I'm feeling glad!
© Gorillaz
So, I’ve made a frame for my picture - and I’m absolutely content with it. Now the time comes to think about brushes and paint ;)
But before I’ll go thinking about transcripts, recommendations, scholarships and all the other things – I have a pile of promises to fulfill (I’ve done some already – cleaned the flat, for instance, or written this blog entry) and a heap of books to read. I decided to give myself a week of a free life. But after it, I’ll make a plan for myself and will start fulfilling it.
So, how did it go? ;)
First, I should say, that I’m not a native speaker and I have never lived somewhere in an English-speaking country (that helps when you pass the test, sure), and I’m afraid this ‘backfired’ at my Verbal. I have spotted that if I see an easy problem, I understand it and do it in English all right, but as soon as I face a tough one, I have to translate it in Russian, so I lose time or answer wrongly. I checked that idea with a friend of mine, to whom I sent some of the toughest ones’ – when he translates the problem with a dictionary, he does it right, but under time-pressure he sometimes misses the point. I just wonder, how it is to pass the test for a native.
Second, I have a strong background in math, so Quant was no problem for me – it was important just not to forget the words like reciprocal, factor, multiple, range or gross profit… because I know what to do, when I see them in Russian, but if I don’t remember the translation, it won’t help me.
Third, I was lucky with AWA-topics – they were about job-candidates and some company crashing – so I had a lot to say. Well, AWA-results will tell.
Anyway, I know I could have done better, if I devoted more time to preparation (I began looking for books in May, started doing Official Guide in June, but have done only half of it or even less before passing the test). Yes, I have a lot of excuses for myself such as work, friends, family and the famous law of 20/80. But I said to myself, that I would be content with 650+. I actually got over 700, so I’m feeling glad.
AWA Tips (for non-natives, like me, mostly)
First, don’t worry about AWA. It won’t count towards your score and many AdComs don’t pay attention to AWA marks (or so they say). But there is still a possibility, that they will check your style – to be sure, it was you who wrote your essays for school and not some highly-paid consultant.
I have downloaded all the 280 essays from Scoretop.com forum, written in quite a good quality and read about 1/3 of them (I devoted a whole week to this). I have made a template for myself and practiced it with 8 essays (4 Issue, 4 Argument), until I felt confident and words like ‘furthermore’, ‘similarly’, ‘in addition’ spread all over my texts. You can see, I’m still writing close to template with all those ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third’ ;)
Quant Tips (for 48+)
Be sure you know all the words concerning math. Check tough questions at GMATClub.com forum (or any other forum of your choice). Understand the strategy that underlies probability and evaluation problems (they are usually appear as the top ones). Practice DS questions.
Verbal Tips
SC – there are a lot of guides and strategies about this one on-line, and it’s important to learn all about parallel constructions, apples and oranges and the rest. My strategy for difficult sentences is to use some sort of ‘bubble sorting’:
1. Eliminate as many chances as you can. Don’t panic if you see nothing to eliminate at first.
2. Compare A and B (if they are not eliminated, of course). What is worse? Why? (it’s very important to know ‘why’) Chose ‘the best one’.
3. Compare ‘the best one’ with the next one. Is the latter better? If yes, make it ‘the best one’
4. Continue until you have only one choice left, which is ‘the best’ :)
CR – practice to understand GMAT logic. Kaplan disc helped me a lot – they have some useful tips about finding the better choice if you have two left: try to refute both – which undermines argument most – is the answer.
RC – I’ve read a lot about strategies for this one, but I don’t use them, because I have no time to draw maps, etc. I do the following. As the text appears I read the first question. If it concerns some special part of the passage I read that part and answer the question. By the time I have a general question in front of me, I have already read and understood about half of the text.
Preparation for test-day
If you take test on Saturday, take a week of holiday at work. Revise your error log on Monday and Tuesday, do a ‘real test’ simulation on Wednesday (revise errors) and another one on Thursday. Don’t prepare on Friday – go for a walk, swim in the swimming pool, clean the house. If you definitely want to practice, revise some concepts for SC and read a bit of AWA essays.
On the test-day, have a good breakfast (if you love pasta, fried potatoes or roast beef – cook it in advance and get up with a feeling of ‘Vienna-waits-for-you’). Take with you a bottle of cold tea with sugar (your brain will need it during the breaks).
Use ear-plugs. Even if you’re alone in the test room, there will be a lot of distracting noises around - don’t let them get you out of your flow.
Have a good mood and a winning mind. There’re lots of people who did it and who did great. Even if you don’t do it now, you’ll make it a month later, so there’s nothing to worry about.
So, that’s it and enough of GMAT. I’ll write my database with all resources on a disk, sell all prep-books next Monday and forget about it for the next 5 years.
As soon as I wrote that, I remembered how I got my driving license: I passed the test when I was 19, got the document, valid for 10 years and… stored it in a box at home, since I didn’t have a car. I nearly bought one this spring, but changed my mind: I decided to leave the money for my business school, so I’m still commuting by metro ;)
