Gmat Journey

Well, again a long time without posts, but again, I’ve been really busy, but I am glad to say that this time I got busy because my whole application process.

There isn’t much to say about GMAT, but there is a lot to say about the application process, and in this past month, I finally decided to which universities I am going to apply, taking into account several factors: Country of teaching, University, Curriculum, Price, Living, Average age of the students, Amount of latins in the program (I don’t want to be the only latin there). I have 4 universities that I want to apply on the first round, and 2 more for backup in march.

Maybe I don’t have much to say about GMAT, but I have a list of activities that has occupied my time lately, maybe this list can help you guys, since if you are interested in GMAT, application process is also on the way :)

Write to all universities asking them all the related questions about applications and scholarships
Make a list of all teachers that I am going to contact for references
Make a list of all friends and colleagues that I am going to contact for references
Contact all teachers that I am going to ask for references
Contact all friends and colleagues that I am going to ask for references
Find out how to make the apostillaje (legalization of documents) process and the costs of this process
Contact translation companies for prices on translation
Contact Fedex and other major messaging companies for prices
Review all required documentation needed in order to apply
Review all costs - dates to process the documentation needed
Start looking for possible Gmat dates and the costs of the test
Find out with the British Council and with the Toefl organization to see which test I will take, the difficulty and costs
Update Curriculum Vitae in Spanish and in English and make each version
Make a budget of costs of the whole application process
Make a board for follow up of the application process
Review possible scholarships for each institution
Review housing and every day expenses

It’s been two months without any posts... Well, first of all I am pretty embarrassed, since I love this blog, but to be perfectly honest, I never found anything really interesting to write, so I didn’t.

Here is a small review of the two last months: I started to work hard on my math summary, I had a lot of things to fix at home, I started my painting lessons again, I had dengue and the big project that I was working on, got approved. Most of this time passed between the dengue stuff and the project, the cool thing is that this project will represent something really nice to show at my curriculum and also at the application process.

The only big thing that I was working on related to gmat is my math summary, in this summary, I am making a compilation of all the math books that I have, since I got tired of looking at some subject and no book had it totally well explained, so I went to the OG, and I made a list of all the math subjects tested on the GMAT, so later on, my summary can be my main math reference.

I know this sounds like a lot of work... the truth, yes it has, but the cool thing is that I reviewed a lot of math concepts, and since math is my main concern, for me it was important to make this summary, I expect to have this summary done by next week...

Well, anyway, here I am back again into posting!

Well, miracles do happen... I just found it out this past weekend...

The thing is that no matter how much I know that I have to study, that the GMAT is important, and all that, I wasn’t able to study for more than 30 straight minutes...

And there came my new hobby, listening history... I’ve always been a great fan of history and I love reading about history, well, the thing is that I have heard from a woman called Diana Uribe, who is a philosopher, who has a radio show where she talks for an hour about history, and she starts to tell you the story of all sort of things, just as a friend was telling you a nice story of something that happened to him over the weekend... so she is really fun to hear and you are learning at the same time.. Cool, isn’t it?

So, the thing is that I started to hear one of the History of England cd´s this past Sunday, and then by art of magic, I started to be productive... I know that it sounds weird that you study math and hear a woman narrating history at the same time, but I don’t really care, all I care about is that I’ve found study fun, and this past Monday, I didn’t turned on the TV, but I went straight to study... =)

I also think that it has helped me that the TV in the bedroom is broken so to watch TV, I have to go to the kitchen or to the studio.

And also other thing that I found to be a good help is the fact that whenever I study I get very very cold, maybe is the fact that all the blood goes to my brain? (I’m just kidding, but I really don’t know why I always get so cold when I study) so to avoid that much cold, I am now wearing two sweaters, and voila!

Anyway, it is really cool to feel finally motivated to study... It doesn’t really matter what gives you that extra something, the important thing is to find it.

I’ve been away for quite a long time, since on the 13th of this month; I received terrible news, my great-aunt died. Usually, it wouldn’t a big motive of sadness, but she was an amazing woman, who happened to be my mentor.

I worked with her for a year in New York, thanks to her, and I had the chance to learn and experience wonderful things because of her, that otherwise, I would never be able to see or experiment.

She also shaped me to be the workaholic that I am today, and she thought me about discipline and how to be gentle at the same time with other, and how important family is. She was the best boss ever, because she always took you to your limits, but she also rewarded the efforts to achieve it.

As you can see, she was extremely cool and nice! And we will always miss her, since she was a very important family member for all of us.

After receiving this news, I traveled to Barranquilla, to be with my grandma, who was very affected, since she was her little sister, I stayed with them for almost a week, and it helped us all to feel better.

Anyway, I wanted to make this post, just to write, a few lines about Chichi, the incredible woman that I pointed on this post.

Strategy to tackle the GMAT

What I should do to tackle this test? Well, this weekend and part of this week I had the time to sit and think about it for a while, the first thing that I did is trying to figure out in which sections I feel stronger, and in which I don’t.

The sections that I feel that I am fine are: AWA and Reading Comprehension.

I have problems in the quantitative part, both Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency, and in the verbal part I have to work on Sentence Correction and Critical Reasoning; I don’t feel that bad in the verbal part, but I have a lot to improve on.

But for each section I came up with a roadmap:

Math

This has to be my main section for me to tackle since, I always had problems with math, and since I need to show a good math score, since the master that I am pursuing is a master in finance, which requires a lot of numerical skills. Here are some of the actions that I plan to take for the math section:

Summary of the most important concepts.
Study and come up with my own strategy for DS
Practice with OG and Test Magic.

For math the most important thing is practice, and for that what you need is time, since I know that after a while of putting my brain the math mood, I will be o.k.

There is a really good chance that I will include a math tutor in the preparation, since the math tutor that I once hired is really good and cheap, so for the hard questions, I think he can be tons of help!

Verbal

I know that verbal can be the “it” factor, since a lot of people have really good math scores, so a good score in the verbal part can really help my score to get boosted. I have to take advantage of the fact, that even though English is not my native language, I am good with grammar rules (thanks to French also) so I have to work hard on this area, but since I love doing verbal things, I know that verbal won’t be so hard for me. Tons of work, of course, but not that hard at last.

Here are the actions that I plan to take on the verbal section:

Summary of the most important concepts.
Study Manhattan SC.
Practice with OG and Test Magic.
Take time every day and read some articles of different areas after lunch or in the morning bus.

AWA

I know this is not a very crucial section on the GMAT, and since I think that I am a good writer, my strategy for this section is fairly easy, just follow the instructions that I wrote on how to tackle this section some time ago and write one essay every two weeks on my blog to hear other people’s opinion about it, that would mean that at the end of the GMAT preparation (almost 3 months) I will have 3 essays of each type done, so I think that is more than a good preparation for that section. Anyway, if there is something that I learned about the GMAT is that in this section a lot of it comes into the subject that you get, if you are lucky to get a good subject, it’s easy, but if it is a horrible one, no matter how good you write, it will be harder to write something nice.

Here is the link to my AWA complete strategy: http://gmatjourney.blogspot.com/2006/05/awa.html

Mistakes that I don’t want to repeat

If people are not able to learn from their old mistakes, there would be no point of making them... So what I don’t want to repeat from my old experience? Well, it’s easy, it would be not to expend too much time searching for information and making flashcards, I spend tooooo much time making that stupid mistake, and I don’t want to repeat it, so this time I am just going to focus on the OG, and Manhattan SC, and the other books I will take them as a backup, or as a strategy source, but the most important thing with this test as most tests is practice.

What I am planning to do different

Just yesterday, I read this phrase: “for a 7XX GMAT is a bit like training to go into space; one must strive for optimum mental and physical condition levels to best complete the mission. A key component to getting that extra 5-10% on T-day is to minimize stress by staying healthy and alert.” (I have a good amount of nice GMAT related phrases that I found; I will post them later on).

I think this phrase is totally right, so it is important to take it easy, not get too stressed with the test, and work with a good mindset. I paid for my Yoga and Meditation lessons, but I haven’t been able to take them yet, so I plan on taking them really soon, since I already paid for a whole quarter. Right now my painting lessons are helping me in a huge deal to relax and lay back.

I also plan to work on the concepts, because at least for me, if my concepts are clear things are easier for me, and I proved that theory during college where I always got very good grades.

Another important thing is that this time I am going to breath, sleep and dream with the OG, which is the key of success and the best way to get into the test mindset.

So in summary, my whole strategy will be focused in two main points: Strong Concepts & Practice OG.

Now, here is my GMAT Preparation schedule:

Being realistic, I know that I can’t start my preparation until this coming Sunday (June 10th), before that it would be really hard since I have to finish two paintings that I am working on and which have to be done by this coming Saturday, so I think that on Sunday, I will be able to study.

So the starting preparation date would be on June 10th, now, the final day, or the G-Day would be September 3rd, I think this would be a good date, and If I happen to have a bad result, (I hope not) I still have time to take it again. I tried to take the test maybe at the middle of august, but I know that between august 13 and august 27 I can’t take days away from work, because at that time we have the annual inventory, which is very important for us, and take it on august 10 is not good for me since I want to study more, and I don’t want to kill myself while doing so. Another reason to take the test at that moment is the fact that I will work on the application process at the same time.

Doing the math the total amount of days that I would have to study the GMAT would be 84.

So here is how I plan to split my preparation days.


SUBJECT # Days # Weeks
Math Concepts: 9 1,29
Verbal Concepts: 5 0,71
Manhattan Gmat: 7 1,00
Strategies from other books: 6 0,86
OG 10th and 11th edition: 50 7,14
Days I can’t because of work: 4 0,57
Free / Vacation days: 3 0,43
TOTAL 84 12

So by the second week of July I should be on the OG train already. I don’t want to set so strict dates, because I know that if you miss one, it is really easy to get discouraged, that is why I included 4 days that I can’t work because of my office and 3 vacation or free days! In those 3 vacation day, I have to take away that Sunday before the G-Day, since I don’t want to study before this test.