Guest Blogger (Osirus) - His Story!

Hello Hello... by the time you guys read this I will have reached another milestone with my blog = My 10,000th Visitor since February!  10,000th Visitor Post


For my 5,000th visitor I had a guest blogger so I figured I would do the same this time around.  

This guest is my dear friend Brandon aka Osirus!  You guys have heard me mention him on many occasions starting with the BeatTheGMAT contest back in February, when in all honesty, I wasn't too fond of him because he was outposting me!  Needless to say he has become the backbone of my studies.  We joke that he is the SVP of Team Richard... my mother is the President!  

In any event, I wanted to open up the floor for Brandon to comment because he's in what I think an awkward position.    For many of us, we want to beat the gmat (up) so we can forget about it and move on with our lives.  Even though Brandon has conquered the GMAT he's graciously helping those around him attempt to do the same.  So for those Admissions Officers out there, just know that Brandon WILL be one of the people helping his classmates at 1/2am in the morning.  I can speak from experience because I've sent him numerous picture messages with math problems at 1am, only to have him respond with an explanation ending with "...does that make sense?"

I don't want to hog the floor/blogpage but thought I would give people that background info.  I asked Brandon to give us some words of wisdom and he has done just that!  

So as I've used previously - Get a snack...get some soda... and enjoy!  This will be a 2 parter!

Brandon's Story...

My name is Brandon, but for those that have been following the blog since the beginning may know me better as Osirus.   I am honored that Richard asked me to share with the blog my GMAT experience and just my own MBA journey.  I will begin by discussing the history of my battle with the GMAT.  I applied to the Management Leaders for Tomorrow program in October.  If you get accepted into the program, then you have to have an official GMAT score by February 1st.  While I had studied some before, I would say that my serious GMAT prep began at the end of November.  My studying consisted of going through the Manhattan GMAT guides and the Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible.  My prep consisted of spending the first month learning the material and the second month drilling the material.  

The biggest issue I had was forgetting material after I learned it.  To combat this I developed a system where I would read through a chapter and then do a problem set dealing with that chapter.  The next time I studied, I would go through a new chapter and do a problem set dealing with that chapter, but I would also do two problems from the previous chapter I did.  So for example, if I were going through number properties, I would go through chapter one (divisibility and primes) and do the 15 problems at the end of the chapter.  The next math day, I would go through chapter 2 and do all of those problems, but I would go back and do two problems from chapter one.  I would do the same thing until I finished the book.  This helped to make sure that everything remained fresh.  This is what really helped me to see progress.  I went from my practice scores staying around 550, to shooting up to 610, and then 660.  

This strategy is really time consuming though, so I definitely understand why everyone cannot implement it.  My strategy definitely helped me improve my quant score, but I never quite got a handle on verbal.  My first attempt at the GMAT was Jan 29th of this year.  I scored a 680.  I know most people would be happy with that score, but I was pissed.  I remember going to see a good friend of mine and I was just in a funk that entire day.  She didn’t understand why I was upset.  I think the issue is that when you set a goal for yourself, and you put in the work, you expect to see the result.  

I was pretty disappointed in my score and I was planning my next move.  When I had my first coach call with my MLT coach, she was pretty excited about my score and didn't think that I needed to take the exam again.  I remember thinking what world does she live in...lol.  That brings me to an important point, regardless of what score you get and what others tell you about your score, if you think you can do better and improve your score, take the test again.  

My next step was to take a class to help me improve verbal.  I was really impressed with Brian Galvin on Beat the GMAT, so I took a course with Veritas.  The Veritas class definitely helped me improve my approach to verbal.  What I learned from that class is that you have to approach verbal in a systematic way.  You have to approach every Critical Reasoning Assumption question the same way.  You have to approach every Reading Comprehension Inference question the same way.  This will help you to gain consistentency in verbal.  To improve with quant I used my same approach but I did it with the Veritas materials.  

After studying for 3 months, I took the exam again at the end of June and improved my score by 50 points and scored a 730.  I think the main thing that I learned from my experience is that you can’t take short cuts.  You have to do a ton of problems.  I adopted the philosophy from my high school football team, practice hard so that the game is easy.  I would do 75-80 problems a day, to build stamina and to practice my approach.  Practice is more than just practicing the content, it is also about practicing your approach.  When you practice, don’t just practice to say that you did something.  Don’t just go through a book to say that you completed that book.  Practice how you will play.  Approach every problem how you would on the real exam, and approach each problems consistently.

I will post the rest of this tomorrow... it gets better and more personal!  STAY TUNED!