bit disappointed about my AWA score, but I will have to console myself that I
cannot have everything.
My profile
I did my Engineering from one of the second level prestigious institutions in
India (NIT). Ever since I graduated, I have been working in the Software
industry and have a total of about 11+ years of experience.
I first started thinking about attempting GMAT in 2009. I was lost among the
millions of engineers in the field and was unsatisfied with where my life was
heading.
My first challenge
I was out of college for 9 years and had difficulty convincing myself that I
would not struggle with my quantitative skills. Added to that, a reasonably
well paying job and tight work schedules played spoil sport. After some weeks,
I had to abandon my efforts and I got involved in my work.
But, the nagging feeling came back and I started thinking about GMAT again in
late 2010. This time around, I was motivated to not back out and wanted to
score high on GMAT. I gave myself an year (a long period, I know) because I
did not want to study for GMAT alone. I wanted to acquire some knowledge. I
wanted the experience to be a value addition. I also knew that I will be
swamped with work quite often (really often), and had to settle for an year. I
overshot the target by a couple of months, but the end result was worth it.
My GMAT prep
You will find tonnes of good preparation plans in the forums and I will not
trouble you with yet another one. I found the following books helpful:
- Manhattan GMAT sentence correction guide
- Manhattan GMAT RC guide
- PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible
- Official Guide 12
- Most of the quantitative books from Manhattan GMAT
- CAT quant by Arun Sharma
The GMAT experience
I started off by setting a date somewhere in September. By June 2010, I was
getting ambitious and wanted to give CAT (GMAT equivalent in India) a shot. I
knew that the attempt was a far shot, but was convinced that giving the test
was going to help me. That factor also meant that I had to postpone my GMAT
test dates to sometime in January or February.
I gave CAT in November and found out as soon as I stepped out from the exam
that the result was going to be disastrous. I struggled with simple questions
and found out that I was rusty with insufficient practice. Results were
expected in January and I wanted to give my GMAT before that. Unfortunately,
every thing that had to go wrong, went wrong. My CAT results were on the
expected lines and I had not given GMAT. Disappointed to the core, I was
feeling awful. I somehow picked myself up and continued with my GMAT plan.
The jolt that I got in November drove me in the right direction. I knew that I
had to practice more. During November and early December, I worked on OG
quant, SC and CR. I did not have many problems with the questions in OG.
Also, I scrounged the forums (beatthegmat, manhattangmat, urch) for practice
questions.
I gave my first MGMAT CAT in December. During the test, I felt horrible. I
still had the same problem. I was struggling with time and had to rush towards
the end, so much so that I had to take wild guesses for some of the last
questions in quant. Verbal went OK, though I did miss some of the simple
questions because of carelessness. I was pleasantly surprised to see a 700
(got lucky ?). The good feeling wanted me to take one more test, now that I
had figured out why I made mistakes. The very next day, I took one more MGMAT
CAT. This time, I thought I did loads better than the last attempt and was
thrilled to see a 730.
I had my work cut out. I was happy that I understood the things to improve .
I analyzed the mistakes (I had a really bad time with absolute value questions)
and set about correcting them. In verbal, I scored really badly on RC, a trend
which continued till my 4-th and the last MGMAT CAT I took.
I was fast running out of time and scheduled my 3-rd and 4-th MGMAT test in the
middle of January. By the third test day, I had reasonably analyzed the
mistakes I made and was confident that I would be able to beat 730.
Unfortunately, the two weeks gap wreaked havoc with my timing and I was back to
rushing through, though the guess work was lesser. In verbal, my CR started
taking a hit. So, now I had problems with CR and RC in verbal. I scored a
710, but continued working on my weaker areas. My 4th MGMAT was timed well,
but still I ended up with a 710.
To tackle RC, I started reading MGMAT RC guide (can you believe, at the Nth
hour). I knew that I was decent in reading. But, I neither had the approach
of thinking about paragraphs in a passage after reading them nor had a habit of
trying to write points of a paragraph. The guide put me in the right path and
I practiced those techniques on OG RC section to a great effect.
I did OG CR once more and did a deep dive into the questions that I thought I
had difficulty with. This time around, I really had some of the fundamentals
nailed in (both in CR and in RC).
I took my first GMAT PREP exam in the last week of January. To my surprise,
the quantitative section was loads easier than MGMAT quant (I had heard about
the change in difficulty) and I finished comfortably on time. On verbal, SC
and CR were tougher, but RC was easy. To be honest, I had seen some of the
questions in the forums (they were not many though). I scored an impressive 760.
I wanted to improve further and practiced more on OG and MGMAT questions.
Here are my CAT scores
Manhattan GMAT CAT 1 - 700 (Q46, V40)
Manhattan GMAT CAT 2 - 730 (Q48, V41)
Manhattan GMAT CAT 3 - 710 (Q49, V38)
Manhattan GMAT CAT 4 - 710 (Q47, V40)
GMAT PREP CAT 1 - 760 (Q50, V44)
Test Day and the day before
On the test day eve, I went through MBA.com website and familiarised myself
with the test center procedures. I also decided which all colleges to send my
scores to so that I do not have to spend time searching for the programs. I
revised the short cuts and formulas for quant and went to bed relaxed, though I
slept a bit late.
Please go through the following
https://www.mba.com/the-gmat/test-day.aspx
In the center, after the procedures, I started the test. I had a reasonable
AWA, took the break, and started the Quant section. Quantitative section was
reasonably easy for me. I did encounter some questions which had me in trouble
and on which I spent some time. But overall, I did OK in quantitative section.
During the break (~8 minutes) I told myself that I had to do good in verbal too
to get a good score. To be honest, verbal was a haze. I had a feeling that I
was getting bombarded with difficult questions. By the time I had the last two
questions, I guess I had about 5 minutes plus.
When the score was reported, I was completely confused and lost. To top it all,
I did not know how to celebrate !!
Take aways (that helped me) from the various practice CATs
Timing
I normally divide the test into (time remaining in clock) 50, 37.5, 25, 12,5
minutes and check whether I'm on time or not.
Mistakes (in quant)
(i) I'm a 'proof' person. Whenever possible, I want to derive formulas and
work step wise. A simple example will be to calculate the area of an
equilateral triangle. It is pretty easy to derive the formula, but it takes a
full 30 to 60 seconds to do that. If you know the formula, to solve the
problem, it takes about 30 seconds. Easy as it sounds, I needed my brother to
tell me that. So, here is what I did. I went through most of the problems I
did in MGMAT and OG and was on the look out for formulas to memorize. It
helped me in two ways.
- it gave me a deeper look at the problem.
- for standard problems, I had formulas (which were few though)
My advice. Look out for standard formulas. It saves time. Also, get as many
shortcuts as possible. You want to beat time.
(ii) The constant problems (the THOM(P)SONs ?)
- I was not answering the question that was asked
- I failed to take into consideration the constraints imposed in the _question_
(in DS)
One step you would like to add will be to go back and check the question after
you arrive at the answer.
(iii) Easier questions, harder to leave
One trap. There are some questions which are damn easy. But as luck would
have it, the answer just doesn't match with the choices. You have tried the
steps more than once and found the answer to be elusive each time. Leave the
question and move on. This is especially difficult when the questions are
easy.
(iv) When to leave questions
Please take this with a pinch of salt. I had this backup strategy of leaving
one question in every 25 minutes, if I found myself behind time.
(v) Cover all the topics
Simple questions can come from all topics and it can come in both PS and DS.
You are asking for trouble by leaving simple questions which you could have
answered easily. One example will be counting problems (and hence probability)
(Yes, I know). If you see MGMAT CATs and GMAT PREP, you will get a lot of
standard counting problems. Spend some time on these problems. Spend time to
understand these problems.
Verbal
CR
(i) Answer the question.
For example, in a weaken question, multiple choices can weaken multiple aspects
of the argument. Figure out which one weakens the aspect asked by the
question.
(ii) Assumption questions
Assumption questions can not restate what is already mentioned in the argument.
(iii) Know when the answers are out of scope (for all questions)
For example, an assumption question can assume only what is directly relevant
to the argument. It can not assume things that are out of scope of the
argument.
SC
As most people point out, MGMAT SC is the best out there. If you have not read
this book (at least 3 times), there is something wrong.
For both the sections
Go through OG and MGMAT CAT questions (since those were the only CATs I took)
and analyse each question. I can not tell you the confidence that I got after
working out the answers myself and understanding why the wrong answers were
wrong.
Test Day Nervousness
With test day approaching, I had started visualizing how things would be and I
had an uncomfortable feeling whenever I thought about the exam. On the day
before, I wanted to keep myself calm, but was having difficulty in doing so.
Here is one technique that worked for me - I told myself that I was going to
score somewhere between 730 and 760 (from the CATs I took) and I will only
bring the score down by becoming tense. I also told myself that GMAT just
wants to measure my score and is not out to prove that I am worse than I was.
(it is a CAT, remember). The above two allayed my anxiety and I was ready to
face the test.
So, one advice will be to know where you stand. Be truthful to yourself and
take the CATs in test like situations. Another advice will be to give the test
everything you can so that you know that you have given your best and there is
no room to complain.
Difficulty
The exam is only as difficult as you can tackle (CAT remember). Hence, forget
about the difficulty of the exam.
Thanks
A big round of thanks to all those people who post questions on various forums
and to the experts who answer those questions. Without the forums, I'm dead
sure that my exposure to the questions would have been limited and hence would
have affected my score. Thank you!!
The last couple of years have not been easy on me. With personal problems,
nagging self doubts and tougher work assignments, I am relieved to have aced
the GMAT with a good score. I hope you find my suggestions helpful to ace the
test. Keep at it. Give it your best shot and it will reward you.
All I need now is a GF
(...and there is that small matter of TOEFL, andadmissions of-course. Hell!!)
