Preparing the GMAT part 1: quantitative and verbal

I will write how I prepared the GMAT just to let you know about my experience, maybe it will be helpful for you. But before I begin you must realise that the amount of preparation needed to take the GMAT depends on different variables, for example the score you are aiming at, how is your English level and if you have taken tests like the GMAT before (i.e. multiple choices and not a lot of time).

Taking those variables to my case, I can say that I was aiming to get a score of 700, because I believed - and still do - that the most important part of the application are the essays and 700 seemed like a good enough score to be considered by the Business Schools I wanted to apply to. Thanks to a student exchange to Australia when I was 17, I believed I had a good English level to understand and answer the questions properly. Finally, I've had the experience of taking long multiple choice tests a couple of times before.

With the study of the variables that were going to affect my time dedication finished, I concluded that I was going to get the Official Guide for GMAT and finish all the practise questions in it, so I was going to prepare by myself. I started in May '09, I was planning to take the GMAT by October or November so I thought I had plenty of time to get ready for it. Please consider that time flies and you need to start studying soon, I ended up taking the test in December '09, 1 month after the date I wanted to take it.

It took me some time to settle my work load, but by mid July '09 I was studying from the book at least 0.5 hours a day during week days (every day) and at least 1-1.5 hours on Saturdays. Sometimes I tried to open the book on Sundays but usually I left Sundays for resting. On week days I would answer 10-15 questions, then see how many wrong answers I had and then check the end of the chapter for the right way to approach and answer the questions.

The book begins with a diagnostic test, which was useful to me because I realised that my weakness was the verbal section of the test, specially Sentence Correction and then Critical Reasoning. I was good in the quantitative section and with the Reading Comprehension questions. I also realised that I needed a lot of practise to get used to the timing.

Since my weakness was the verbal section, I spent 3 or 4 out of the 5 week days to study verbal questions and the rest of the time for quantitative questions. I took my GMAT appointment on September '09 and I took it for December '09. Those last 3 months I increased the time I spent studying on Saturdays and tried to answer 37 math questions and 41 verbal questions, just like the actual test. I will talk about the preparation for writing on my next post, but I can say that those last 3 month were very intense in writing preparation also.

The last week lower your work load, sleep well at nights and relax a little bit, it is important to take the test in an optimal physical and mental form to perform well. Remember that the test lasts almost 4 hours including the breaks: essay 1, 30 minutes; essay 2, 30 minutes; break 1, 10 minutes; quantitative, 75 minutes; break 2, 10 minutes; verbal, 75 minutes. GMAT time: 230 minutes.

In the end I think I did pretty good with my strategy and almost accomplished the 700, my final score was 680 (35/73% in verbal and 47/78% in quantitative). So plan ahead and consider other sources of preparation, for example taking lessons for the GMAT.