I WON! LONG JOURNEY, LONG DEBREIF: GMAT 740 (q 42, v 42):

After a long way, I have scored 740 in the GMAT (q 49, v42), 97 percentile. I couldnt have achieved this score without this forum and all the people involved. This is a great community and an awesome example of collective intelligence. It is full of very intelligent and collaborative people, and they all deserve to be thanked. Special mentions (from this and other forums):

Thanks to Ron Purewal: your work is very helpful for thousands of test takers. I am no exception. Here you have an admirer. My SC knowledge is 80 % yours.

Thanks to Stacey Koprince: How you explain complex things concerning study and test taking strategies has been essential for my success.

Thanks to Bunuel: Your algebraic approaches have taught me more than any book.

BB, Walker and Shrouded1: Thanks for writing the GMAT MATH BOOK of GMATCLUB (more on that later).

Thanks to Karishma: You take only a few hours to answer the questions that students formulate no matter the content. This dedication is inspiring. Your approaches are breathtaking sometimes.

For those who read this debrief and are at the commencement of their prep, I have an advice. I have covered almost all good material in the GMAT world, as I started my journey in March 2013 and have just finished today, with this debrief. I have been around the forums, have read many debriefs and know many gurus here. Nevertheless, among all of them I can recommend that you follow and read every single thing written (or spoken) by the following people:

RON PUREWAL: Teacher at Manhattan Gmat, Ron is a genius and maybe the best expert of the Gmat in the world if you dont believe just remember that I have been more than one year doing this. Ron has scored 800 twice, but this is not what is surprising. Surprising is the way in which he devotes part of his life to teach students and all the amazing things you can learn from him. Even though he can help you in everything concerning this exam, you should pay special attention at his teachings about Sentence Correction. Nobody can match him in this.

Check Thurdays with Ron and his posts in manhattan gmat forums.

http://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/thursdays-with-ron/

STACEY KOPRINCE: Also a teacher at Manhattan Gmat, she is not the kind of genius that Ron is. However, do not misinterpret me: Stacey is an ultra-smart person from who you can learn everything in connection with the exam. I recommend that you follow his articles in strategies.

BUNUEL: The math guru of gmatclub.com. Just follow him and you will see how amazing his math solutions are. Maybe his approaches are too algebraic, but you shouldnt fear that. I wouldnt say that you have to approach problems the way he does, but it helps to understand all the power of algebra.

KARISHMA from VERITAS PREP: Her approaches could be qualified as the opposite of those of Bunuel. She uses a kind of holistic approach based on common sense Bunuel also has common sense, do not misread my words. You will be amazed on how she can destroy very difficult problems without writing any single word. Just with common sense. You will realize that this kind of common sense does not come naturally to many of us, but you can develop it over time.

As said before, there are many other people who contribute to the GMAT world and whose insights and work are very helpful: bb, Mike Mc Garry, and many others etc

After this valuable advice, please let me introduce myself and forgive the mistakes I commit in English. Even though I got a 42 in verbal, my English is far from perfect.Background:

I am a 30 years non-native lawyer. Before I started my preparation, I have spent more than ten years using calculator for even the simpler arithmetic operation. As a consequence, rusty is not the word to describe my previous math knowledge, inexistent is. In my first diagnostic test I scored a 480, with a percentile 24 or so in quant, so you can imagine how long has been the to a 49.

On the other hand, my English was not so good. So I had to rely in my verbal ability, which I have cultivated as a lawyer and by reading many books in my native tongue.

As you can see, I was far from being in ideal shape to start my prep.

Materials:

I have used many materials and know which ones have worked for me. Here they are:

- Official Guide and Verbal and Quant Supplement: I really believe that no other questions can match the precision and quality of official questions. The ones in these books are on the easier side, but dont get me wrong. There are people who have scored in the 99 percentile using mainly questions from these books. They are a must.

- GMAT PREP: The creators of the test have their own practice tests (4). They are the single best predictor of your performance in the real thing and are an invaluable source of high quality questions of all ranges of difficulty. There is also the GMAT PREP QUESTION PACK, which expands the GMAT prep software by adding many questions (around 400) at a reasonable price (this questions are not added to the exams database).

For verbal I recommend using only official questions, as questions made by companies are imperfect. After all this time, I can say whether a question is official or not with 90 percent accuracy. Using non-official questions in verbal will make more bad than good.

- Manhattan GMAT: The set of books is incredible. I had problems with SC and read the SC guide twice. No more problems with that issue. There is consensus that mgmat SC guide is indispensable. Except that you are a grammar wizard, you will need it. Mgmat has also commonly used practice tests. Only once I did the verbal part but I disliked. Different story for quant. For quant they are good and much harder than official questions, but you can learn many strategies carefully using them. I took only the quant part of these exams and never score more than 44. My average in quant in these tests was 43 and still managed to score 49 in the real exam. The bottom line: do not get frustrated with the quant results in mgmat tests.

- GMAT CLUB TESTS: I love the quant part of these tests. For verbal please read supra. The math questions are really similar to official ones. People used to say that the questions are harder than real thing, but I believe that now this is not as true as used to be, mainly because the Gmat is becoming more and more difficult. Thanks to these tests I managed to increase my score from 44 to 49, so IMHO they are totally worth.

- GMAT CLUB MATH BOOK: In these careful conceived 130 pages you will find almost all you need for quant. Of course there are parts that could be more developed compared to others, but in any case I recommend using this book to refresh, once you are done with mgmat quant guides.

- POWERSCORE CR: People say that the new mgmat CR guide is the best, but before that, POWERSCORE was the reference in CR. I read it once long time ago and never forgot its invaluable insights. There a couple of summaries of this book hanging around the forum.

THE DEFINITIVE EXAM 740 (q 49, v 42):

This November 2014 I took the GMAT. I started to study for this exam in September, when I made a couple of changes in my life that would contribute a lot to the (for me, great) result: less going out with all that this implies and read in English everyday to ensure good performance in verbal .

I started to work consistently when my job allowed me and made sure that I would never be more than two days without studying at least a bit.

I tried to make a full quant tests every time I had the chance and studied carefully SC. I knew that if I could perform in SC as well as in CR and RC I would score more than 40 in verbal. However, I focused mainly in quant.

I had my exam at 13:30. Last time I took the exam in the morning. Being a night owl (this use of being is correct in SC), I do not work well in the morning, so I decided to pass the exam at a better, more suited hour (for me).

I got up at 9:30, took a bath, did 11 questions to keep wheels spinning (7 quant and 4 verbal) and went to take a good breakfast with juice and coffee. Around 11:30 I had finished with the breakfast and was very near to the test center, so I had to kill some time then. I just walked around, listened to music to get motivation, bought two red bulls, some chocolates for the breaks and nicotine chewing gum I am a hard smoker and was not allowed to smoke during the breaks .

The AWA was easy: a plan to increase sales and profits while cutting some costs. Just treat the issue as a CR problem and use chineseburned template for the AWA; you are done.

IR: I do not know what to think about this section. It is still not reliable, because there is a huge range in results among people with similar knowledge and ability. In fact, my scores range from 3 to 8. This is maybe because there are some easy question and some that seem impossible and, as long as there are only 12 in the section, the Computer cannot calibrate very well your level, or at least cannot do so as properly as it does it with quant and verbal. Ended up with 6 this time even not answering at all the last two questions.

QUANT: I started really well and did not have any serious problem until the question 7 or 8. When I saw the clock while in question 8, I had used only 10 minutes. I was ahead the clock the whole section, so I had extra time to spend for difficult questions. Around question 25 I realize that I was doing pretty well, because saw some questions I have never seen before. I confirmed this when in problem 33 saw maybe it was an experimental question, though a problem of crazy overlapping sets combined with probability and answer suchas 0.082, 0.112, or 0.132: I did my best I moved on. I was waiting for a 48.

I recommend everybody that they should become very good at solving easy and medium level questions efficiently because this will allow you to spend more time in difficult questions later on the test. Many people, including me at the beginning, think that solving ultra-hard questions will put them at the high end in quant. However, IMHO at the beginning you should focus on solving quickly and accurately medium level questions.

VERBAL: Verbal has been always my strength, even though I have not a perfect English. I was always confident I would do well. The section was very difficult right from question 6 or 7. I was not sure of many of the answers as there were always to options that differed only a little bit. Thats why I love official verbal questions: there are not spurious reasons for why an answer is right or wrong and at the higher level these questions are perfectly designed to make you choose between two options that are very similar but very different in connection to the question. Being able to discern this little or huge difference between the two final options is the key to succeed. I thought I was around 40.

Just before viewing my score I was thinking I would see a 720. But no, got a 740!! I crazily celebrated the result in front of the computer luckily there was nobody doing the exam at the time. I do not think there is a huge difference between someone scoring 720 to other scoring 740. As I do not think that there is huge difference between someone scoring 740 and another scoring 760. There is, however, IMHO a big difference between a 700 and 760.

ADVICE FOR EVERY QUESTION TYPE:

PS: Just learn how to solve problems on many different ways and choose the one that works for you but know the others . For instance, the same probability problem can be solved in 4 different ways if not more. Again, learn the best way for you in each type of problem. Execute algebra softly and precisely. Know perfectly Algebraic Identities please check gmat club math book page 24 , know squares of numbers up to 20. Know square roots of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. For overlapping sets, use matrix and Venn diagrams and formulas. Learn that sometimes algebra is not your friend. Pick smart numbers and learn how to guessimate. Use graphic approaches to ballpark solutions.

In short: go well equipped. Know many things and know how and when to apply them.

DS: Obviously, many things said for PS are valid for DS too. Only one thing: Before rushing into the statements organize the question, have a clear idea of what is being asked and determine what kind of information you need to say Sufficient or Not Sufficient. Also simplify the question before analyzing the statements and beware the typical traps (C trap, E trap, etc.).

Very important: when testing cases, check always -1, -1/2, 0, 1/2, 1. You do not know how many times tests makers try to trick you with this numbers.

Check this single DS statement:

Is X > 1?

X^3 > X.

Try with numbers 2, 3 or 4: Answer: SUFFICIENT? Try with -1/2. CORRECT Answer: Not sufficient.

SC: This is the part that I think can be improved more in verbal, just as I did. Remember one thing: the game in quant is to get correct answer well, obviously in verbal too, but let me explain. The game in verbal is on eliminating wrong answers. Know splits technique, know idioms, know the ways in which the test makers try trick you and read Mgmat SC guide twice. Although verbal was very difficult in my exam, I had the strange sensation that I had already seen every single SC problem. Of course, it was not the case, but after having done hundreds of them, all were very familiar to me.

CR: Know all question types and the kind of reasoning needed to answer each of them. Know how to find the conclusion (and find it always). Know, for instance, that many times correct answers in assumption question are negative. And last but not least, practice in getting involved in the small story that every CR question is.As with SC, know the types of answers that normally are wrong strong answers with definitely, etc.; vague answers with some, any, etc.; answers that change the terms of the argument; irrelevant answers, etc. For example, if there is a plan to boost sales of chocolate ice cream and you have to know what would be useful to evaluate whether the plan is sound, eliminate answers like:

- Whether some people like vanilla ice cream.

-Whether other companies sell ice cream.

- Whether in some other country ice cream is forbidden.

I know it seems obvious, but this dynamic repeats all over the questions. If you interiorize this, more quickly will you eliminate wrong answers.

Check this 700 level question of gmat prep question pack:

Last August the XT chain of gasoline stations had a temporary sales promotion in effect. In the promotion, any customer who made a purchase of ten or more gallons of gasoline was entitled to a free car wash. For the month of August, XT experienced a ten percent increase in gasoline sales as compared to sales in August the previous year, so evidently the promotion was successful as a means of boosting sales.

In evaluating the argument, it would be most helpful to answer which of the following?

A. In the areas in which XTs gasoline stations operate, how did total combined gasoline sales for all gasoline stations last August compare with sales for the previous August?

B. Was the money that XT earned from the increase in gasoline sales enough to offset the cost of providing free car washes during the promotion?

C. Were there any customers who bought ten or more gallons at an XT gasoline station during the promotion who would have or more gallons at an XT gasoline in lower quantities, but more frequently, if the promotion had not been in effect?

D. Did XT or any of its gasoline stations have to pay other businesses to provide the car washes that customers were offered in the promotion?

E. Are XTs gasoline sales in August usually significantly higher than one twelfth of XTs annual gasoline sales?

The only important thing here is that it is planned to give a car wash for free when buying more than ten gallons in order to boost sales and that, in effect, sales increased by ten percent compared to last August.

B. Irrelevant. Why should we care about costs or profits or blablabla? Remember: bost sales.

C. We find any. Any can be only one guy. Should we care about only one guy? No.

D. Wow, Should we care less about that? Remember: boost sales.

E. This one is the trap. But Remember: Compared to last August.

OA: A

RC: There are many approaches. Mine one was carefully and closely the read passage. I recommend this one. Many things said about CR also apply to RC.

Personal thought and advise:

Everybody says that the GMAT is a reasoning exam. And I concur: it is not a knowledge exam. However, if you know a lot, you are better equipped for the reasoning you have to do. It is simple.

I truly believe that GMAT exam is different for every person. There are people who have all the knowledge needed before hand. For them, the GMAT is just building stamina, learning strategies and managing time. For those like me, people who has to acquire the knowledge, the exam it is a different matter. They have to learn everything and also how to pass the exam.

Takeaways:

- Take the exam seriously. You may be very intelligent and have been very good at school, but if you do not take this exam seriously, GMAT will beat you (and you do not want to take it 5 times, right?). This is true for everybody but for those ultra-smart that hang around the forum.

- Know yourself. I knew that I had to take the exam after being some hours awake. I love red bull, so I drank it during the breaks. Gather knowledge about yourself and use it to make easier this difficult (for most) journey and the test day.

- Never surrender. You will learn many things, but at some point it is possible that you realize that are plateauing. You only have to break the barrier that impedes you to improve and, once you have done so, keep learning. It is always possible learning more.

- Quality over quantity: in verbal use only official questions. Every single official verbal problem is a treasure and a source of knowledge. Analyze every single correct and incorrect answer; doing so you will understand the trends and the ways used by the test makers to trick you.

But I have an article that will help you understand that, courtesy of Stacey Koprince.

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/arti ... roblem.cfm

- Take Full length tests imitating the real test conditions. I have never done so because I am too lazy and too nervous (I always want to know the results asap) but I truly believe that I will help you to build stamina. If you take many test under full official conditions, you will become familiarized with the four hours of brain squeezing, so doing the actual test will be just another more test (obviously, do not take my words for granted).

-Do not study every single day and sleep well. Chilling some days and resting properly will help you more than crazily study without rest. In fact, proper rest is necessary for an optimal process of acquiring knowledge.

These are my pieces of advice. However, they are not definitive. I have read many debriefs of successful test takers who have done exactly the opposite than me (except surrendering and not taking the exam seriously).

I am writing this to help you avoid making the same mistakes I made. And also to help you narrow your focus and help you use the right material.

I spent a lot of time on the GMAT. For those of you who do not remember the area of a triangle, or even what a triangle looks like, with a good study plan, you only need 6 months max of dedicated daily study time. Spend 3 months mastering the basics. And the other 3 months mastering tougher material.

Below is a list of CATs I have taken. I took a few practice CATs that I haven't listed. After receiving the 710 I took 6 MGMAT CATs and 4 GMAT Prep CATs, before then I barely took practice CATs (dumb mistake).

510 28Q 32V - MGMAT CAT620 35Q 39V - Actual GMAT 1690 47Q 38V - Actual GMAT 2640 42Q 36V IR7 - Actual GMAT 3710 43Q 44V IR7 - Actual GMAT 4770 49Q 46V IR6 - Actual GMAT 5

The advice below I only began to follow once I dropped from 690 to 640 on the actual GMAT. I began to religiously change my Verbal practice (outlined below) after the 640 and then I continued that verbal practice after the 710 but also added the quant practice. Prior to the 710 I pretty much just studied study guides and the Official Guide 13. What got me from the 510 to 620 was attending a live Manhattan GMAT course.

SENTENCE CORRECTIONFirst, as many have said before me, the Manhattan GMAT (MGMAT) Sentence Correction workbook is the only book you need for theory. I read it so many times that I lost count. I believe this is what got me to score in the 30's in Verbal.Second, what got me from the 30's in verbal to the 40's was ONLY using official GMAT problems as test material and reading Ron Purewal's explanation to every answer. The GMAT writers have a unique way of writing problems and you only notice this when you begin to ONLY use their material. Ron Purewal is a Mahattan GMAT instructor and is legendary. If you don't know of him I am surprised, you should.Third, I would study Sentence Correction under stressful conditions, i.e. on the train or trying to solve 5 problems at work in 7 minutes. I believe these scenarios tested my brain in stressful ways that helped me control my thoughts on test day.Fourth, I said that I only used official material and the GMATClub was ridiculously helpful in supplying that material. there are some members that compiled a few documents that contain official problems that were essential to my prep. I have attached these documents. The first is called "GMATPREP COMP---- SC." This document contains a large amount of official questions from various sources, Official Guides, GMAT Prep CATs etc. The second document contains some overlap but is the most important set of questions I came across. It is called "GPSC." Why is it the most important? Because I believe these questions are very hard and very representative of the actual GMAT verbal. Once you get beyond the basics (master the basics first) these questions touch on 'meaning.' I couldnt solve many of them based off 'rules' alone. I had to ask myself 'what did the author mean to say.' (*Note: I believe I changed the name of these documents, the original downloads may have been named different. Also, in "GPSC" I often copied and pasted answer explanations under the question itself. I would delete these explanations and look them up yourself.)

CRITICAL REASONINGFirst, the ONLY prep book you need is the GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible by PowerScore. Do not open any other book. This is all you need. It does not teach you trick it teaches you GMAT logic.Second, more so for Critical Reasoning that Sentence Correction, ONLY USE OFFICIAL Questions. Once again GMATClub and its users were essential here. I have attached 1 document "GMAT Prep CR" Beware that you may see some of these questions in a GMATPrep CAT. I actually practiced these so much that I began to memorize the questions. I believe this actually helped because it deeply ingrained the types of correct answers in my head. There is another CR question list somewhere on the GMATClub called GMATPREP COMP - CR. I cannot upload it for some reason so please Google it or PM me and I will email it to you. I found the link to the original post, download it here the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr-140375.htmlThird, buy the LSAT Logical Reasoning Question Type Training II by PowerScore. I practiced these in loud environments and stressful situations. These questions were often very tough and if you can do these the GMAT ones seem like a piece of cake.Fourth, Ron Purewal explanations to critical reasoning questions are pure gold. He is a genius. Google his responses.

READING COMPREHENSIONFirst, I do not think you need a prep book for these. By studying Critical Reasoning you will get better at reading comprehension. My approach with Reading Comprehension was to spend A LOT of time reading the prompt (like 4 to 5 minutes which is not recommended--although I recommend it) and then by the time I got to the questions the answers were clear as day. This strategy suited me, it may not suit you. I found it easier this way then to skim the prompt and look at the question and then go back to the prompt and search for the answer. The only outlining I did was write down random things that stood out to me.

QuantFirst, all you need is the Manhattan GMAT quant guides. I read these over and over and always found something new.Second, once you get through the MGMAT guides solve all problems in the Offical Guide and the Official Guide workbooks. Make sure you can solve these very easily.Third, GMAT Focus and GMAT Prep are mandatory. Be able to solve these problem with easy. Although, I only attempted about 1/4 of the Hard questions in GMAT Prep.Fourth, GMATClub Tests, these are essential. Some of the best material out there. Make sure that you can solve the 500 and 600 level problems with ease.Fifth, Manhattan GMAT Question Banks are great sources of tough questions.Sixth, Manhattan GMAT CATs. I would only do the Quant section of these CATs. (Remember only use official questions for verbal.) I strongly believe that these CATs put got me from the low 40's in quant to the 49.Seventh, once again GMATClub was essential. Many users supplied lists of questions that were very helpful. I strongly advocate solving problems at different times of the day and in different scenarios. I believe it puts you in the right state of mind to be able to tackle any problem. I have attached a question list called "198 Level 700 questions." This was provided by some other user whom I cannot remember. The problems are definitely not all 700 level but they are certainly mixed levels and I believe that practicing all different levels at the same time is essential.Eight, I almost forgot. GMATQUANTUM.com and Dabral. This guy Dabral is a life saver. I highlight his name because I feel like he doesn't get enough credit on here. What helped me on the verbal section was learning how the testmakers think. For quant, Dabral has posted video solutions to all official questions. Listening to him and watching him solve problems totally changed my approach. HE taught me how to think when approaching quant problems. Whereas prior I would solve problems by picking numbers he taught me how to be more confident using algebra. He showed many different ways to solve the same problem. I loved his free solutions soo much that I purchased his course. It was well worth it, I didnt go through the course I just purchased the course so I would have access the the entire library of answer explanations. At the very least check out this guys site. Its free for official guide problems. He posts on GmatClub (I am following him).

IRBy studying Quant and Verbal you are studying for IR. You just have to be energized for the section and ready to dig deep and 'research' each answer. This section is only challenging because they throw so much info at you. I am very disappointed that I received an IR of 6 the last itme. I got 7 twice before. I contemplated retaking the GMAT because of it but think I wont. Any opinions on this?

I almost gave up many times. If it means that much to you then don't give up. You can get there. What changed for me after my 640 score was I got serious and I got pissed anytime I got any problem wrong. Before then I thought it was okay to get one or two or five wrong here and there. Once I decided I wanted to not let anything past me was when i started to make improvements. That being said--I never studied combinatorics or probability. I hated those and refused to spend time on it. I hoped that I would see those on test day, funny thing is I saw 4 of them, probably got them wrong.