 free ones so you want to save at least 1 for closer to your actual test date. Manhattan Prep and Veritas both offer 1 free test which are probably the closest to the actual GMAT.
That being said, I found it useful to train on harder CATs too, though I took the scores with a grain of salt. The Kaplan free CAT and Economist Tutor CAT are good for verbal training. The options presented are quite close so you shouldn't be disheartened if you don't score well.
GMAT Pill also offers 5 free tests that are quite challenging. Again, don't be surprised if you don't score well. You however need a paid membership to access more than 10 free solutions. However if you are able to figure out why you went wrong and how you should get the right answer, the 10 free solutions should cover the ones where you're really stuck.
I also found the GMAT Club tests really useful and they had explanations too. They simulate the GMAT environment the best but the questions are tougher than the actual GMAT.
You can find a list of diagnostic tests here on the GMAT Club forum.
And that's all I'm going to say on GMAT as there's lots of material about the GMAT out there already.
Monday, 16 November 2015
Studying for the GMAT Part 2: 6 Tips for Tackling the GMAT
There's a ton of information out there on how to study for the GMAT, just check out the GMAT Club forums. I'm not going into details, but thought I'd offer a few tips for what worked for me.
Let me just start by saying that the Official GMAT Guide (a.k.a. OG) is essential so make sure you borrow/buy a copy. I worked off the 2013 version (OG 2013). I started by doing the diagnostic problems in the guide to get a feel for what GMAT questions were like. I noticed straight off that they were very different from the kinds of tests I'd taken previously. The questions are more about strategic problem solving (especially for quant) that doing Math problems. I call it "doing Math without really doing Math". Basically unless you're a human calculator, if you solved the quant problems like you would do at high school, you're stuffed.
Tip #1: There's more than one way to skin the cat when it comes to quant. Focus on learning these different methods.
How I did it was to do a problem in the OG, then look up how other people solved the same problem. My go-tos were GMAT Quantum, GMAT Pill and the GMAT Club Forums. For critical reasoning, I found the Powerscore CR Bible immensely helpful.
This way I found out other ways and alternative strategies for solving the problem and if one of those ways resulted in reduced time spent on the problem, I adopted that strategy for any similar problems going forward. Spend the most amount of time reviewing your answers and always ask yourself: "Was there a better/faster way to get the answer?"
Tip #2: Time Management is key. You can skip questions and still get a high score.
The GMAT does actually penalise you quite a bit for not finishing all the questions so make sure you do, even if you have to skip one or two in the middle or towards the end. For perfectionists like me, this was a tough obstacle to overcome. I'm persistent when it comes to problems and this meant I had a hard time letting go and would end up spending far too much time on a particular problem. Initially I would do poorly on the quant part of GMAT because I'd run out of time and miss answering 1 or 2 questions. I had to learn to be strict with myself - any problem that I was still somewhat far from solving after 2mins 15 secs I skipped. In business you need to know when to cut your losses and move on after all. The GMAT forum has some other great tips on timing here.
Tip #3: Time yourself when doing practice questions.
Once you have a decent level of accuracy, make sure you do this every time, even if you're doing short "runs" which gives you practice problem-solving under pressure. I'd do say 10 questions at a time and give myself 20 mins to do all 10. I focused on doing the questions in the OG from back to front. The best tool I came across was the GMAT timer created by GMAT Club's walker. I would run through a set of questions and mark my answers on the timer. Then at the end of the practice run, the timer lets you copy and paste your answers along with the time of how long you took to finish the question. I then marked my practice and noted down which questions I had taken longer than ideal for and also the ones that I potentially could've cut down time on. Then apply Tip #1 :)
Tip #4: Practice practice practice.
GMAT thinking is not natural. So it needs to become a habit. For any questions that you've gotten wrong answers for, guessed or aren't too sure of, after analysing the best way to solve them, do them again on the spot (timed!) and once more the next day before you do new questions. It's about practicing the same methods over and over and making them a habit. You should then find that when you tackle a new problem, you can automatically think of more ways of solving it and can pick the quickest one.
Tip #5: Use a process of elimination to work out answers for the verbal section.
Often there should be 1 or 2 options that are obvious "outs". Especially for sentence correction, it helps to eliminate the obvious incorrects first so that you can then focus on the answers that are quite close. Then work out the differences between the two and what they're actually saying. Tip #1 and Tip #4 are definitely key for verbal - after all exposure to lots of questions and strategies will train your eye to spot the incorrects,
Tip #6: For Reading Comprehensive, skim read when you first get the passage.
Don't bother spending time reading in detail because when you read the question you usually have to go back and read in detail anyway. What you want to do initially is to work out what the passage is about and get the gist of what each paragraph is covering so that you can quickly navigate to the right part to answer the question. Practice speed reading a lot and with everything you read.
What I've written above might be slightly skewed towards improving quant rather than verbal since this was the section I found a bit more challenging with my background. However, Tip #1 and Tip #4 are definitely key for all sections.
Let me just start by saying that the Official GMAT Guide (a.k.a. OG) is essential so make sure you borrow/buy a copy. I worked off the 2013 version (OG 2013). I started by doing the diagnostic problems in the guide to get a feel for what GMAT questions were like. I noticed straight off that they were very different from the kinds of tests I'd taken previously. The questions are more about strategic problem solving (especially for quant) that doing Math problems. I call it "doing Math without really doing Math". Basically unless you're a human calculator, if you solved the quant problems like you would do at high school, you're stuffed.
Tip #1: There's more than one way to skin the cat when it comes to quant. Focus on learning these different methods.
How I did it was to do a problem in the OG, then look up how other people solved the same problem. My go-tos were GMAT Quantum, GMAT Pill and the GMAT Club Forums. For critical reasoning, I found the Powerscore CR Bible immensely helpful.
This way I found out other ways and alternative strategies for solving the problem and if one of those ways resulted in reduced time spent on the problem, I adopted that strategy for any similar problems going forward. Spend the most amount of time reviewing your answers and always ask yourself: "Was there a better/faster way to get the answer?"
Tip #2: Time Management is key. You can skip questions and still get a high score.
The GMAT does actually penalise you quite a bit for not finishing all the questions so make sure you do, even if you have to skip one or two in the middle or towards the end. For perfectionists like me, this was a tough obstacle to overcome. I'm persistent when it comes to problems and this meant I had a hard time letting go and would end up spending far too much time on a particular problem. Initially I would do poorly on the quant part of GMAT because I'd run out of time and miss answering 1 or 2 questions. I had to learn to be strict with myself - any problem that I was still somewhat far from solving after 2mins 15 secs I skipped. In business you need to know when to cut your losses and move on after all. The GMAT forum has some other great tips on timing here.
Tip #3: Time yourself when doing practice questions.
Once you have a decent level of accuracy, make sure you do this every time, even if you're doing short "runs" which gives you practice problem-solving under pressure. I'd do say 10 questions at a time and give myself 20 mins to do all 10. I focused on doing the questions in the OG from back to front. The best tool I came across was the GMAT timer created by GMAT Club's walker. I would run through a set of questions and mark my answers on the timer. Then at the end of the practice run, the timer lets you copy and paste your answers along with the time of how long you took to finish the question. I then marked my practice and noted down which questions I had taken longer than ideal for and also the ones that I potentially could've cut down time on. Then apply Tip #1 :)
Tip #4: Practice practice practice.
GMAT thinking is not natural. So it needs to become a habit. For any questions that you've gotten wrong answers for, guessed or aren't too sure of, after analysing the best way to solve them, do them again on the spot (timed!) and once more the next day before you do new questions. It's about practicing the same methods over and over and making them a habit. You should then find that when you tackle a new problem, you can automatically think of more ways of solving it and can pick the quickest one.
Tip #5: Use a process of elimination to work out answers for the verbal section.
Often there should be 1 or 2 options that are obvious "outs". Especially for sentence correction, it helps to eliminate the obvious incorrects first so that you can then focus on the answers that are quite close. Then work out the differences between the two and what they're actually saying. Tip #1 and Tip #4 are definitely key for verbal - after all exposure to lots of questions and strategies will train your eye to spot the incorrects,
Tip #6: For Reading Comprehensive, skim read when you first get the passage.
Don't bother spending time reading in detail because when you read the question you usually have to go back and read in detail anyway. What you want to do initially is to work out what the passage is about and get the gist of what each paragraph is covering so that you can quickly navigate to the right part to answer the question. Practice speed reading a lot and with everything you read.
What I've written above might be slightly skewed towards improving quant rather than verbal since this was the section I found a bit more challenging with my background. However, Tip #1 and Tip #4 are definitely key for all sections.
Saturday, 14 November 2015
Studying for the GMAT Part 1: When to Start
If you've read my previous post, then you've probably seen that to get a good score i.e. 700+ out of 800, you'll want to put in at least 100 hours of study time. Of course this is if you're the average person and not a super genius. I started out with a 720 GMAT score in mind since that was within the 80% range of the schools I was looking at applying to.
I initially started studying in March, with the view to take the GMAT sometime in early July so I would have time to do a re-take or two in case I needed to (at the time the wait between re-takes was 31 days, but GMAC changed the rules in July, reducing this to 16 - read about it here). For me personally, I started too enthusiastic and too early, which led to a GMAT study burnout some 2 months down the road after doing silly study hours on top of very long hours at work with no down-time. This led to me doing zero study the whole of May and a slow start in June when I picked up the books again. Plus, I ended up pushing out my planned first take by a week (luckily I hadn't booked it in yet due to not being sure when I would be able to take 4 hours off work).
So on hindsight, if I had started a bit later and paced myself, it would have been more efficient. I also had to re-review the material I had studied previously since I had that 1 month break in between. In any case, when I was looking up study resources for the GMAT, I came across this 2-3 month study plan by GMAT Pill which was very helpful as a base for my own study plan.
If you're looking for study plans for the GMAT, there are tons out there - the GMATClub forum offers several variations depending on what your objectives are. My advice? Don't waste too much time hunting for "the perfect" study plan. Pick one and adapt it to suit you.
I initially started studying in March, with the view to take the GMAT sometime in early July so I would have time to do a re-take or two in case I needed to (at the time the wait between re-takes was 31 days, but GMAC changed the rules in July, reducing this to 16 - read about it here). For me personally, I started too enthusiastic and too early, which led to a GMAT study burnout some 2 months down the road after doing silly study hours on top of very long hours at work with no down-time. This led to me doing zero study the whole of May and a slow start in June when I picked up the books again. Plus, I ended up pushing out my planned first take by a week (luckily I hadn't booked it in yet due to not being sure when I would be able to take 4 hours off work).
So on hindsight, if I had started a bit later and paced myself, it would have been more efficient. I also had to re-review the material I had studied previously since I had that 1 month break in between. In any case, when I was looking up study resources for the GMAT, I came across this 2-3 month study plan by GMAT Pill which was very helpful as a base for my own study plan.
If you're looking for study plans for the GMAT, there are tons out there - the GMATClub forum offers several variations depending on what your objectives are. My advice? Don't waste too much time hunting for "the perfect" study plan. Pick one and adapt it to suit you.
The GMAT: Some Initial Advice
One of the first things I did when starting my MBA journey was to investigate the GMAT because I knew that would be one test I would have to do. I also knew that if I put money into doing the GMAT, then I would truly commit myself since cheapskate that I am, I hate wasting cash.
Some useful facts and advice for prospective GMAT takers in no particular order of importance
Some useful facts and advice for prospective GMAT takers in no particular order of importance
- Your results are valid for 5 years.
If you're planning to do an MBA in the next 5 years, it might be a good idea to get it over and done with early, especially if you've graduated not that long ago from varsity and your high school math isn't as rusty. It also means that you have time when you are submitting applications to make sure that the schools you are applying to do receive your scores from GMAT. - It costs USD$250.
If paying in another currency it's good to plan to take it during a period when the exchange rate is favourable! I was kicking myself a bit for not doing it last year when the exchange rate was fanastic. :( - If you want to get a high score, plan to spend about 100 hours studying.
Given the high amount of commitment, you really want to do the GMAT as early in your MBA application process as possible because trying the juggle GMAT study while working on your b-school applications AND a full-time job is really not fun. - The test takes about 4 hours so plan to take a half day off if you're working.
In NZ, the test centres unfortunately don't run tests on weekends, which means you do need to plan ahead and let work know. - The test is offered only at selected places at set times so be sure to check test centres and timings beforehand
Again planning ahead is required especially if you need to make travel arrangements to get to a test centre. - You can re-take the test if you don't like your score but it'll cost you the test fee again and you'll have to wait 16 days between re-takes.
It's useful to plan at least 1 re-take and it's common to re-take it at least once! Most people stuff up the first take due to nerves and it being a somewhat unfamiliar system and improve on the second take. - GMAT lets you send your scores to up to 5 schools for free. Subsequently it'll cost you USD$25 per official report sent.
You have the opportunity to indicate which schools to send the report to at the test centre right before you start the actual exam. To make the most of this, you should do your school research beforehand so you know where you are definitely going to apply to.
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