right… two points to note - 1) i’m commenting only on the top schools and 2) you met a wharton ‘grad’. im talking about the app year that just passed and the upcoming one where half the world’s ibankers, consultants, auditors, and IT engineers are applying. you should also try and find out how many of those below 700/660 were company sponsored / legacy vs. truly unique (climbed everest backwards). if you are ever able to glean that, you mighy get a nice surprise.
Re: gmat/cfa and quant ability I’m a new level II candidate also studying for the gmat and I find the math to be far more difficult than cfa. Finance/accounting math is rather simplistic it’s just about knowing the formulas and plugging for the most part. GMAT math (thus far) is far more, spacial, i guess is the word I would use. Learning the number properties etc just isn’t coming easy for me. I dont know what i was doing in middle/high school but apparently not paying attention in algebra or geometry. Verbal on the other hand is an absolute joke, a poor man’s LSAT. I wish it were the other way around for me though as b-schools will be far more impressed with a high quant than a high verbal. Hopefully the Level II status will show I’m at least as smart as 9th grader quantitatively despite my GMAT quant score.
I found the CFA to be much harder than GMAT and i got 720. Then again I’ve always been a better problem solver than memorizer. I have a terrible memory.
ditto here, 720 on the GMAT in Dec '08. The CFA Mock and even L1 were far harder than the GMAT. You do not need to know anywhere near as much math for the GMAT as you do CFA. You DO need to spend some time clearing out the cobwebs before taking the GMAT. I’m 30 years old and had not looked at Algebra/Geometry in over 15 years; it took me 3 months of practice before I cleared the cobwebs out of my brain. But all of my past knowledge did come flying back at me; and then some. I actually started remembering what derivatives were used for (eg, Min/Max eqtns, etc.) Shame you dont need to know calc on the GMAT, could have cranked my score higher. The CFA L1 program had a brief mention of it though lol Damn that was 3 years of my life wasted in high school/college on the calc sequence… Go thru the math prep in Princeton Review first then Veritas. Telling you, you will start to recall stuff from your decade long hiatus. I gotta say though, I have never bothered to calculate the area of a geometric shape in real life, so I have never seen the point tbh.
You guys think taking a course is really worth it? I’m thinking about just using the GMAC books and taking the sample exams from the website. …is this a mistake?
What score are you aiming or targeting for GMAT? It’s best to know the aim score first. Then learn to assess yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses and start from there. You can find many other online sources and problems that you can practice. If you’re not so good in MATH you may try GMAT CheatSheetOne. There are a lot of Math formulas which can help you in your review. Feel free to drop some reviews if you find it useful or not. I would also want to know how effective and efficient it can improve the scores of GMAT test takers.
Really?
My friend told me only good memorizer can get a very high score on GMAT, especially in verbal part?
Two different types of exams.
GMAT tests your aptitude; CFA tests your knowledge.
Was it really necessary to revive a 5 year old thread? None of the above posters are even active in the forum anymore.
I disagree; there are a number of stories on gmatclub where people go from a 500 to 700+. I would say that it certainly is not the norm and takes a lot of dedication (4-6mo at least). I know because I was one of them.
When I took the GMAT, I studied approximately zero hours and got a 560. I bet if I studied 4-6 months, I probably could have gotten 700+, but that’s not really the function of the prep provider. I could have used any provider and done that, simply because I actually studied.
I just recently took the GMAT (710) and I think that there is a lot of memorization. You’re always against the clock so you need tricks to save time. Common right triangle side lengths 3-4-5, 5-12-13, 8-15-17 just to give an example. That’s not going to get you a 700+, but it might save you a minute. If you’re in the city I could give you my flashcards, but I had like 40 things. Even verbal I wrote things down. Modifiers need to be place directly on top of the nouns they modify, but they don’t need to be for verbs.
Use Manhattan GMAT and spend a good amount of time. It’s not a race to get a score so just wait till you think you can get what you wanted. It took me 3-4 months. I think I could have done a little better, but this test is hard. I would say it’s harder than CFA1, not sure if it’s harder than CFA2.
so lol just to clarify? What has the best practice questions that’ll get me 700+ and or videos?
- Veritas?
2.Manahattan?
3.Princtone Review?
- Or Official Gmat?
and can anyone do a review for these? many thx.
MasterGMAT was by far my favorite prep.
I used Manhattan also, but I could probably re-sell those as brand new with how little I ended up using them.
I recommend GMATPill or Manhattan GMAT
No provider will do, you need something that will teach the fundamentals and more advanced stuff to make that kind of leap. If you’re scoring sub 600 (my first practice exam was an embarrassing 510 and I took double the time) then there are some key fundamental items you don’t grasp. Kaplan/Princeton could but are unlikely to do the job. You’re going to need something like a Manhattan gmat for that.
Is it me, or were the usernames more creative back in the day?!