But the overall feeling was relief.710 (Q44, V42)
I prepeared for 3-4 weeks. This looks less but I put in significant effort during that time.
I became a member of beatthegmat forum in Jun '06 in the optimistic hope that I will spend 2 months for prep and take my GMAT in Aug, prepare my application in Sep and apply in Oct. World cup came in the way for a month , and somewhere in between I lost the momentum due to workload etc. Finally I managed to start preparation in mid oct '06.Since I planned early on, I managed to collect lot of preparation material. Books, online material, tests etc.
The GMAT prep strategy depends largely upon the individual. It depends on the target score, available time etc. However, reading many debriefing would provide an overview of how to come up with a plan that caters to the requirements. I had 4 weeks time. I think everyone must have a target score before the start of prep. This is very important to measure the progress during the prep. The target score will vary from person to person depending on available time, limitations, resources etc.
Week 1
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1. Planning the prep strategy
2. Consolidation of all the avialable prep material
3. Decision on which materials to actually use for prepation
4. Contigencies if things go wrong, or when forced to decide on rescheduling (due to lack of prep, other circumstances)
5. Brush up high school grammer (for your information I am not a native speaker)
6. Brush up some topics in high school math
Material used
Books
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- Kaplan GMAT
- Manhattan SC guide
- OG11
- One random high school grammer book
- Elements of style (William Strunk)
Online
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- Beat the gmat forum
- https://thousandsc.blocked/ (Sentence correction questions)
- Spidey's SC notes (https://www.beatthegmat.com/ sentence correction forum stickies)
- https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-math/
- DS and PS parctice questions (Can be downloaded from the PS and DS forums)
Tests
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- Kaplan paper based test (included in the book)
- Powerprep (2 CATs)
- Old paper based test from GMAC
Week 2
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- 1 day for each area (DS, PS, SC, RC, CR) with focus only on Kaplan material and review problems after each section (5 days). I spent about 3-4 hours each day for the preparation.
- Work out as many problems from the practice sets in Kaplan CD (day 6).
- Kaplan paper based test, scored 650 (day 7). Complete review of the test results.
When I reviewed the results of the test, I found that my RC and CR were in place. One mistake each. In DS most of my mistakes were due to lack of eye for detail. In PS, though I was able to understand and slove all the problems I have made lot of mistakes there. SC was my weak link like I expected.
Week 3 & 4
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I split it into 10 days for prep and then 4 days for tests. I took a week off giving me 9 full days including the weekend. I
decided to alternate between SC and other topics every day. Each day I spent about 6-9 hours.
Day 1 - 40 problems each in PS, DS, CR, RC
Day 2 - SC Manhattan review prep and problem solving after each chapter
Day 3 - 40 problems each
Day 4 - SC use Manhattan review matrix after each chapter and workout problems in OG11 accordingly. Here my main objective was to maximise my hit ratio. I decided to ignore the time and try to identify the issues in each of the answer choices and pick up the correct one. My hit ratio was 93% since I took too much time. I noted down all the questions in which my reasoning was totally worng.
Day 5 - 40 probelms each
Day 6 - 200 probelms from thousand sc. This time I used timing. I got 179 questions correct.
Day 7 - 40 probelms each
Day 8 - 20 probelms each in PS, DS, SC, CR, RC
Day 9 - 20 in each, review wrong question in OG SC.
On Day 10 I took the first PP CAT test. I scored a 670 (Q48, V34). Got all the RC correct, 1 question wrong in CR and the rest in SC. 7 questions wrong in quant (4 in DS and 3 in PS). Could not solve one problem in PS and 1 in DS during the test but solved it after (I should have become alert but didnt pay too much attention to this till test day). I just had to improve my verbal by 5 points and maintain my quant to acheive my target. However, I didnt realise something else was in store.
From then on each day I took 1 test (total 3 tests) and solved 10 problems in each section. I used only OG for prep during this time.
KAP paper test - 650
GMAC paper test 1 - 690
GMAC paper test 2 - 710
PP test 1 - 670 (Q48, V34)
PP test 2 - 710 (Q48, V38)
Actual - 710 (Q44, V42)
Test day and actual test
First I have to say that the quant section on actual GMAT was nothing like the quant section on power prep tests. I dont know where I messed up but I know I screwed in the qant section, which I considered as my strength. I finished my quant section with about 2 minutes left.
Took a break between quant and verbal. I downed a red bull (trust me it helps a lot). Thanks for this tip from someone in the forum. I think I got all the RC correct and probably 1 question wrong in CR. I was totally blinded by one long RC with just only one question. I managed to complete my verbal section with 3 minutes left.
No matter what, I decided to see the score. One tip in this case is not to choose 5 schools before you take the test. For some people this might be too much pressure to perform. I saw the score, and didnt know how I felt.
I am disappointed with my qant score since it will do significant damage to my application, but I dont think I will retake, unless all the schools reject me on the basis of my GMAT quant score.
