<p>Just curious, how long before you took/were planning to take the GMAT did you start studying and preparing for it?</p>
<p>This might be a dumb question, but did you take the GMAT before you graduated or after? I wasn't sure if you had to wait until you graduated or what the standard procedure was for taking the GMAT. I am a few hours shy of being a senior business undergrad w/major in finance. Thanks!</p>
<p>I spent between 75 and 100 hours total on GMAT</a> prep before I took the exam, spread over a few months. Depending on how strong you are to start, you should assume that it will take you this long.</p>
<p>There is no rule in terms of having to wait until after you graduate from university before taking the GMAT. But your score will last for five years, so only take it now if you think you will apply to business school within the next five years.</p>
<p>I know somebody who studied for about ten hours over less than a week and got over 700. I guess it depends on your general body of knowledge and how good of a test-taker you are. Probably the self-study books are enough guidance, and the prep courses are probably more trouble and expense than necessary (just my opinion).</p>
<p>I bought the princeton review GMAT prep book, and worked through it on my own over about 2 weeks, a few minutes each night. Also, Kaplan offers free sample tests at most university campuses, so I took a sample test through them in order to gain confidence for the real test.</p>
<p>The day of the GMAT I was a little nervous, but after working through the book and taking the practice test the butterflies went away pretty quickly, as everything was familiar and there were no surprises.</p>
<p>Scored a 40 on the verbal, 47 on the quantitative, and a 6.0 on the writing. Total score was a 700.</p>
<p>I think the biggest two things that helped me the most was that I took the GMAT the semester after I took college algebra, while I was still a Junior in undergrad studies. With the algebra fresh in my mind, the GMAT math wasn't too hard. Also, by taking that free Kaplan practice test and using it as a test-run to exercise my newly-learned GMAT skills from the book, I was very confident going into the actual GMAT. I would have been happy with a 600, so when I got the 700 I felt great. I felt great, that is, until a classmate of mine got a 720 without preparing for it as much as I did.</p>
<p>My roommate bought a Kaplan Guide and only studied for a couple weeks before getting a 720. He has a 4.0 and is one of the smartest guys I know, but he only had a 1250 SAT.</p>
<p>Would anyone recommend taking an in-person prep courses, such as the Kaplan prep course? Is it worth the time and money? Do they provide any helpful strategies that you can't get from self studying?</p>
<p>I've never attended a prep course, and I would assume it would depend on what type of test taker you are. However, as someone that does well on standardized tests, I didn't want to spend the money on a course. There is a lot of valuable information in the study books and plenty of practice problems and online practice exams that could keep you busy for hundreds of hours.</p>
<p>I would not recommend studying for only 20 hours. Sure, you may score high, but I would recommend giving yourself the best chance possible of getting a high score. Aside from that, it takes a substantial amount of time to do every potential problem and have a strategy for the various problem types. The last thing you want while taking the exam is to see types of problems that you have not seen before. Given the time crunch, this can be highly stressful. I ran into the exact same type of quant problem, which I had never seen before, 3 times in a row. Perhaps that was a bit of bad luck, but had I not prepared as much as I did, there would have been a lot of problems that I had never seen or hadn't worked since 8th grade.</p>
<p>I studied every weekend for about 4 months, but only 4 hours a day. So, that's about 120 hours.</p>
<p>I did take a course covering the math section because the wording of some of the questions are tricky, and I was given some good advice on how to solve them. This may have been in the book, but the course was really my first "get off your butt" motivation move. After that I was more encouraged to study, that and I signed up to take the test so I had a hard-in-stone date.</p>
<p>I bought one of those $10 books - I think Barron's or something - and did a bunch of practice exams. Those are good for a warmup.</p>
<p>On a recommendation from a friend, I borrowed his login to 800score.com and took several of the 5 practice exams they offer there. Those exams there are HARD. I was shocked to get a 620 on my first practice exam there. But carefully going over the correct answers and reasoning, and identifying my mistakes, really helped prepare me. It turns out the tests on 800score.com are actually harder than the real thing. By the end I was getting low 700s on the practice tests, and when I walked in on test day I came out with a 780. Missed one math question on the whole thing.</p>
<p>What's funny is, the person who gave me the 800score login also got a 780, and a mutual friend who we also gave the login to ALSO got a 780. Massive coincidence, it was pretty funny.</p>
<p>Anyway, I highly recommend doing a book's worth of prep, and then going to a site with ball-buster tests like 800score.com for a workout. Once you've done those, you're ready for prime time.</p>
<p>I will be taking the gmat with a little over a month's worth of prep time. I'm kind both of anxious, and excited haha. And I work full-time. I bought a Kaplan test prep book, it seems ok. I'll blow through that, take some practice tests, and wing it, man.</p>
<p>i only studied for about a week - i used kaplan's gmat book and online practice tests - and i got a 750. BUT i'm a huge procrastinator and don't recommend saving your studying for the last week - unless you work best under pressure. the best resource that i found was the CAT practice tests. the hardest part of the gmat for me was the way the questions got harder as you answered them correctly - it makes you feel like you're not doing as well as you are. also, kaplan's math is WAY harder than the actual test! i was very worried about my quan score, and i ended up getting the same as my verbal.....i truly think kaplan's tests help you prepare, but don't let your scores on their practice tests get you discouraged. take tests from at least one other source as well (like mba.com - it's free once you register for the gmat). </p>
<p>also, i wouldn't waste my money on a prep class unless you think you need help on the basic math concepts. i didn't take one, and i had a friend who did and said it didn't really help him other than having additional practice materials - which you can buy at barnes and noble for like 1/10 of the price. </p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>So you thought that Kaplan's quant questions were harder than on the actual gmat? Can anyone else second this? </p>
<p>I hope so, cause I've been using the Kaplan book!</p>
<p>seriously, try some other CAT (computer adaptive tests) and see what you get compared to the Kaplan CATs......mine was a difference of up to 200 points!!! (obviously major discrepancy percentage-wise.) kaplan's verbal was closer to the real gmat in my opinion....but i'd actually also be curious to know if anyone else studied with kaplan and thought their quan was way harder than the real gmat. i actually called kaplan to ask them and they said they had never heard that before, so maybe it was just me......but, like i said, study with them anyway.....can't hurt, and definitely helped me :-)</p>
<p>"before getting a 720. He has a 4.0 and is one of the smartest guys I know, but he only had a 1250 SAT"</p>
<p>I scored an 810 on my SAT and a 680, 720 GMAT. I studied my a$$ off though, so I'm not as smart as the "1 week and a 700+" club, still VERY happy w/ my score. I studied ~150 hours doing a math review book and lots of CAT exams.</p>