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nityat
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:35 am
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Background: IT, 6+ years exp, with 2 years of international exposure, ok-good acads, some volunteer work.
I started preparing for GMAT in Oct 2010 and wanted to take it in Dec 2010. I have always been a borderline distinction graduate..always around 75% and always in ok schools and colleges never in good ones. So I had set my mind on a 700+ score and wanted to be in a top tier US College. Having decided what I wanted I gave my first test and got a 510, nothing surprising as it had been more than 7 years since I had not read a book or did a sum.
I am writing this briefing to give hopes and confidence to those so called under-performers like me. For those of you who think 75% itself is a good % then you don't know a lot about India, you need to have 95% to get into a good college. 75 is just ok.
Sources:
I started preparing with an institute in India. Was an ok institute. Completed all the course work they gave. Took the test and scored 640. Was a good improvement but definitely not what I wanted.
BTG: That is when I started going through online forums and chanced on BTG. Wow! What a world it is. I really owe it to the BTG forums and BTG members big time. From the time I chanced on the website I was on BTG for at least half an hour every day. Lesson (1) Always stick to BTG. You will get loads of help. Thankfully, I also won the practice questions in a BTG contest. Great stuff. Good quality GMAT like questions. Especially quant. Verbal CR and SC are definitely great.
Grockit.com: I started visiting other forums and coaching programs recommended by BTG. I found grockit.com was extremely useful. I loved the games. Especially in the middle of the night when you are feeling sleepy it is a great place to be. As you will find some study partner online and keep it going. Also as each of the participants have different strengths and weaknesses group study benefits everyone. Even in those areas where you know the subject well you will be surprised as the amount of tips and shortcuts you can learn in the forums. It also helps in targeted practice. Definitely check out Grockit.com. They also offer free video classes on and off. Check out the website for more details.
Books: OG OG OG OG. I cant stress enough on OGs. If by chance you get more than one version of OG do all of them. I did OG 10 (Yes I know it is pretty old and difficult to get, but has over 1400 questions). OG12, Official Quant review, Official Verbal Review. I did OG 12 twice. I got a lot of similar questions from OG. So always complete the OG.
I also did Manhattan GMAT Inequalities, WT, RC and SC. Great resource. Especially for quants.
Kaplan: Premier and 800 score books. They are ok.
e-GMAT : An excellent source for SC. It was towards the end of the preparation that a friend of mine recommended egmat to me because I was struggling with SC questions a lot. They have free sessions. I attended them and found it extremely helpful. Especially their process steps are great. And the way they help us in understanding the process steps and implementing them is great. I definitely would not be in 700+ club without egmat. I wow them big time. They have excellent course work and a lot of examples. They also have around 150+ gmat like SC questions. All good quality gmat type questions and good explanations. It is a great resource. I will definitely recommend all of you who have a problem with SC to go through their free sessions and see if you want to purchase the complete set of classes. They have also launched the CR trial version recently.
Videos Vs Books:
If you are like me and have not read a lot of book or do not like to always read answer explanations from the texts then e-GMAT.com and BTG practice questions are extremely useful.
AWA: Only the post by ChineseBurn on gmatclub.com
My scores were 710 GMATprep, 690 GMATPrep, 710 Manhattan in the last week of November.
After all this ammunition I was prepared to take GMAT on Dec 6th 2010. The day before the exam I stuck to the usual "relax before the day" prescribed by BTG and most other sources as well. Tried to sleep early but we had a very bad downpour that night and the city was getting flooded. Hardly had 3 hours of sleep. Woke up earlier than usual. Did not get any mode of transportation. By now I was getting a little tensed. Was really worked within an hour after this as there were no autos nearby, 2 taxi reservations canceled on us and no way of walking to the main transportation center. Tried calling up the center to see if they were canceling the test. No one was responding. It was already around 8 and I had to be at the center by 8:30. At last by luck got an auto. If you know what an auto is, it has no doors and is open in both sides. Got completely drenched by the time I reached the test center and was shivering like hell. The center did not open till 9:15 as all of them were late because of the flood. Not a single chair to wait outside we had to stand for more than half n hour. I had already started running a high temperature by now.
Started the test by 9:30. The room was pretty cold. Started sneezing and got fever. It was a dreadful test all in all. In Verbal most of the questions were as you can see flying above my head. I was praying to just get out of the hall. Score 650 (Q48, V33). I could not take it and ran down to meet my husband. Who gave me a lot of hope and support and made sure I rebook an appointment immediately. So as soon as reached home I booked it for Jan 10th.
Retake: This time I was so sulking with the first exam that I did not prepare much for weeks. I started preparing only 10 days before exam. This time when I took the tests it was around 670 and 660. So the last three days I came up with a strategy. Since I was getting more than 50% of my SC questions wrong I got back to e-GMAT. I redid and redid and redid the classes. It was a real God sent. I had repeated the course work at least 4 times before I went to the test. This definitely would not have been possible if it was a book.
I did not relax the day before. As I understood that is not for me
. Lesson (2) If you have never taken a break before any exam you have written then test it during a trial test. If it does not work for you then cram on the day before test (But don't take a test though)
All was good on the test day. Wrote the test got a few Permutation Combinations and couple of bold face so was sure it was above 700. Submitted the score 710. It was more than I could ask for.
Take aways:
1) Always stick to BTG. Make it a point to visit BTG at least once a day. Subscribe to daily guide and daily questions in BTG
2) If you prefer videos for lessons or answer explanations then e-GMAT and BTG practice questions are a great resource. Both of them have free sessions.
3) Grockit.com is a great place for study groups.
4) Know yourself. If you dont think you can handle a day of relaxation before exam then try it out and verify it during a trial test
5) On the day of test chill out. Stay in the question. Just concentrate on the question at hand. Do not think about "oh God! This is an easy question why did I get it?", "Oh no I have lost 2 minutes in the interval I dont think I can finish it" . NOPE.
6) If I an always average performer can do it, so can you!
Looking forward to contributing more to BTG.
I started preparing for GMAT in Oct 2010 and wanted to take it in Dec 2010. I have always been a borderline distinction graduate..always around 75% and always in ok schools and colleges never in good ones. So I had set my mind on a 700+ score and wanted to be in a top tier US College. Having decided what I wanted I gave my first test and got a 510, nothing surprising as it had been more than 7 years since I had not read a book or did a sum.
I am writing this briefing to give hopes and confidence to those so called under-performers like me. For those of you who think 75% itself is a good % then you don't know a lot about India, you need to have 95% to get into a good college. 75 is just ok.
Sources:
I started preparing with an institute in India. Was an ok institute. Completed all the course work they gave. Took the test and scored 640. Was a good improvement but definitely not what I wanted.
BTG: That is when I started going through online forums and chanced on BTG. Wow! What a world it is. I really owe it to the BTG forums and BTG members big time. From the time I chanced on the website I was on BTG for at least half an hour every day. Lesson (1) Always stick to BTG. You will get loads of help. Thankfully, I also won the practice questions in a BTG contest. Great stuff. Good quality GMAT like questions. Especially quant. Verbal CR and SC are definitely great.
Grockit.com: I started visiting other forums and coaching programs recommended by BTG. I found grockit.com was extremely useful. I loved the games. Especially in the middle of the night when you are feeling sleepy it is a great place to be. As you will find some study partner online and keep it going. Also as each of the participants have different strengths and weaknesses group study benefits everyone. Even in those areas where you know the subject well you will be surprised as the amount of tips and shortcuts you can learn in the forums. It also helps in targeted practice. Definitely check out Grockit.com. They also offer free video classes on and off. Check out the website for more details.
Books: OG OG OG OG. I cant stress enough on OGs. If by chance you get more than one version of OG do all of them. I did OG 10 (Yes I know it is pretty old and difficult to get, but has over 1400 questions). OG12, Official Quant review, Official Verbal Review. I did OG 12 twice. I got a lot of similar questions from OG. So always complete the OG.
I also did Manhattan GMAT Inequalities, WT, RC and SC. Great resource. Especially for quants.
Kaplan: Premier and 800 score books. They are ok.
e-GMAT : An excellent source for SC. It was towards the end of the preparation that a friend of mine recommended egmat to me because I was struggling with SC questions a lot. They have free sessions. I attended them and found it extremely helpful. Especially their process steps are great. And the way they help us in understanding the process steps and implementing them is great. I definitely would not be in 700+ club without egmat. I wow them big time. They have excellent course work and a lot of examples. They also have around 150+ gmat like SC questions. All good quality gmat type questions and good explanations. It is a great resource. I will definitely recommend all of you who have a problem with SC to go through their free sessions and see if you want to purchase the complete set of classes. They have also launched the CR trial version recently.
Videos Vs Books:
If you are like me and have not read a lot of book or do not like to always read answer explanations from the texts then e-GMAT.com and BTG practice questions are extremely useful.
AWA: Only the post by ChineseBurn on gmatclub.com
My scores were 710 GMATprep, 690 GMATPrep, 710 Manhattan in the last week of November.
After all this ammunition I was prepared to take GMAT on Dec 6th 2010. The day before the exam I stuck to the usual "relax before the day" prescribed by BTG and most other sources as well. Tried to sleep early but we had a very bad downpour that night and the city was getting flooded. Hardly had 3 hours of sleep. Woke up earlier than usual. Did not get any mode of transportation. By now I was getting a little tensed. Was really worked within an hour after this as there were no autos nearby, 2 taxi reservations canceled on us and no way of walking to the main transportation center. Tried calling up the center to see if they were canceling the test. No one was responding. It was already around 8 and I had to be at the center by 8:30. At last by luck got an auto. If you know what an auto is, it has no doors and is open in both sides. Got completely drenched by the time I reached the test center and was shivering like hell. The center did not open till 9:15 as all of them were late because of the flood. Not a single chair to wait outside we had to stand for more than half n hour. I had already started running a high temperature by now.
Started the test by 9:30. The room was pretty cold. Started sneezing and got fever. It was a dreadful test all in all. In Verbal most of the questions were as you can see flying above my head. I was praying to just get out of the hall. Score 650 (Q48, V33). I could not take it and ran down to meet my husband. Who gave me a lot of hope and support and made sure I rebook an appointment immediately. So as soon as reached home I booked it for Jan 10th.
Retake: This time I was so sulking with the first exam that I did not prepare much for weeks. I started preparing only 10 days before exam. This time when I took the tests it was around 670 and 660. So the last three days I came up with a strategy. Since I was getting more than 50% of my SC questions wrong I got back to e-GMAT. I redid and redid and redid the classes. It was a real God sent. I had repeated the course work at least 4 times before I went to the test. This definitely would not have been possible if it was a book.
I did not relax the day before. As I understood that is not for me
. Lesson (2) If you have never taken a break before any exam you have written then test it during a trial test. If it does not work for you then cram on the day before test (But don't take a test though)All was good on the test day. Wrote the test got a few Permutation Combinations and couple of bold face so was sure it was above 700. Submitted the score 710. It was more than I could ask for.
Take aways:
1) Always stick to BTG. Make it a point to visit BTG at least once a day. Subscribe to daily guide and daily questions in BTG
2) If you prefer videos for lessons or answer explanations then e-GMAT and BTG practice questions are a great resource. Both of them have free sessions.
3) Grockit.com is a great place for study groups.
4) Know yourself. If you dont think you can handle a day of relaxation before exam then try it out and verify it during a trial test
5) On the day of test chill out. Stay in the question. Just concentrate on the question at hand. Do not think about "oh God! This is an easy question why did I get it?", "Oh no I have lost 2 minutes in the interval I dont think I can finish it" . NOPE.
6) If I an always average performer can do it, so can you!
Looking forward to contributing more to BTG.
