I just Beat The GMAT!

gmatmachoman wrote:Hi Pushkal,

Congrats man... Join the 700 club!!

Thanks Govi. A warm surprise to see your message. Hope your Wharton dreams are realized soon. Good luck !!

Congratulations bblast! Your score is awesome.

I read your GMAT log (must say really impressive work!!)

For RC can you suggest me about MGMAT RC guide(how good is RC99 compared to it?)
I am torn between whether to have so many books; as my deadline is in a month.
(Got 8 MGMAT Guides, PowerScore CR, and OG)

sunandita wrote:Congratulations bblast! Your score is awesome.

I read your GMAT log (must say really impressive work!!)

The reactions to my excel sheets are finally flowing in . I am surprised very few people took notice of those extended pieces of work I invested in.

sunandita wrote: For RC can you suggest me about MGMAT RC guide(how good is RC99 compared to it?)
I am torn between whether to have so many books; as my deadline is in a month.
(Got 8 MGMAT Guides, PowerScore CR, and OG)

I wonder if you have gone through the RC post in my signature ? Lemme know if u still need any clarifications after reading that RC post.

Hi bblast
I read your Rc blog . I attempted a few Rcs from Rc 99 . I googled one of the Rcs and found it in 2 places . One in a kaplan MCAT guide and the other in the preface of a scholarly work in the field of psychology .That too with some new stuff thrown in between . Ron has always advised against practising from RC 99 . Did you just used to skim the Rcs in RC 99 and go on to the questions . I found lots of Rcss in the medium difficulty module just to dangerous to digest .

I have read the conversation between Ron and Aristotle team in their blog. I agree with Ron. Some of the passages are even un-cohesive in the flow. I did some 85 passages from RC-99 way back in May at the start of prep for take -2. I dont think I learnt much on how to answer questions, but as I always say I learnt from RC-99 how to comprehend difficult passages. You have to work really hard with a timer running in trying to understand the passage. 1 used to skip 1 out of every 3 passages as sometime the passage turned out to be insane.

So if u are close to ur GMAT stay away from the RC-99. If u are starting a 3 month plan then its the best book to start with before diving into the barren land of OG passages{barren because very few official passages are available, 24 in OG-12 and 18 in verbal review}.


Dont u skip the passages in RC-99. Then u are not using the book the any effect as the questions are mostly ordinary or poor actually.

If u wanna know how I did on the RC-99 passages, I have the 30th July "uncut" excelsheet which even has my daily routine and things covered with hit rates for 3 months. :mrgreen: Lemme know if u want me to share it.

mundasingh123 wrote:Hi bblast
I read your Rc blog . I attempted a few Rcs from Rc 99 . I googled one of the Rcs and found it in 2 places . One in a kaplan MCAT guide and the other in the preface of a scholarly work in the field of psychology .That too with some new stuff thrown in between . Ron has always advised against practising from RC 99 . Did you just used to skim the Rcs in RC 99 and go on to the questions . I found lots of Rcss in the medium difficulty module just to dangerous to digest .

Well guys let me a bit more blatant than the need is, but rc-99 pc-99 all are useless crappy trash. if u r really interested in improving rc follow the following:
OG 10/11/12 + Supplements : There should be at least 50 unique passages overall
Set 30: available over net, I m not sure about their source but then most of these passages have appeared in og-12 and later in gmatprep so seems they are from gmat, there are some 40-50 unique passages(30*4 in numbers)

gmatprep : I found some legitimate gmatprep RC's on net, there are some 100+ unique passages of varying difficulty, find them and solve in timed manner.
LSAT and its kaplan explanation : again one can buy them on net, there are thousands of passages, you can do as many as you want. yes the format is a bit different but language(the comprehension) portion is quite the same, boring, tough vocab and all that. questions are pretty representatives but more per rc(6-8), you may avoid large number of legal and all comparative rc's rest all is fine. Most important thing is answers are authentic, which might not be the case in some of the documents noted above.

many people say that lsat rc's are longer, but in my own test I found 2 big one so I do not think size is really a concern. rest is ur choice. since I Scored a 41 which is a bit ok considering i m not native...I think these materials helped me improve that. as a mater of principle u must be avoiding large part of un-official sources when it comes to verbal part of the exam..

bblast wrote:I have read the conversation between Ron and Aristotle team in their blog. I agree with Ron. Some of the passages are even un-cohesive in the flow. I did some 85 passages from RC-99 way back in May at the start of prep for take -2. I dont think I learnt much on how to answer questions, but as I always say I learnt from RC-99 how to comprehend difficult passages. You have to work really hard with a timer running in trying to understand the passage. 1 used to skip 1 out of every 3 passages as sometime the passage turned out to be insane.

So if u are close to ur GMAT stay away from the RC-99. If u are starting a 3 month plan then its the best book to start with before diving into the barren land of OG passages{barren because very few official passages are available, 24 in OG-12 and 18 in verbal review}.


Dont u skip the passages in RC-99. Then u are not using the book the any effect as the questions are mostly ordinary or poor actually.

If u wanna know how I did on the RC-99 passages, I have the 30th July "uncut" excelsheet which even has my daily routine and things covered with hit rates for 3 months. :mrgreen: Lemme know if u want me to share it.

mundasingh123 wrote:Hi bblast
I read your Rc blog . I attempted a few Rcs from Rc 99 . I googled one of the Rcs and found it in 2 places . One in a kaplan MCAT guide and the other in the preface of a scholarly work in the field of psychology .That too with some new stuff thrown in between . Ron has always advised against practising from RC 99 . Did you just used to skim the Rcs in RC 99 and go on to the questions . I found lots of Rcss in the medium difficulty module just to dangerous to digest .

anything around 40 is a very good score

Agree quite a bit with Nagendra here. You can rather invest ur time in LSAT passages as well. I have personally used a few LSAT RC's and I can vouch that they are very good genuine practice sources. {Not sure but whether we can call them GMAT type passages}.

bblast ,

what can I say- I got the usual GMAT prep style RC passages which I gobbled. CR and SC were also good and I was hoping to see the usual verbal 41-42 to pop on screen. Finished this section also in 70 mins.
Final score : 680 (48/35). Sad. 1-1 point improvement in 3 months. That's how BADluck plays its part. So this attempt was a definite failure compared to attempt 1 !!!!.

from ur debrief
REgarding ypour 2nd attempt, You were scoring 750 on gmatprep . What went wrong ?

Humm means u wrote actual gmat? When? Was it your second attempt? I think you worked hard on verbal so 35 looks bad. Are you going to retake.

mundasingh123 wrote:what can I say- I got the usual GMAT prep style RC passages which I gobbled. CR and SC were also good and I was hoping to see the usual verbal 41-42 to pop on screen. Finished this section also in 70 mins.
Final score : 680 (48/35). Sad. 1-1 point improvement in 3 months. That's how BADluck plays its part. So this attempt was a definite failure compared to attempt 1 !!!!.

REgarding ypour 2nd attempt, You were scoring 750 on gmatprep . What went wrong ?

maihuna wrote:Humm means u wrote actual gmat? When? Was it your second attempt? I think you worked hard on verbal so 35 looks bad. Are you going to retake.

mundasingh123 wrote:what can I say- I got the usual GMAT prep style RC passages which I gobbled. CR and SC were also good and I was hoping to see the usual verbal 41-42 to pop on screen. Finished this section also in 70 mins.
Final score : 680 (48/35). Sad. 1-1 point improvement in 3 months. That's how BADluck plays its part. So this attempt was a definite failure compared to attempt 1 !!!!.

REgarding ypour 2nd attempt, You were scoring 750 on gmatprep . What went wrong ?

I quoted bblast

he he, looks like some confusion here.

Mundahsingh - I noted the reason for my downfall. I went too fast, I usually use to finish a verbal section in the 74th minute but on test day I was in a hurry and finished in the 69th minute - that was absolutely stupid on my part. I think that was what pulled my score down from the usual 40 t0 35. You see my last attempt also did not give me 40. But u gotta give test pressure some respect, so I will live with the score now .

I know it's more of an autobiography than a debrief, as you say, but it was well worth reading it thoroughly! Thanks for your input into this community, and for sharing your story. It was a good analysis, and since you took the test three times, each time reflecting on the experience and never missing a beat, you have some really valuable insights. Congrats on the score, and good luck with your applications!

Thank you aristocrat, I am glad that the briefing was interesting and useful to you. My bschool app journey is almost complete. I will post another debrief on this thread soon for the application phase once I wrap up my final interview and accept an offer.(have applied two seasons so have some big insights on that front as well)

Smeal
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