Posted on by Phil

How I Studied for the GMAT

Every 6-10 weeks someone asks me how I studied for the GMAT and any advice I have.  Well, here’s my story!

Unfortunately, in college I was friends with a bunch of over achievers who thought it’d be a good idea to take the GMAT during senior year after they’d secured full time jobs.  So, due to peer pressure and insecurity, I too signed up to take the test.

I took the ManhattanGMAT class which was ~7 weeks long.  Each week consisted of 2 hours in a classroom, and 2 hours or so of homework.  I’d say I did around 1/2 of the recommended homework each week.  After taking the prep course, I immediately signed up for a date to take the actual exam which was about 2 weeks out.  The date was during my finals week at NYU, but I wanted to take it before I headed out for a post-graduation trip to Asia with friends (the same ones who’d peer pressured me into taking this exam!!).

Before the prep course, I took a practice test and scored ~610 (my memory is slightly hazy, but it was in that ballpark).  My goal was to get to a 700 by the time I took the test, and I was around a 680 by the time I finished the prep course.

The number one piece of advice for anyone taking this test is to create and use flashcards to internalize the information you need to answer the most difficult questions.  This was a strategy I stole directly from my Dad who used it to become a doctor (much harder than getting into bschool – so it seemed battle tested).

With that in mind, I went through the 7-8 books that the test prep course had provided, and made a flashcard for any piece of info that I thought would help me answer questions.  I made them for the types of triangles, grammar rules, and for the toughest types of questions (two trains going towards each other, the ones that require factorials, etc).

I had 200-300 flashcards, and would look at them when I had 5 mins on the subway, or while waiting for a friend.  When I’d correctly answered a given card in three consecutive cycles (I put the card on the bottom of the deck after I’d tried to answer it), I discarded it.

The week before the test, I studied for 3-4 hours/day (mostly the flashcards plus some practice problems).  The day before, I didn’t do anything but workout, eat some good food, and watch a movie.  It’s important to rest your brain and de-stress!  Now, I’d probably also do an extra long mediation session but I wasn’t into that back then.

I don’t remember exactly the slope of the curve, but there was a huge increase in my scores in the week before the test.  I started off maybe at the 700 mark for a practice test, and then got a 720, and a 750 before my studying ended (don’t take too many practice tests.  They are good to gauge where you’re at, but take a lot of time and aren’t very instructive in helping you improve).  I’m pretty confident if I’d pushed the test back another week I could have continued to improve…but the commonly accepted rule says increasing your score above a 700 doesn’t help too much in getting you into school.  Btw, I share these numbers only so you can see my progress from the original 610 to when I took the exam and what I did to get there – not to brag!!!

The day of the test of course I was a bit nervous.  The worst part of the GMAT is that they ask you “do you want to accept this score” after you take the test.  Basically, you can say “no” – and it’s like it never happened.  But, if you “accept the score” it goes on your record.  My advice: just accept the score unless you had a monumental meltdown for some reason.  Because of the way the test works, you get harder questions if you answer questions correctly.  So, if you’re getting hard questions, even if you can’t answer them, you’re doing well!

In the end, I scored a 740.  I remember not being completely happy with the score when I got it, and the person working the front desk who’d given me the score basically said “I don’t get it – if I got that score, I’d be jumping up and down!”

My advice is to not put that much pressure on yourself.  And, if you score above the range you need to get into your dream school, go celebrate!  Luckily, I came to my senses about 10 mins after leaving the test center and couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for a few days.

Good luck, don’t stress, and look forward to two of the best years of your life 🙂

14,712 Replies to “How I Studied for the GMAT”

  2. Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an really long comment but after I clicked submit
    my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all
    that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say excellent blog!

  4. It is the best time to make some plans for the future and it’s time to be happy.

    I have read this post and if I could I desire to suggest you few interesting things or advice.

    Perhaps you can write next articles referring to this article.
    I wish to read even more things about it!

  6. I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.

    The sketch is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish.
    nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over that you wish be delivering the
    following. unwell unquestionably come further formerly again since exactly the same nearly very often inside case you shield this increase.

  7. hey there and thank you for your information – I have
    definitely picked up anything new from right here.

    I did however expertise several technical issues using this web site,
    since I experienced to reload the site many times previous to I could get it to load correctly.
    I had been wondering if your hosting is OK?
    Not that I am complaining, but sluggish loading instances times will often affect your placement
    in google and could damage your high quality score if advertising
    and marketing with Adwords. Anyway I am adding this RSS to
    my e-mail and could look out for much more of your respective exciting content.
    Ensure that you update this again very soon.

  13. Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back
    to your webpage? My blog is in the very same niche as yours and my visitors would definitely benefit from a lot of the information you provide here.
    Please let me know if this ok with you. Appreciate it!

  19. I have been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours.
    It is pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did,
    the internet will be much more useful than ever before.

  20. It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to this brilliant blog!
    I suppose for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google
    account. I look forward to brand new updates and will talk about this site with
    my Facebook group. Talk soon!

  24. Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically
    tweet my newest twitter updates. I’ve been looking for a plug-in like
    this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this.
    Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.

  27. Nice post. I used to be checking constantly this
    weblog and I’m inspired! Very helpful info specially the ultimate part 🙂 I handle such info a lot.
    I used to be seeking this certain info for a very lengthy time.
    Thanks and best of luck.

  29. It’s perfect time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy.
    I have read this post and if I could I desire to suggest you some interesting
    things or suggestions. Perhaps you could write next articles referring to
    this article. I desire to read more things about it!

  31. This is the right web site for everyone who hopes to understand this topic.
    You know a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you (not
    that I personally will need to…HaHa). You definitely put a brand new spin on a topic that’s been discussed for ages.

    Great stuff, just excellent!

  32. You possibly can put up gkod quality photographs of various places or yoou can share your touring tales to get the eye of your followers.
    Yoou will get good engagement through these followers as they might like,
    comment, and share your content material, not expecting anything in return.
    All-rounder followers – these followers will improve your
    engagement. After all, your giveaway must be honest. Have tthe passion? Have the endurance?
    To avail of their companies, youu hae to pick a package
    from a list of packages that outline a particular follower range and the associated value.
    With over 9.7K active users, they’ve delivered over 1.5M follower
    packages and 10.3M Instagram likes packages to millions off users.Despite
    the fact that the instrument is designed to gather
    feed from varied platforms, SnapWiget effectively collects Instagram feed and embeds it on the website.

    Hence, it gives yyou with the option of embedding posts on the website.

  33. It’s perfect time to make some plans for the future and it’s
    time to be happy. I have read this post and if I
    could I want to suggest you some interesting things or suggestions.
    Maybe you can write next articles referring to this article.
    I want to read more things about it!

  34. It’s appropriate time to make a few plans for the longer term and it’s time to be happy.

    I’ve learn this put up and if I may I wish to suggest you few interesting things or suggestions.
    Maybe you could write subsequent articles regarding this article.
    I want to read more things approximately it!

  35. I believe what you typed was very logical. However, what about this?
    suppose you typed a catchier title? I mean, I don’t wish to tell you how to
    run your website, however what if you added a title that grabbed folk’s attention? I mean How I
    Studied for the GMAT – Phil Strazzulla's Blog is kinda plain. You could glance at Yahoo’s front page and see how they create article titles to get viewers to click.
    You might add a video or a related pic or two to get people interested about everything’ve got to say.
    Just my opinion, it might make your blog a little livelier.

  38. I just like the helpful info you supply in your articles.
    I’ll bookmark your blog and test once more here regularly.
    I’m quite certain I’ll learn lots of new stuff right here!
    Good luck for the next!

  39. A motivating discussion is worth comment. I do think that you
    need to write more about this subject matter, it may not be a taboo subject
    but generally people don’t talk about these subjects.
    To the next! Best wishes!!

  43. I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in penning this site.
    I really hope to see the same high-grade content from you later on as well.
    In fact, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own blog now 😉

  44. Hi, I do believe this is an excellent blog.

    I stumbledupon it 😉 I am going to revisit once again since I bookmarked it.
    Money and freedom is the best way to change, may you
    be rich and continue to help others.

  48. I got this website from my buddy who informed me about this site and at the moment this time I am visiting this website and reading very informative posts at this place.

  50. naturally like your website however you need to test
    the spelling on several of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling problems and I find
    it very bothersome to tell the truth on the other hand I
    will surely come again again.

Comments are closed.