Joshua van Aalst’s blog

A friend recently asked about my General Management Admissions Test (GMAT) study and I thought it might benefit all if I posted it up here.

What is the General Management Admissions Test (GMAT)?

It’s the exam that people sit who wish to gain entrance to the MBA program at unis like Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, MIT e.t.c.

The GMAT is the following 3 sections with a 10 minute break inbetween

Written - 2 essays - 1 hour
Quantitative - Multiple choice data sufficiency and standard math - 75 minutes
Verbal - Sentence correction, comprehension, critical analysis - 75 minutes

So just about 4 hours all up. It is extremely exhausting exam and is a test of ones indurance.

I primarily used the following 3 books to study

Princeton GMAT Review
GMAC GMAT Review - Official guide
Kaplan GMAT Review

I also used the downloadable GMAC GMAT prep software

Now when I say used them what I mean is I read them cover to cover and answered each question twice!!!

I would strongly advise NOT using small press books. I also own the GMAT study guide by “Exam Cram” and about 1 in 10 answers were incorrect!! so I stopped using it.

If I was to do it again I would have also purchased the GMAC GMAT Review Verbal and Quantitive guides. I really missed having them as the GMAC book was by far the most useful.

I studied day and night for 3 months and took 5 days off work to study.

I got 670 i.e. the 87th percentile. Yay!

If I was to do it again i’d definately enrol at a GMAT school like Kaplan. It was very hard studying on my own.