GMAT - Who has taken it?

I signed up to take the GMAT exam the other day. I will be going on 6/19 at 9am. I started studying a little while ago but I wanted to see if anyone had any helpful advice so that I don’t have to blow another $250 taking it again.

The math looks like all stuff I learned in high school. The problem with that is I haven’t done any of this math in about 8 years. I’m not overly concerned with the verbal section but I will study it just so I know what to expect.

Any advice?

Its on computer, and how it works is it starts out at medium difficulty. If you get it right, you get a harder question. you get that right, you get an even harder one, and so on until you get one wrong. the level you can get 50% right at is your score. because of the way they do this, the beginning questions are weighted higher than the end ones so make sure you get them right.

Oh and youre not allowed a calculator or scratch paper.
I scored a 690 using that strategy without studying, i could have done better if i prepared

I know you aren’t allowed a calculator but I thought they let you use scratch paper.

Maybe they changed that but i was in the first group to take the computer version and we weren’t. The only gay part about the math is its like A,B,C, Both A and B, Both B and C, All of the above, or none of the above. Real easy to screw up even if you get the problem

Once you see a question, you can answer or leave it blank, but either way its gone, you cant go back.

I got 99 percentile on 2/3rds of it :tspry:

Yeah the data sufficiency problems are pretty tough.
I read in my review books about the way the testing system works where they keep escalating the difficulty of the questions when you get them right. I am going to start freaking out if I get a bunch of hard ones and then one I think is really easy.

Just take some time to take practice tests to familiarize yourself with the format. Scratch paper is allowed but no calculators. I took it two years ago. Those practice books are very helpful. I took a review course paid for by my employer and that helped a lot too if you can swing that.

No time for that. I have to get the GMAT finished and get my score to UB so I can enroll in the PMBA program by July 1. I don’t want to risk them running out of seats.

I’m sure it would have helped but the review books will have to do for now.

If you have limited time to prepare, then make sure you just do as many practice questions as possible so that the format doesn’t throw you off when you take the real thing. Try to simulate test conditions like no calc, timed, etc. If there is a specific type of question or particular concepts you keep screwing up, then go back and review. That is what most of my studying consisted of and I did pretty well. Hope this helps.

how much does it cost?

Yeah the review books I am working with had me doing some timed tests yesterday. That was the first time I had done any practice questions and the results were…OK. I made a few stupid errors that would have drastically improved my score. I hate math.