GMAT

[jediknightingale]

So today I learned that I need to take the GMAT before May 15 (my GRE was 3 points too low for the program)...soooo anyone want to tell me how much I'll hate life/cheap and free resources to study/GMAT tips? I would appreciate it!

[BeckyBuckeye]

Free resources? I'd try both your school and public libraries for review books. They may not have them, but it's worth a try for free. Try to make sure it's an edition from the last few years. I doubt things have changed a ton, but the more recent it is, the better.

[jediknightingale]

Ha ha yea free. I am cheap and morally opposed to paying to torture myself. I will definitely check out the library! I've looked online for free study guides and haven't found much :/

[nickls]

If you go to the official GMAT site, they have free test-prep software that includes two full practice tests. These are great to see how you're doing, but I would save at least one towards the end of your practice to see if you are hitting a score that would make you happy. I would suggest getting a book, either from the library or a bookstore/Amazon. I can't remember which book I used, I think it was either the official GMAT one or the Princeton Review. It had some good tips on the essay portion, telling you what the graders are looking for so you can just crank out an essay that will get you a 5.

For the verbal and quant sections, a lot of it is just practice and making sure you know what you need to know to answer the questions. For the quant, I would suggest doing some geometry review, because a couple geometry questions tripped me up on the test and I hadn't thought about a lot of those topics since high school.

Good luck!

[Swthrtsuzy]

Everything nickls just said.

mba.com is the official GMAT site, and they do have the two practice tests. Also, your school's library may have some free practice tests, too. Mine does, but I didn't even find out until AFTER I took the GMAT. Go figure.

For me, the quant section was the hardest since I hadn't taken anything even resembling geometry or algebra for over a decade (Yeah, I just aged myself yay). So if that's not your strong suit, you may want to work some extra high school math problems. The essays are fine, but I wouldn't worry too much about them because most schools don't even take those scores into consideration. The verbal is really just tedious because after you've been sitting there for that long, everything turns into gibberish, so read carefully.

All in all, it's absolutely do-able. If you do want to pick up a book, you can pick up the "official" review guides for the different parts of the test for about $17/ea (new) or the full review guide for about $40 - if you have a used book store handy, those are great for finding study material. It might help to work some actual test problems with explanations so you know what to expect.