I will post a debrief soon as i am off to a airport with only passport in hand
Thanks outreach and makkwende. Here is my debrief.
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I took GMAT last week and I am quite pleased with score of 680 (Q49, V34). After disappointing scores of 570 in 2008 and 620 in 2009, I knew this attempt will be my last before I call it quits on GMAT and concentrate on other personal priorities.
I restarted GMAT preparation in late July and I knew to make significant improvement on the previous score I will have to work hard on the verbal section. So my study plan revolved around SC, CR and to some extent RC. I reflected on my past preparation and immediately realized that within the time frame (GMAT by mid-Oct); I will not be able to improve on all three sections of GMAT verbal. Going through past error logs I decided to concentrate on improving SC and CR. I totally neglected (almost) RC with the exception of daily dose of The Economist and Scientific American while commuting between home and work. I also drafted the list of books I am going to refer for this leg of preparation. Following is the list of books referred.
1. OG 12
2. Powerscore CR bible
3. Power Score SC bible
4. Manhattan GMAT SC
5. OG verbal 2nd edition
I had also reserved Kaplan and MGMAT books from the library but I never read them as I decided to follow only OG and GMATprep questions.
Preparation this time
I bought Powerscore CR and SC bible to get a different perspective. I felt Powerscore SC bible was a good read before moving on Manhattan GMAT SC, which is the best book for sentence correction. Powerscore SC bible builds on the fundamentals and gave a solid foundation while tackling Manhattan GMAT SC book. I went through OG verbal questions keeping a detailed error log, keeping track of why I chose that answer, what was wrong in it, what was my thinking, what's wrong with other answer choices etc. Error log helped me track my mistakes and exposed certain mistakes I was consistently making.
I also altered my route to work, instead of taking 30 mins train I took 60 mins bus ride getting daily dose of The Economist and Scientific American.
As for Quant, I did 15-30 questions daily from OG and GMATprep (manhattangmat forums) and referred to my notes taken over 2 years of preparation
I daily visited Beatthegmat.com only reading debriefs in "I Just beat the GMAT" forum. This provided me motivation to continue on my MBA journey.
Here is a list of resources I found useful and were the only resources I referred during course of my preparation.
1. Thursday with Ron (www.manhattangmat.com) - I watched all verbal related recordings and found them extremely helpful .I wished I had watched them at least 30 days before the test date.
2. GMATprep Math and Verbal forum on www.manhattangmat.com - For practice I only did GMATprep questions and referred explanations by the experts to get insights on their approach and thinking.
Day before G-Day
I did not study at all. Woke up at 6 am (my appointment was at 9 am next day), made breakfast after a year and man it felt so good to cook again. Later in the day went to watch a movie, had dinner by the sea side and slept early.
G-Day
Woke up at 6.30 am and reached test centre at 8.30 am. Performed the formalities and started with AWA and I thought I should have at least read about AWA the previous day. But, hey this is not my first time and I wasn't paying much attention to it anyways. Finished both essays with just seconds to spare. Took the scheduled break, came back and started with Quant.
It started well and it was going all well till it hit me that I am getting easy questions. Well I thought they were easy, however some DS questions were quite tricky. I was able to figure out the tricks/concept tested immediately and felt I am not doing well as these questions seem pretty easy. Nevertheless, had to guess couple of questions in order to finish the section within time limit. At this point of time I felt, its doomed. Took next scheduled break, came back and started with verbal.
Verbal started well. Easy SC's and Cr. First RC was short and I thought I was doing ok. There was nothing out of line as far as SC is concerned and I am confident I did well on that section. As for CR, I got all question types, one bold face which I am sure I have got it wrong. My strategy for boldface questions was to read the argument and move on to next question within 35 to 45 seconds. I never studied boldface and probability questions during my prep (more on this later in the post). For RC, my weakest area, I got long passages and yes they were long with 4 questions each if I remember correctly. Frankly I didn't paid attention to the question once I have moved on to the next questions. This was my strategy to take one question at a time, take the best shot and move on. Finished the verbal section thinking of the score will be close to last year's score.
Finished the survey and clicked on to report scores and there it was 680 (Q49, V34). The first thought came to my mind was "I am not coming to this test centre again in my life". And I mean it. I am done with this test. Never again.
Before I close following things I would like to mention about my preparation which may help others.
1. Never did any Probability, Permutation or Combination question - My motto was simple, if I am lucky I will get one question on this topic. Why to spend time and effort to get one question right. Instead I focused that energy to solve Geometry questions. I got 4 or 5 of them, I think. And yes, I did get a permutation question which I solved by iteration well under 1.30 min. Lesson - get the priorities right.
2. Refer only OG and GmatPrep - Especially a fortnight before G-Day, I made it a point to practice only from these sources. Other sources such as Manhattan GMAT are good but I wanted to see only those questions which will be as close to the actual GMAT in structure and language. Lesson - Train your mind well in advance to the type of questions you are likely to see in the actual test.
3. Practice, Practice and Practice - I cannot stress more on this, keep error log for each of your session and revise it the next day before studying new set of questions.
4. Remember the saying - "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Like my previous preparations, this time too I stopped swimming, gym and pretty much all other things. Not because of GMAT prep but due to lack of time as my work hours have always been crazy. However this time I made it a point to continue with at least of my hobbies. Due to the odd hours of my return from work and studies, the only hobby to pursue was mixing cocktails. And I must say I enjoyed experimenting with different combinations. Wish I had kept log of those combinations too
5. After GMAT, if you plan to take a vacation, call your boss and ask where he is. I ended up in the same country where our new consulting project was starting, so instead of vacationing, I ended up working
Lesson - Keep your cell phone off even after you are done with your GMAT, if you want to enjoy the vacation.Though not an inspiring debrief, but I am sure it will help some of the fellow Gmatters. I am quite relieved that I achieved my target score. As I was not planning to apply to top 15 B-Schools when I thought of doing MBA back in 2008, I was never under pressure to get 750+. Though I would have liked a 700 score, but hey I am not complaining. Let me know if someone has any other queries.
-Thanks for your time.[/u]
