I just Beat The GMAT!

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

Fabulous score, good job! I definitely know how it feels to run out of time in both sections!

If you had selected an answer, but not confirmed it, and time ran out. I think it still counted. If you had not even selected an answer, then you would have been penalised.

One question - Is Kaplan 800 Verbal worth practising ? Because I agree with you that Kaplan Verbal is terribly difficult. CR too convulted. RC too complicated and SC errors are too close.

So should I skip Kaplan 800 Verbal? I have exactly 1 month till test date!

[email protected] wrote:If you had selected an answer, but not confirmed it, and time ran out. I think it still counted. If you had not even selected an answer, then you would have been penalised.

One question - Is Kaplan 800 Verbal worth practising ? Because I agree with you that Kaplan Verbal is terribly difficult. CR too convulted. RC too complicated and SC errors are too close.

So should I skip Kaplan 800 Verbal? I have exactly 1 month till test date!

Are you sure it is counted because I have never read it anywhere.

If you skip Kaplan 800 Verbal there is nothing left in the book, as I said Kaplan 800 quant is too easy. I would suggest going through the strategies atleast and anyway there are hardly many Qs in either Quants or Verbal. One month is a long time but then it depends on how many hours you can dedicate for your preparation.

I have a lot of time daily for my prep, but the problem is I have hit a bench! I can't seem to absorb any more material, so I have to be very careful with what I read extra since I am just a step away from burning out!

ould you mention where did you do those 200 geometry questions n other questions for prelimnary topic wise prep... did you refer to some cat material kya ?

Congrats on the score sarka. really awesome and strong enough to start u off on ur way to an admit.

I agree with rjank. I dont think it is counted. A simple test for this: try leaving the last question unconfirmed in GMATPrep. I tried and for me, the question disappeared in the review.

ntripathi wrote:ould you mention where did you do those 200 geometry questions n other questions for prelimnary topic wise prep... did you refer to some cat material kya ?

Hi ntripathi,

I used T.I.M.E quant book and believe me it is more than sufficient to crack any Geometry question.

Thats a neat score..your posts suggests that Kaplan Premier and Kaplan 800 are the best source for quants preparation? can you suggest some tips and material to improve particularly in DS , I gave my GMAT and got a very low percentile score ( 37 ) in quants..though I got a 38( 86 percentile ) in Verbal , feeling devastated but I still feel its my tendency of making careless mistakes that might have rocked the boat for me..I want to take the GMAT again but this time after putting a lot of effort for the quantitative section.

girigmat wrote:Thats a neat score..your posts suggests that Kaplan Premier and Kaplan 800 are the best source for quants preparation? can you suggest some tips and material to improve particularly in DS , I gave my GMAT and got a very low percentile score ( 37 ) in quants..though I got a 38( 86 percentile ) in Verbal , feeling devastated but I still feel its my tendency of making careless mistakes that might have rocked the boat for me..I want to take the GMAT again but this time after putting a lot of effort for the quantitative section.

DS is all about tricks and tactics, you need to know what is being asked and what is missing without wasting too much time. Initially even I had difficulty with DS but then with more practice using the correct techniques DS can be quite easy. You can find tips and tricks on beatthegmat too, for example I learnt the 4 region way of plugging in nos. from here. I am sure DS alone cannot be blamed for the 37 in quants, I believe you need to focus on formulas and concepts first because there is no way you can solve DS without being good in PS. Your name suggests that you are Indian, if you have access to quant material from TIME or IMS then that can do your skills a world of good. After you are through with PS, work on DS with techniques from K800 or any other strategy book.
Invest quality time and move forward in a very systematic way.

My 3 kaplan scores are

Linear Kaplan - 670
Kaplan CAT 1- 690 Q52 V33
Kaplan CAT 2- 700 Q53 V33

Are the scores too low? or are they decent enough since I find Kaplan Verbal too tough!

My MGMAT Scores were
MGMAT 1 710 Q50 V36
MGMAT 2 710 Q49 V38

GMAT Prep 710 Q48 V40.

My test is on 20th August, you feel I am going good or do I need to rework on verbal?? Honestly?

[email protected] wrote:My 3 kaplan scores are

Linear Kaplan - 670
Kaplan CAT 1- 690 Q52 V33
Kaplan CAT 2- 700 Q53 V33

Are the scores too low? or are they decent enough since I find Kaplan Verbal too tough!

My MGMAT Scores were
MGMAT 1 710 Q50 V36
MGMAT 2 710 Q49 V38

GMAT Prep 710 Q48 V40.

My test is on 20th August, you feel I am going good or do I need to rework on verbal?? Honestly?

You are doing very good, in fact look at the Quant scores-they are awesome! A little more fine tuning and a bit of analysis on VA and you will be ready to rocket into 750s. 25 days is more than enough to improve your VA since you are already doing well in Quants. Make sure you go through every VA questions both wrong and correct and note down what went wrong, you will sooner or later find out the missing chunk in your VA armor. I'll probably need more info on how you attempt VA and the break down of your VA scores to help you out.

Also keep one hour every day to solve quant Qs, I did the mistake of focusing exclusively on VA in the last few days which led to me feeling jittery about Quants.

Whatever you do if you feel you are burning out take a break for a couple of days-the worst thing than can happen is your mind being too tired to motivate you.

Sarka003 wrote: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

Hi, Congrats on a good score.
I am also doing kaplan tests.
I scored 700 Q55 V30, 740 Q55 V 38, 700 Q52 V33, 690 Q50 V36

I did all the tests timed with AWA.

How close is kaplan verbal to actual verbal ?

I find kaplan RCs tougher and my majority of mistakes are in RC only. The other issue is timing. It is very difficult for me to finish the kaplan verbal in 75 minutes. SCs and CRs are fine with me. I usually make few errors in these.

Your response is highly appreciated !!!

BDW CAT IS NOT TOUGHER THAN GMAT, YES ONE CAN PRACTICE IT FROM THERE BUT ITS BETTER TO PRACTICE AND LEARN THE ORIGINAL GMAT.

CONRATS.