Within the past few weeks, my life has become incredibly hectic. After attending my 5th year reunion, I had an epiphany. I want to be a management consultant. I want to go to business school. I want to apply in January. I want to enroll next Fall.
I had my epiphany in late June. Clearly I have not taken my GMATs yet, and I am scared. The verbal portion of the test is doable for me. Having graduated with a degree in English and having spent 4 years working in the publishing industry, I am confident that I will score high on the verbal section if I focus so as to avoid careless errors. What's scary is the math portion. I've been away from school for 5 years now. I've been away from math for about 10 years.
I managed to use my publishing contacts to finagle a free test prep guide from McGraw-Hill. I cracked it open and took a practice test. Missed about three or four on verbal. Yes! Could only get through maybe 5 questions on Math before saying "Eff this, I'm going to bed." Damn! I needed a basics refresher so for the past two weeks, I've hunkered down and retaught myself most of them. I used the Kaplan Math Foundations and Kaplan GMAT Math Workbook and am up to speed on most topics. I've also sat through a Manhattan GMAT Math Foundations online class which has helped tremendously as well. I'm still shaky on Geometry and most Data Sufficiency. Mastering Geometry will be a matter of me memorizing equations for area etc. and drilling myself on applying them. I really just need to practice more Data Sufficiency questions. I've improved quite a bit over the past three weeks in tackling them.
Now I need to Master the GMAT. I know I can do it. I'm a smart woman and I'm a competitive woman. I will do this, and to make sure that I do "do this" I've enrolled myself in an expensive ManhattanGMAT course. If I were not so pressed for time, I would have studied on my own with the myriad study guides that I've purchased. But I work full time, and have a live-in boyfriend, so I want the structure, guidance, and expertise that a course offers. It starts tomorrow.
I've already learned one thing. The GMAT is long as hell. For class tomorrow, we are to have completed one full length Computer Adaptive Test. My Saturday was pretty free, so I set aside a few hours to take it. A few things...
1) Today was the first day that I've done the AWA. This section was pretty straight forward, but it does eat up some of my energy as it's at the very beginning of the exam.
2) I finished all of the sections in less than 75 minutes. I read somewhere that this is a bad thing. When it comes to me and test taking, I either know the answer or I don't. The answers I miss are usually to questions that I have no idea how to solve. Once I get geometry down and do some drills with number properties, I'm going to work on my pacing. I did make about three careless errors on the math portion and I missed a whopping 11 on the verbal portion. Every little (or big) bit counts.
3) Careless errors is the perfect seque into my Verbal Performance. On all the practice exams I've taken, this exam is the FIRST one on which I've scored higher in math than on verbal. I know where I went wrong.
- I run the risk of being over confident. I also think I know everything and I think that when I get an answer wrong it's really the test writers who are wrong. Cocky, I know. :)
- Verbal is the very last portion of the exam, and I might have very well been tired.
- During the practice exam I was very distracted. My boyfriend has just purchased a new video game and he is playing it with a friend online. He gets extremely loud and despite me locking myself in a room, I can still be distracted by his outbursts. I need to find a better way to simulate the testing environment.
- I took a few breaks in between sections. I took a break during the AWA to watch a few Michael Jackson performances (I still know all the moves to Thriller, Smooth Criminal, and Beat It). I took a break after Math to go get a pedicure and get my car washed. These two things HAD to be done. I had bird crap on my car and my feet needed to be beautified before I wear sandals tomorrow. This is an example of life getting in the way of studying. lol By the time I got to the verbal section, I was just ready for the darn test to be over, and I stopped concentrating. I glossed over some of the longer passages in the Reading Comp sections and made 11 careless errors by not looking at the call of the question properly or just clicking the wrong button.
With all that said, I'm excited for tomorrow! I think the classroom environment will benefit me greatly, and it will help to be able to ask a live person for clarification on certain issues. With all this said, next time I take a practice CAT, I'm going to the library.
Now it's time for wine! On a hot summer's night, I prefer Chardonnay. Barefoot makes a pretty good Chardonnay and it's only $5.97.
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