Hi everyone,
I wrote my GMAT on Saturday, but could not post soon after coz I went on vacation. Got 690(Q47 v38). Very happy with my achievement. I was just aiming for 700 as I am not applying to the top 10 schools. First and foremost I would like to thank Eric for this fabulous forum, which helped me a lot with my preparation. Second, I would like to thank Stacey Koprince, Ron Purewal and Brent Hansen for their fantastic explanations and replies. I would also like to thank each member in this forum for posting questions(and saving my effort in typing
) and answers.
A little about my preparation(700+ aspirants can skip all this if you like)
Self study for 2 months - 4-5 hrs per day during weekdays
Books used.
OG11 - Dont even think about writing gmat without this
og12 - Repetitive of og11, but still a good source
VR - A good source for some extra questions.
QR - Again a good source for extra questions
Manhattan GMAT SC guide: Must have to improve SC from 1 to 10 on a 10 point scale
Powerscore CR bible: Good for those trying to improve CR
Kaplan 800 - Not good... The book claims to have very difficult questions, but even an average person like me could answer most of the questions. After finishing that my expression was "ha:!: you call this tough ")
My Scores for different tests were:
GMATPrep 1 - 640(Two weeks into studying)
MGGMAT 1 - 610 (Two weeks into studying)
MGGMAT 2 - 640
MGGMAT 3 - 640
MGGMAT 4 - 650
MGGMAT 5 - 680
MGGMAT 6 - 690 (One week before exam)
GMATPrep 2 - 700(One week before exam)
GMATPrep 1(repeat) - 720
GMATPrep 2(repeat) - 720
My weakness area in Quantitative was definitely Data Sufficiency. Made a ton of mistakes by failing to consider different alternatives in number properties questions. I would just like to give all aspirants a tip from my experience for DS questions.
When you see a DS question and its from number properties or exponents , check the following
What is explictly stated
Positive Negative Integer Fraction Real
Ex. If the question states that x is a positive integer, u don't have to waste time plugging in negative integers.
In some questions , it will just be given Is x > 0?
Remember to consider fractional values for x as well as negative numbers.
This was most the common mistake I made apart from the other silly ones.
Another clue in the DS question I discovered was , whenever you have a condition such as "x<0" in the second statement of a DS question, most likely that 1st statement will have an inconclusive answer such as x < -4 or x > 5 and you will need the second statement to finalize an answer.
Another thing is regarding any question in quantitative. If you cannot write the equation in 45 sec, guess and go on.
For all those disheartened by the fact that they are not able to finish the prep exams on time. Dont worry.. I never finished even one of my prep exams(quant) on time, but was able to do so during the real exam. But it is always good to improve your timing.
I did use the grid to keep track of my timing for each question while practicing, but despite that i was never able to complete quant in prep tests. Some questions used to just glue me on till i found the answer and i was determined to find the answer.
The real exam:
It was so similar to GMATPrep and I think some of the questions just had different numbers. Dont worry even if your getting very easy questions towards the end coz it does not mean you are doing badly. Its just that your easy is someone else's difficult.I got worried when i saw a simple substitution problem as my 33rd question. I thought i had done very bad and was expecting to see Q42 or so.But was surprised to see my score. Another thing is don't spend too much time on on specific topic. I spent a lot of time on Probability cause until now I never understood that topic, and got just 1 simple question in the actual test. I also never got any Circle geometry. I love those and am good at them but didnt get even one
The verbal section I felt was more difficult than the GMATPrep software. My RC was always bad and I never made an effort to improve it.(Not advisable to anyone else reading this).I thought I could make up by improving in CR and SC. I did improve very much in CR and SC to the point that I got may be just 1 wrong in GMAT Prep. But the ones in actual GMAT, especially SC was much tougher. CR I felt obeyed all the rules described in the Powerscore book and you could easily figure out the answer.The RC passages in actual GMAT were very lengthy and the answer choices very confusing.
I assume to get a verbal score of 38 I would have got 9 incorrect of which 5(or even more ) RC wrong (Planned) 2 CR and 2 SC wrong (unplanned).
A note regarding Manhattan Gmat tests. Overall they are great and the score is close to the actual test, but I was never able to finish their quantitative tests on time and often had to guess last 4 questions. Also the CR is bad. The questions are good but the answer choices are bad. I never felt the choice given as answer was right.
A tip for anyone taking the test is search for all Ron Purewal's posts and review them thoroughly. Apart from the extent of discussing questions his tips to solve them quickly are too good. I even went to the extent of searching for the term "TAKEAWAY" in manhattan gmat's forum for all the points to remember Ron has summarized. I did this towards the end of my prep or else i would have made a document of all that and posted it here for all..
I guess this has become a very long debrief and I could go on for hours... So like i stopped my urge to complete a DS question.. I am controlling my urge to write more...
So all the best to all those writing the GMAT in future. Just remember its not a big deal.. if you could write your tenth grade(at 15 yrs) 3 hr exam(with no multiple choice and tons of lengthy questions) and come all this way to where you are right now.. GMAT is a piece of cake....
I wrote my GMAT on Saturday, but could not post soon after coz I went on vacation. Got 690(Q47 v38). Very happy with my achievement. I was just aiming for 700 as I am not applying to the top 10 schools. First and foremost I would like to thank Eric for this fabulous forum, which helped me a lot with my preparation. Second, I would like to thank Stacey Koprince, Ron Purewal and Brent Hansen for their fantastic explanations and replies. I would also like to thank each member in this forum for posting questions(and saving my effort in typing
) and answers.A little about my preparation(700+ aspirants can skip all this if you like)
Self study for 2 months - 4-5 hrs per day during weekdays
Books used.
OG11 - Dont even think about writing gmat without this
og12 - Repetitive of og11, but still a good source
VR - A good source for some extra questions.
QR - Again a good source for extra questions
Manhattan GMAT SC guide: Must have to improve SC from 1 to 10 on a 10 point scale
Powerscore CR bible: Good for those trying to improve CR
Kaplan 800 - Not good... The book claims to have very difficult questions, but even an average person like me could answer most of the questions. After finishing that my expression was "ha:!: you call this tough ")
My Scores for different tests were:
GMATPrep 1 - 640(Two weeks into studying)
MGGMAT 1 - 610 (Two weeks into studying)
MGGMAT 2 - 640
MGGMAT 3 - 640
MGGMAT 4 - 650
MGGMAT 5 - 680
MGGMAT 6 - 690 (One week before exam)
GMATPrep 2 - 700(One week before exam)
GMATPrep 1(repeat) - 720
GMATPrep 2(repeat) - 720
My weakness area in Quantitative was definitely Data Sufficiency. Made a ton of mistakes by failing to consider different alternatives in number properties questions. I would just like to give all aspirants a tip from my experience for DS questions.
When you see a DS question and its from number properties or exponents , check the following
What is explictly stated
Positive Negative Integer Fraction Real
Ex. If the question states that x is a positive integer, u don't have to waste time plugging in negative integers.
In some questions , it will just be given Is x > 0?
Remember to consider fractional values for x as well as negative numbers.
This was most the common mistake I made apart from the other silly ones.
Another clue in the DS question I discovered was , whenever you have a condition such as "x<0" in the second statement of a DS question, most likely that 1st statement will have an inconclusive answer such as x < -4 or x > 5 and you will need the second statement to finalize an answer.
Another thing is regarding any question in quantitative. If you cannot write the equation in 45 sec, guess and go on.
For all those disheartened by the fact that they are not able to finish the prep exams on time. Dont worry.. I never finished even one of my prep exams(quant) on time, but was able to do so during the real exam. But it is always good to improve your timing.
I did use the grid to keep track of my timing for each question while practicing, but despite that i was never able to complete quant in prep tests. Some questions used to just glue me on till i found the answer and i was determined to find the answer.
The real exam:
It was so similar to GMATPrep and I think some of the questions just had different numbers. Dont worry even if your getting very easy questions towards the end coz it does not mean you are doing badly. Its just that your easy is someone else's difficult.I got worried when i saw a simple substitution problem as my 33rd question. I thought i had done very bad and was expecting to see Q42 or so.But was surprised to see my score. Another thing is don't spend too much time on on specific topic. I spent a lot of time on Probability cause until now I never understood that topic, and got just 1 simple question in the actual test. I also never got any Circle geometry. I love those and am good at them but didnt get even one
The verbal section I felt was more difficult than the GMATPrep software. My RC was always bad and I never made an effort to improve it.(Not advisable to anyone else reading this).I thought I could make up by improving in CR and SC. I did improve very much in CR and SC to the point that I got may be just 1 wrong in GMAT Prep. But the ones in actual GMAT, especially SC was much tougher. CR I felt obeyed all the rules described in the Powerscore book and you could easily figure out the answer.The RC passages in actual GMAT were very lengthy and the answer choices very confusing.
I assume to get a verbal score of 38 I would have got 9 incorrect of which 5(or even more ) RC wrong (Planned) 2 CR and 2 SC wrong (unplanned).A note regarding Manhattan Gmat tests. Overall they are great and the score is close to the actual test, but I was never able to finish their quantitative tests on time and often had to guess last 4 questions. Also the CR is bad. The questions are good but the answer choices are bad. I never felt the choice given as answer was right.
A tip for anyone taking the test is search for all Ron Purewal's posts and review them thoroughly. Apart from the extent of discussing questions his tips to solve them quickly are too good. I even went to the extent of searching for the term "TAKEAWAY" in manhattan gmat's forum for all the points to remember Ron has summarized. I did this towards the end of my prep or else i would have made a document of all that and posted it here for all..
I guess this has become a very long debrief and I could go on for hours... So like i stopped my urge to complete a DS question.. I am controlling my urge to write more...
So all the best to all those writing the GMAT in future. Just remember its not a big deal.. if you could write your tenth grade(at 15 yrs) 3 hr exam(with no multiple choice and tons of lengthy questions) and come all this way to where you are right now.. GMAT is a piece of cake....
