730 ... not too glad

jayhawk2001 · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:49 pm Post subject: 730 ... not too glad

Just came back after taking the GMAT. Got a 730. Q: 50, V: 38.

Missed my target score but glad that I didn't blow it completely !

I'll send a debrief soon. This forum rocks !

beatthegmat · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:54 pm Post subject:

Congratulations!

And thanks for your contributions to date--you've been a really fantastic member of this community (I hope you'll stick around Wink

)

Looking forward to the debrief...

Joe S · Guest

Awesome score!

Guest · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:47 pm Post subject:

Nice job Jay-thats about 97%? I think that should be you in contention almost anywhere-depending on your background and application that is. Thanks for all your help in the quant.

Did you see alot of probability in the Quant?

Would love to get some details on how the real thing stacked up against any of the practice tests and material youve come across in your prep.

I take my in a week

drhomler · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject:

Jay that last one was from me-forgot to login-brain is fried with one week left. I have on e gmatprep test to take and a kaplan disc of four. Thinking about do 4 out of 5 this weekend.

Glas to hear you did well-Im guessing you were hoping for a higher verbal but I think you are in a good spot-I hope you are not thinking of taking it again.

Prasanna · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject:

Great score! Congrats

aim-wsc · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject:

CONGRATULATIONS, Jay for beating the GMAT!

I expect some analysis from you. Smile

Needless to say you have been of great help to BtG... hope to see you around.

jayhawk2001 · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject:

Ok, here's my story...

I was born in a rural town in South India in the year...oops
wrong story !

The idea of doing an MBA has been lingering in the back of
my mind for about 2 years now and only this year did I start
looking at it seriously. Then started my GMAT journey. I
came across this forum while searching for "recommended
books for GMAT" on google and I was thrilled to see the
beatthegmat wiki with all the cool resources.

First off, many thanks to Eric for putting together this great
site, for facilitating communication among MBA aspirants
and for developing this "well" of GMAT treasures.

Coming to actual prep materials, I used the following --

1. OG 11 (including green and purple book for Quants and verbal)
2. Kaplan GMAT 800 2006-2007 edition
3. PR GMAT 2007
4. Manhattan SC

Some feedback on the different materials --

OG-11, quants (green book) and verbal (purple book) -- these
books are the bibles. I'd strongly recommend the green and
purple book to start off with the preps.

Manhattan SC: Best bang for your buck. Concepts in the book
are gold and to top it all you get access to the CATs online.
I personally felt that some examples at the end of every
section might have helped better - instead of pointers to
questions in the OG.

Kaplan GMAT 800 - Math content is a bit off and I felt
the questions were just twisted in verbiage rather than
twisted in concepts. SC tips as simply great. A must read
for improving SC.

After going through MG SC and Kaplan-800 SC, my SC accuracy
climbed to the upper 80% and for the most part I was just
choosing between 2 choices.

Princeton Review: Solid material for verbal. I didn't find the
math content particularly indicative of the kind of questions
that appear on the GMAT.

After about 1.5 months of review and learning, I started
doing tests. Here's a log of my scores --

2/15: Diags test: 610
4/15: Gmatprep 1: 710 (Q49, V38)
4/28: Kaplan cat-1: 640 (Q50, V35)
5/5: MGMAT-1: 680 (Q50, V35)
5/12: MGMAT-2: 700 (Q46, V39)
5/19: MGMAT-3: 750 (Q51, V41)
5/25: PR-1: 690 (Q50, V36)
5/26: PR-2: 660 (Q51, V31)
5/28: PR-3: 730 (Q51, V41)
6/2: Powerprep-1: 740 (Q51, V38)
6/9: Gmatprep 1 (reinstall): 770 (Q50, V46)
6/15: Gmatprep-2: 750 (Q50, V44)
5/20: Powerprep-2: 790 (Q51, V49)

I knew the Gmatprep scores were slightly inflated as there
were about 3-4 questions that I had seen earlier on the forums.
Nevertheless I thought I had a good shot at 750 and with a
40+ on verbal, I'd get there.

My personal opinion on Kaplan CAT on CD is that it is
not too useful. The questions are unnecessarily twisted on
math and verbal is just unreadable. It doesn't really prepare
you for the real thing - just freaks you out.

MGMAT math is a bit tough but gives you a good mental
workout in terms of concepts. The verbal side is a bit passive
and the difficulty level is a bit low than the real exam.

I kinda liked PR tests. They seemed more readable and more like
the GMATprep tests.

Overall, I was getting confident in Math but verbal varied
quite drastically between 35 and 46.

1 week before G-day:

Live, breathe and drink OG / Prep questions. I did not
look at questions from any other source other than OG,
GMATprep and Powerprep.

Day before G-day:

Didn't do much GMAT. Had lots of work in the office -

got home early, played 3 hours of badminton and then
had a hearty dinner. Went to sleep around midnite.

G-day:

Had a good 8 hour sleep. Woke up, had hot chocolate and some
fresh air - mentally preparing myself to not freak out Smile

.
Ate a sandwich, apple and a banana (my weekend breakfast
before I run my 10k) and headed off to the exam. My exam
was at noon. So, I had all morning to prepare.

After initial formalities, the instructor led me to the computer.
AWA was good -- argument was a bit illogical and the issue was
an interesting topic. Then I took the 10 min break, refreshed
myself, had a banana and told myself "Showtime" !!

Math started off well, first 6 or 7 questions were a breeze.
The 8th question got a bit 3 dimensional with cones and stuff
and I wasted a good 3 minutes on it and I'm fairly certain I
got it wrong. Then came a string of about 6 DS questions and
I took some time to check and cross-check these questions (not
a great move as I later realized). From around question 16 or so,
it started to get a bit difficult and I was telling myself - hey
thats a good sign.

Questions were from all over the map but you can be fairly certain
of one thing -- inequalities, even-odd concepts and +ve/-ve
concepts start to get a bit tricky at the difficult level. Time
check at question 25 told me I had 12 questions and 25 minutes.
So, I was confident that I'll get through without running
out of time. Then came a dreaded sets question with % where
I spent a good 4 minutes -- after this I sort of had to
hurry through the rest leaving no time to cross-check.
Last 2 questions with 6 minutes to spare -- I told
myself "good deal".

Verbal got off on the wrong foot -- I'm fairly certain I got
the first 2 questions wrong. First was a SC modifier problem
and I just couldn't narrow down on 1 out of 2 choices. 2nd
was a boldface CR question. Darn !! Overall RCs were very
readable and CRs were to the point -- which sort of made me
wonder if I was doing well at all.

When the score came, I wasn't too thrilled. I thought I'd
get atleast a 40 on verbal and was quite disappointed.

Anyways, I thought a 730 is a good score and headed home after
giving the news to my wife.

Some tips / recommendations / personal opinions --

1. Go through ALL answer choices in OG irrespective of whether
you have the question right or wrong. The incorrect answer
choices are equally important to learn what NOT to choose.

2. Keep an error log and review mistakes periodically. If you
see yourself make the same mistakes again, hit yourself once
in the head and try not to repeat them again.

3. Hit accuracy first. Timing is important but you can work
on timing once you get a handle on the questions. I found this
very helpful.

4. Don't drink your own cool-aid. Take errors seriously and
work on them and get to the bottom of the errors. You can learn
a lot of things in the process. I learnt a lot of new SC
concepts while digging

5. 2/3 rule in SC works wonders. Use it to your advantage.

6. Don't spend time looking at random problems from random
sources. Stick to the standard ones like OG, Kaplan, PR, MG etc.

7. As a non-native English speaker, I found it hard initially
to reason and understand English the way it is tested on the
GMAT. Incorporating SC and CR concepts into everyday life helped
me quite a bit. Read articles from reputed sources and learn
to write legible english. My work as a manager revolves around
Outlook and writing mails for a major portion of the day --
incorporating good writing practises helped me quite a bit to
convey messages clearly and concisely. Bottomline, think of it
as a learning experince -- not just for GMAT.

8. Mental Stamina is a crucial component. Don't
underestimate fatigue especially at the end of the
verbal section. Take as much practice tests as possible.
I am an avid runner and initially thought 3 hours is no
big deal wrt stamina but later realized that mental stamina
is a completely different ball game. When you are racing
the clock, keeping your head cool is critical. It doesn't
come naturally to some people.

9. Don't get burnt out preparing for the GMAT. Some of us have
hectic work schedules and try to strike a balance between work
and personal life. Key is to not lose focus from either of
them. Yes, ofcourse you'll have to sacrifice some weekends and
evenings but hey don't we all want to do an MBA in a good school !
Take regular breaks.

10. Build confidence. Take as much practise tests as possible.
Going into the GMAT exam, you should know your range and your
goal should be to build on top of the bottom-line.

And ofcourse, more importantly, attempt the questions that are
thrown from multiple sources on this forum. I have learnt a lot
from discussions in this forum, sometimes actively and
sometimes passively. There's nothing parallel to hearing
opinions from multiple people - I've learnt something new
every single day on this forum and will be ever grateful for
the same !!

And one last thing, my name is not Jay Smile

though I kinda have come
to like the name !

beatthegmat · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject:

Fantastic debrief! Thanks so much for this thorough analysis of your prep.

I'm very pleased that this community helped you on your MBA journey. Best of luck!

aim-wsc · Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:19 pm Post subject:

wow! one more Indian Laughing

Dear Jay,
so whats your name? I think everybody here calls you by this name Smile

GREAT TIPS.
I entirely agree with first three points there.
All the best for your application process.

f2001290 · Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:20 am Post subject:

Congrats Jay (credit for this name should go to me) Wink

Looking forward to your contributions in PS and DS forums

sck159 · Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:22 am Post subject: What are the PR tests

Jay or anyone else, What are PR tests that Jay described above?
Where can I get those?

jayhawk2001 · Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:26 am Post subject: Re: What are the PR tests

Cybermusings · Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:44 pm Post subject:

Wow! awesome score dude...So welcome aboard!....I guess it's time to embark on other half of the journey now!...

fsar45 · Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:38 am Post subject:

Your debriefing is great, but I have to say, it's rather self-indulgent and insulting to others to write that you at least didn't totally "blow it" with that score.