I just Beat The GMAT!

Dear BTG'ians,
Just finished my GMAT,15/07/2009. It was a wonderful experience learning from you guys. I owe a lot to the forum and think without it this score would not have been possible. I am a bit disappointed with my Quant score, not because it is less but because i could have done better. Just missed a personal benchmark. Happy overall!!!

Updated

My preparation started in right earnest when i registered for the test on 29th April 2009, continued for some fifteen days then again lost focus for 10 days and restarted agin around 25th May'09. I studied for 2 hrs daily excluding distractions and weekends were used for giving tests. I was thinking of GMAT since Oct-Nov'08. I had downloaded GMATPrep in Dec'08 but could not gain any momentum or infact forgot about it. In april'09 my wife suggested me to register for the exam as this would provide a sense of urgency. So from my personal experience I would recommend people to study with focus and registering for the exam provides one of the reason to do so.

The materials i consulted
1. MGMAT- Sentence Correction Guide
2. Kaplan Premiere 2009
3. OG-10,11 & 12, OG-10 and 11 only SC
4. Power score CR bible-Gem of a book

Basically Kaplan is a waste of time and i would recommend people to focus on OG 10,11 and 12. OG 10 and 11, i was able to source from friends and net. OG 12 is the one i bought.

For me Maths needed no extra prep, and so just concentrated on OG 12 problem sets. I will not be able to comment on study material for the same. My weak link so to say in quant was DS. As somebody rightly remarked, its a big challenge to think independently as is reqd in DS. PS was my strong point. In all my prep test around 95% of the question i got wrong were from DS and my score never dropped below 50 except twice.Once 49 and other being 41(kaplan 1st test)

The tricky part of the whole preperation was Verbal and especially SC. CR and RC, both are about comprehension and i found out during the course of my preperation that every time i hastily read the argument or the choices, i got the question wrong. So challenge was not to rush to an answer. Doing OG, will also give a sense of GMAT line of reasoning and so any differences with the same can be sorted out.We just need to align our thinking with theirs. Also i would like to comment on CR Bible. It is a must read, not because it will improve your analytical capability but because it will give you methodologies to get questions right in minimum amount of time. Which questions can have data extraneous to the stem which questions cannot and how to eliminate wrong answers and what kind of cross checks can be done to verify the right answers are some of the features of the book. The main challenge in verbal, unlike quant, is the timing.(especially for non native speakers).

Sentence correction, is where i put in lot of effort but i think i relied too heavily on MGMAT SC guide. In my case reading some good grammar book before MGMAT SC would have been more beneficial. MGMAT is more of a brushing up guide but for me most of the concepts were new( I don't remember being taught these concepts in school), so could not really get a hang of it in first reading. Still its a MUST READ.

Test Day

My test date was 15/07/2009 and timing was 1315 hrs. I would request everybody to pay special attention to the timing of the test. The slot should be taken for the time one is really comfortable and alert.The timing should be comfortable with respect to the work schedule. For me 1315 hrs was a bad time as I was least alert at this time and had to really work hard to simulate real test conditions. My lunch timing was also at 1500 hrs so had to adjust it to 1200 to 1230 hrs during my practise exams and one can imagine how difficult it is to remain alert after taking a lunch. I also tried eating minimum amount before prep tests but that resulted in loss of concentration during the practise test. The last one month of my preparation was spent only on acclimatisation. This was an avoidable effort. Anyways, all well that ends well.

Started my test 15 min before scheduled time. Argument and Issue essay topics were good but can' t comment how i did in them till results are out. Composition writing has never been my strong point. So keeping my fingers crossed.

Lost my nerve at the begining of the quant section. Steadied myself but i think it was too late. Except for MGMAT one test and GMAT Prep first test, I never fell short of time in Quant but in the real test i was very defensive and checked and sometimes double checked my answers.This cost me some crucial minutes. At the end i had to guess the last question. Also the level of questions suddenly increased after qn no 25. Long verbose questions were thrown at me. I also analysed one thing that my capacity to resist pressure has decreased, there was a time when pressure really made my brain work faster and better ,but now it just gives up. Panic sets in. Mental tuning is a very important aspect of any competitive exam preparation.

Finished my quant and was feeling let down by myself. Ate a banana, drank some water, calmed myself down and started the Verbal. One think i didnot realise that in Quant and Verbal one really does not need the key board. The test admin did a smart thing by keeping my keyboard over the CPU and this gave me some extra space to keep the rough sheets. But this happened in verbal.Verbal section started with SC question. The level was ok. Got four RC and 2 were big, but none was awkward. In one of RC i noticed lots of inference questions were there. My overall take is that for long RC passage its good if some notes are made otherwise one wastes lots of time going back and forth. I did not do it so suffered on the last RC as time was running out and this passage came around 34 qn mark. Had to guess last three questions.

One important thing for all test takers is that GMAT is a unique test where scores are displayed after finishing the test. This was a constant source of distraction for me during the later half of verbal. I was getting anxious to know my result and it affected my concentration. Overall i feel my score was what i was getting in prep tests except Kaplan. My max was 740 and min 670. I could guess my score would be around 700 mark but this is a comment in restrospect.

In my first prep test i got 670 so the improvement was not huge but these 1.5 months(time since my first prep test)helped me to take care of the fluctuations that could have occured because of lesser preparation. Also, in order to maximise the effort its better to train the mind to actual test like conditions and more one does it, better it would be on the test day. It is also true that actual test is an actual test so some nervousness and anxiety will be there and also desirable to keep one on his toes.

Got my scores after filling in background info. I was pleasantly surprised to see 700 as i had the feeling i had screwed some last 5-6 questions in verbal.

Phase I finally over, now it will be app time. Looking forward to get some feedback from you guys.

Thats all i have in my debrief. I will be around to answer your queries, if any.

Regards,
Rahul

Great score congratulations..

Congrats! How was the your RC part? I'm having real trouble with RC .

rah_pandey wrote:Dear BTG'ians,

Sentence correction, is where i put in lot of effort but i think i relied too heavily on MGMAT SC guide. In my case reading some good grammar book before MGMAT SC would have been more beneficial. MGMAT is more of a brushing up guide but for me most of the concepts were new( I don't remember being taught these concepts in school), so could not really get a hang of it in first reading. Still its a MUST READ.


Rahul

I always felt MGMAT SC Guide (KUNJI) is a waste beyond unlocking OG. Unfairly so much of importance is attached to this Guide.

Congrats! How was the your RC part? I'm having real trouble with RC .

RC as I mentioned, is not different from CR and vice-versa. So if you think RC is an issue and CR is not than real problem is of comprehension, means you do not remember where the answer to the question lies. Around 60% of the question are based on text and rest 40% are inference based. So for improving the 60% the strategy can be to make one line notes of each para. This will also help you on inference based question. I should also caution you that i did not follow this strategy fully but tried it with large RC passages sometimes and it did help.

maihuna wrote:

rah_pandey wrote:Dear BTG'ians,

Sentence correction, is where i put in lot of effort but i think i relied too heavily on MGMAT SC guide. In my case reading some good grammar book before MGMAT SC would have been more beneficial. MGMAT is more of a brushing up guide but for me most of the concepts were new( I don't remember being taught these concepts in school), so could not really get a hang of it in first reading. Still its a MUST READ.


Rahul

I always felt MGMAT SC Guide (KUNJI) is a waste beyond unlocking OG. Unfairly so much of importance is attached to this Guide.

Well thats what you want, "unlock OG". I did not mean that SC guide didnot have any utility, I only meant it did not help me initially because of some inherent problems in my english.

Congratulations dude! Good luck with applications process

Rah_Pandey,

Can you please tell me more about this book, Can one buy this from Amozon .com store or is it available as a softcopy on net.?
Please help.
I also have an issue with RC.
Can you please tell me that while doing RC passages, I get 1-2 wrong always out of 6-7 questions.
Is this really taking towards 700 target or I need to concentrate more.

Moreover when a tough science passage comes sometimes i get 50 % wrong.
I guess there would be no guide for increasing RC accuracy and time apart from the usual PRACTICE .

thanks

Sharma_Gaurav wrote:Rah_Pandey,

Can you please tell me more about this book, Can one buy this from Amozon .com store or is it available as a softcopy on net.?
Please help.

thanks

No legal copy is available on net and so you need to buy the book from Amazon or any other vendor.LSAT CR is similar to GMAT CR but for GMAT purpose the GMAT bible would do.

I also have an issue with RC.
Can you please tell me that while doing RC passages, I get 1-2 wrong always out of 6-7 questions.
Is this really taking towards 700 target or I need to concentrate more.

Moreover when a tough science passage comes sometimes i get 50 % wrong.
I guess there would be no guide for increasing RC accuracy and time apart from the usual PRACTICE .

Just check what kind of questions you are getting wrong.
I really would be in no position to comment if getting 1-2 wrong is leading you to 700 or not.

I think weightage of an inference question should be more than for questions based on pure text in the RC.

In RC I do get some inference questions wrong sometimes.
My worry is that GMAT official guides by hit rate was very good, and I got only 1 or in long passages with 6-7 questins sometimnes 2 wrong.

When I started RC1000 document , till passage 63 I was fine , but ater passages 64 - they are difficulty lengthy science passage- and I started getting 50 % wrong.

From your test prep and experience , please tell me for 700 avg score, how many verbal questions ( more specifically RC) we can afford to get wrong approx.

Also what was your accuracy rate in RC when you were doing RC from official guides.
Like did you generally all questions right in an RC short, and only 1 or 2 wrong in the long dense lengthy passages?

Thanks for helping

can u pls share your email id?

Congrats!