I started my prep a couple of months ago although the serious prep started only a month back. Even though I am not a native English speaker I pride myself on being very good with English(the British version)but some how I sucked at SC.
Introduction:
I am a dude from India(damn!too much competition) working in a telecom firm as an engineer. I have total of just above 3 years of work-ex with most of it in the technical field and only recently have got more of an executive responsibility. I would be primarily targeting Indian b-schools or more specifically ISB which is just a couple of blocks away from my home
. I also have sent my scores to NUS, NUT, Schulich(York) and University of Manchester.
GMAT Preparation:
May-Booked the GMAT date for July-20.
I started my GMAT prep in May although I did not put in much effort until the last week of June. I had taken CAT(an Indian exam which I think is a lot tougher and definitely more erratic than GMAT) in 2010 but I bombed it because I was very weak in Quants. In May I mostly concentrated on solving chapters from my CAT prep Quants book because I consider the concepts presented more exhaustive and the problems more challenging. I took my Kaplan diagnostic and got a score of 620. At this point I decided against taking any further exams until I had thoroughly understood the basics. I completed Manhattan SC in a couple of days.
June
Continuing from May my study plan was erratic and its execution even worse, I could hardly devote couple of hours a day what with my family get togethers, body building workouts and other such inane stuff. By mid-June tension started creeping up and I decided to get my act together. I somehow created an ambitious plan in which I devoted 6 hours of study/day. Initially it was difficult but by the last week of June I was in full-swing. By this time I had finished Geometry(200 Qs), P & C(100+Qs) and probability(100+ Qs).I took my second Kaplan CAT and received a score of 730-I was euphoric! I had also finished my OG and bought Kaplan 800 to work on DS and VA areas.
July
The first week of July I took leave at office and spent long hours doing quants. I finished my Numbers lesson(concepts + 120 medium to difficult prac Qs). By this time I finished most of the math concepts, Kaplan premier and had also worked through Kaplan-800. I took my KAP CAT 3 and I again scored a 730. I noticed that I was getting only a couple of Qs wrong in QA but my VA was taking a huge beating. I decided to take the free MGMAT to corroborate my Kap scores, I scored a 720 although I found MGMAT math trickier than Kap quant and the verbal way easier. Monsoon had crept up in India and suddenly I lost my drive to study, I felt sleepy throughout the day and this continued for a week. With only a couple of weeks remaining I decided to only focus on test taking strategies and VA lest I burn out and bomb my GMAT. Every alternate day I took an exam with scores ranging from 720 to 760. But I became so relaxed that when I took my GMAT prep-2 I scored a mere 690 although I have to admit I was bored and did not put in much effort. With 690 in GMAT prep I started doubting my abilities with only a week for the GMAT even though I knew that I hadn't given my best for the Gprep2. I cursed Kaplan for lulling me into false self-confidence in Quants with the high scoring. I took another Kaplan CAT and scored 760 but that gave me no peace whatsoever since I did not have any other tests except Kaplan and there was no way to gauge my actual abilities. These doubts led to some panic with GMAT just 3 days away. I desperately wanted to compare Kaplan scores with actual GMAT scores when I stumbled upon "beatthegmat". Although I did not find much help with the comparison, reading other's GMAT stories gave me some inspiration. I started solving the Quant questions from the site for the next couple of days and realised that I wasn't so bad in Quant after-all
I promised myself that if I get a good score then I would create an ID here and contribute towards the experience.
D-DAY-20th July, 13:30 HOURS
The day before the test I decided I wouldn't study anymore, so I downloaded and watched the movie "True Grit" and whiled away the day. The doubts about QA prep hadn't completely gone away but I decided to check my emotions lest I become anxious during the test- better said than done! I had a good night's sleep but in the morning I was still fraught with tension so decided to sleep another hour at 9:30 AM. I started packing my kit at 10:30- 2-bananas, 2-Mars Bars, 1-Energy drink(Red Bull although I wanted Gatorade but unfortunately couldn't source it from around my home), passport and the printout.
At the test center:
Processing was smooth and AWA went without a hitch. The quant questions were easy but due to my anxiety I kept rechecking and lost precious time leading to a part guess on my 36th and complete guess on my 37th. I was devastated, I thought I had completely screwed quant.
I decided to recoup my losses in Verbal, which was fairly easy and I was on track until the last couple of Qs, which due to my lax approach had to rush. The last Q was a SC and I somehow guessed the correct option by just skimming but I ran out of time before I could confirm although I was sure I had 8 secs left. My heart started pounding as I knew that there was a heavy penalty for leaving out Qs and went through the 30 min reasoning section with full-focus just to keep my panic at bay. I went through the other formalities and loitered for a full 1 min :30 secs on the "cancel your score" section before deciding to take my chance.
When I read 740 I gave a short prayer thanking god before reading further details. A nerve wracking but pleasant journey finally comes to an end.
740 Q50 V40, I think I was penalized heavily in VA for missing out on the last question in VA. I could easily have scored 760 if it weren't for my poor confidence.
Reviews:
Kaplan- Kaplan has an excellent online system wherein you can practice your skills based on the difficulty.
Kaplan Mocks- As mentioned earlier Kap Quant is slightly easier than actual Quant, I had finished most of my CAT quant sections with more than 15 mins to spare and one CAT with even 30 mins to spare.
Kap Verbal though is a completely different ball game- its Qs are more challenging than any of those I had faced in any of the other exams.
Kaplan 800- An excellent strategy book although the math isn't as challenging as you would like but then the strategies will put you in a different league altogether.
Manhattan SC-The most structured, efficient, pithy way to improve your SC.
I hope my story contributes towards your GMAT experience, believe in yourself and all the best.
TEST--------------OA-------QA----VA----AWA-------COMMENTS
KAP DIAGNOSTIC-----620-------NA----NA----YES-------
KAP CAT 1-----------730----------------------------YES---QA-V. EASY, VA-Ultra H
KAP CAT 2-----------730------------------------------YES---------II-------------
MGMAT 1------------720-------49-----39--------------YES-----QA HARD, VA-EASY
GMAT PREP1---------720-------------------------------YES-----------------------
KAP CAT 3-----------720-------------------------------YES---------------------
GMAT PREP 2---------690-------------------------------YES-Serious setback, gave me a panic attack a week before my actual GMAT.
KAP CAT 4-----------740--------------------------------YES-------16-JULY-2011
KAP CAT 5-----------760--------------------------------YES-------17-JULY-2011
GMAT----------------740-----50-------40--------------------------20-JULY-2011
Introduction:
I am a dude from India(damn!too much competition) working in a telecom firm as an engineer. I have total of just above 3 years of work-ex with most of it in the technical field and only recently have got more of an executive responsibility. I would be primarily targeting Indian b-schools or more specifically ISB which is just a couple of blocks away from my home
. I also have sent my scores to NUS, NUT, Schulich(York) and University of Manchester.GMAT Preparation:
May-Booked the GMAT date for July-20.
I started my GMAT prep in May although I did not put in much effort until the last week of June. I had taken CAT(an Indian exam which I think is a lot tougher and definitely more erratic than GMAT) in 2010 but I bombed it because I was very weak in Quants. In May I mostly concentrated on solving chapters from my CAT prep Quants book because I consider the concepts presented more exhaustive and the problems more challenging. I took my Kaplan diagnostic and got a score of 620. At this point I decided against taking any further exams until I had thoroughly understood the basics. I completed Manhattan SC in a couple of days.
June
Continuing from May my study plan was erratic and its execution even worse, I could hardly devote couple of hours a day what with my family get togethers, body building workouts and other such inane stuff. By mid-June tension started creeping up and I decided to get my act together. I somehow created an ambitious plan in which I devoted 6 hours of study/day. Initially it was difficult but by the last week of June I was in full-swing. By this time I had finished Geometry(200 Qs), P & C(100+Qs) and probability(100+ Qs).I took my second Kaplan CAT and received a score of 730-I was euphoric! I had also finished my OG and bought Kaplan 800 to work on DS and VA areas.
July
The first week of July I took leave at office and spent long hours doing quants. I finished my Numbers lesson(concepts + 120 medium to difficult prac Qs). By this time I finished most of the math concepts, Kaplan premier and had also worked through Kaplan-800. I took my KAP CAT 3 and I again scored a 730. I noticed that I was getting only a couple of Qs wrong in QA but my VA was taking a huge beating. I decided to take the free MGMAT to corroborate my Kap scores, I scored a 720 although I found MGMAT math trickier than Kap quant and the verbal way easier. Monsoon had crept up in India and suddenly I lost my drive to study, I felt sleepy throughout the day and this continued for a week. With only a couple of weeks remaining I decided to only focus on test taking strategies and VA lest I burn out and bomb my GMAT. Every alternate day I took an exam with scores ranging from 720 to 760. But I became so relaxed that when I took my GMAT prep-2 I scored a mere 690 although I have to admit I was bored and did not put in much effort. With 690 in GMAT prep I started doubting my abilities with only a week for the GMAT even though I knew that I hadn't given my best for the Gprep2. I cursed Kaplan for lulling me into false self-confidence in Quants with the high scoring. I took another Kaplan CAT and scored 760 but that gave me no peace whatsoever since I did not have any other tests except Kaplan and there was no way to gauge my actual abilities. These doubts led to some panic with GMAT just 3 days away. I desperately wanted to compare Kaplan scores with actual GMAT scores when I stumbled upon "beatthegmat". Although I did not find much help with the comparison, reading other's GMAT stories gave me some inspiration. I started solving the Quant questions from the site for the next couple of days and realised that I wasn't so bad in Quant after-all
I promised myself that if I get a good score then I would create an ID here and contribute towards the experience.D-DAY-20th July, 13:30 HOURS
The day before the test I decided I wouldn't study anymore, so I downloaded and watched the movie "True Grit" and whiled away the day. The doubts about QA prep hadn't completely gone away but I decided to check my emotions lest I become anxious during the test- better said than done! I had a good night's sleep but in the morning I was still fraught with tension so decided to sleep another hour at 9:30 AM. I started packing my kit at 10:30- 2-bananas, 2-Mars Bars, 1-Energy drink(Red Bull although I wanted Gatorade but unfortunately couldn't source it from around my home), passport and the printout.
At the test center:
Processing was smooth and AWA went without a hitch. The quant questions were easy but due to my anxiety I kept rechecking and lost precious time leading to a part guess on my 36th and complete guess on my 37th. I was devastated, I thought I had completely screwed quant.
I decided to recoup my losses in Verbal, which was fairly easy and I was on track until the last couple of Qs, which due to my lax approach had to rush. The last Q was a SC and I somehow guessed the correct option by just skimming but I ran out of time before I could confirm although I was sure I had 8 secs left. My heart started pounding as I knew that there was a heavy penalty for leaving out Qs and went through the 30 min reasoning section with full-focus just to keep my panic at bay. I went through the other formalities and loitered for a full 1 min :30 secs on the "cancel your score" section before deciding to take my chance.
When I read 740 I gave a short prayer thanking god before reading further details. A nerve wracking but pleasant journey finally comes to an end.
740 Q50 V40, I think I was penalized heavily in VA for missing out on the last question in VA. I could easily have scored 760 if it weren't for my poor confidence.
Reviews:
Kaplan- Kaplan has an excellent online system wherein you can practice your skills based on the difficulty.
Kaplan Mocks- As mentioned earlier Kap Quant is slightly easier than actual Quant, I had finished most of my CAT quant sections with more than 15 mins to spare and one CAT with even 30 mins to spare.
Kap Verbal though is a completely different ball game- its Qs are more challenging than any of those I had faced in any of the other exams.
Kaplan 800- An excellent strategy book although the math isn't as challenging as you would like but then the strategies will put you in a different league altogether.
Manhattan SC-The most structured, efficient, pithy way to improve your SC.
I hope my story contributes towards your GMAT experience, believe in yourself and all the best.
TEST--------------OA-------QA----VA----AWA-------COMMENTS
KAP DIAGNOSTIC-----620-------NA----NA----YES-------
KAP CAT 1-----------730----------------------------YES---QA-V. EASY, VA-Ultra H
KAP CAT 2-----------730------------------------------YES---------II-------------
MGMAT 1------------720-------49-----39--------------YES-----QA HARD, VA-EASY
GMAT PREP1---------720-------------------------------YES-----------------------
KAP CAT 3-----------720-------------------------------YES---------------------
GMAT PREP 2---------690-------------------------------YES-Serious setback, gave me a panic attack a week before my actual GMAT.
KAP CAT 4-----------740--------------------------------YES-------16-JULY-2011
KAP CAT 5-----------760--------------------------------YES-------17-JULY-2011
GMAT----------------740-----50-------40--------------------------20-JULY-2011
Last edited by Sarka003 on Thu Jul 21, 2011 12:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
