Ah the relief. Scored a 740 (Q 49, V 41) today. More coming later.
Thanks to EVERYONE on this forum. This place is awesome !!
-- Mayukh.
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Done!! -- 740 ---
This topic has expert replies
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wilderness
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mmukher
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Resources:
OG11, Official Review Verbal, Official Review Quant (These are recommended)
Manhattan SC book (Great book, plus buying one book gives access to 6 online cat tests!)
Kaplan 800 (Okay, CR is good)
This website (Rocks, checked it everyday! But don’t spend tooo much time here!)
Prep time: 5 weekends. (I work full time)
Test Scores :
T – 14 days PowerPrep 740 (Q:49, V:41)
T – 13 days MGMAT1 680 (Q:44, V:38 )
T - 12 days MGMAT2 700 (Q:43, V:41)
T - 10 days MGMAT3 720 (Q:44, V:45)
T - 07 days MGMAT4 670 (Q:45, V:36)
T - 06 days MGMAT5 750 (Q:48, V:45)
T - 02 days MGMAT6 720 (Q:44, V:45)
T - 01 days Powerprep 700 ---> Shocker, This really got me worried.
Test day GMAT 740 (Q:49, V:41) --> Same as my first powerprep!
About the Practice tests:
Manhattan GMAT quant is outrageously difficult, but going through that process makes you tougher and prepares you for the real thing.
Manhattan GMAT verbal, while difficult, didn’t quiet feel the same as the real GMAT. (This has been observed by others as well). By the end of the MGMAT tests I was getting pretty good at verbal, but then it was more geared towards the Manhattan version of the verbal section. I would recommend doing the OG and the Verbal SC questions well to get a feel for how it will be on test day.
Overall the 2 powerprep tests were more like the real test (go figure).
Strategy :
Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that hasn’t been mentioned here already. Just go through ALL the resources available on this web site, and choose what best works for you.
Find out what your weaknesses are (Number properties on Quant/ SC on verbal) and practice, practice, practice.
Test day :
Test was at 8:00 am, arrived at 7:30. Note to internationals, you will need a passport, the test center was nice enough to call me a couple of days before the test and tell me that I needed to get mine. For the test I brought along with me an energy bar and an apple, which I kept with everything else in the locker provided.
First up was the AWA. Hadn’t really practiced it before, but had a mental template in mind. I took a full 30 minutes for each, with the first 5 – 8 minutes writing out my ideas on scratch paper. Spend the last 5 minutes revising, correcting typos (I hope I got all of them!)
Quant:
I wasn’t too sure about quant. MGMAT had kinda scared me, and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Overall strategy employed was to keep track of time, and guess when solving a problem was taking more than 3 minutes. Would you believe it, I actually had 5 minutes left on the quant section, something that never happened on any of the practice tests.
Only suggestion for quant, is while practicing keep track of the time. Initially when you are learning concepts or solving new problem types, take AAALLL the time in the world to understand it. But once you get to the practice tests, you have got to pick up your speed.
Break : 10 minute break. They let me get to my locker, which was nice. I was starving after the quant!. Ate the energy bar, drank some water, walked around a bit and went back in for the verbal.
Verbal :
I had done well on the MGMAT tests, but one day before the test, on the poweprep, I f**ed up, and that had me worried. First up were a few SC’s and some CR’s which were okay I thought, not too hard. Then came the first RC which was like 25 lines or something. I had never seen such a short RC during practice before, and that got me a bit concerned that maybe I wasn’t doing too well. In fact I had to read it twice and the question to make sure it wasn’t a CR. Well after that one it was again the usual mix of CR’s and SC’s. Quiet a few of my SC’s were really short sentences with just a few words underlined, so that was something else I hadn’t seen before.
In all I had like 3 RC’s (maybe 4, I can’t remember now).
Sped through the screens at the end of the test. And then checked my score. 740, not too bad. Lets just say I had a smug smile on, for the rest of the day.
The important thing is, don’t guess how you are doing on the test. Focus on the question at hand. I had read this before on the forum, that guys (n gals) thought they were doing really poorly on the test, based on the easy questions (that they thought were easy) they were getting. Don’t second guess, let the GMAT figure out what question to throw at you, and you focus on getting the darn thing right!!
Good luck folks, may you achieve your goals.
And once again to the community here, the moderators, the resident experts, Eric, Everyone.... THANKS ! This site is invaluable! 8)
OG11, Official Review Verbal, Official Review Quant (These are recommended)
Manhattan SC book (Great book, plus buying one book gives access to 6 online cat tests!)
Kaplan 800 (Okay, CR is good)
This website (Rocks, checked it everyday! But don’t spend tooo much time here!)
Prep time: 5 weekends. (I work full time)
Test Scores :
T – 14 days PowerPrep 740 (Q:49, V:41)
T – 13 days MGMAT1 680 (Q:44, V:38 )
T - 12 days MGMAT2 700 (Q:43, V:41)
T - 10 days MGMAT3 720 (Q:44, V:45)
T - 07 days MGMAT4 670 (Q:45, V:36)
T - 06 days MGMAT5 750 (Q:48, V:45)
T - 02 days MGMAT6 720 (Q:44, V:45)
T - 01 days Powerprep 700 ---> Shocker, This really got me worried.
Test day GMAT 740 (Q:49, V:41) --> Same as my first powerprep!
About the Practice tests:
Manhattan GMAT quant is outrageously difficult, but going through that process makes you tougher and prepares you for the real thing.
Manhattan GMAT verbal, while difficult, didn’t quiet feel the same as the real GMAT. (This has been observed by others as well). By the end of the MGMAT tests I was getting pretty good at verbal, but then it was more geared towards the Manhattan version of the verbal section. I would recommend doing the OG and the Verbal SC questions well to get a feel for how it will be on test day.
Overall the 2 powerprep tests were more like the real test (go figure).
Strategy :
Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that hasn’t been mentioned here already. Just go through ALL the resources available on this web site, and choose what best works for you.
Find out what your weaknesses are (Number properties on Quant/ SC on verbal) and practice, practice, practice.
Test day :
Test was at 8:00 am, arrived at 7:30. Note to internationals, you will need a passport, the test center was nice enough to call me a couple of days before the test and tell me that I needed to get mine. For the test I brought along with me an energy bar and an apple, which I kept with everything else in the locker provided.
First up was the AWA. Hadn’t really practiced it before, but had a mental template in mind. I took a full 30 minutes for each, with the first 5 – 8 minutes writing out my ideas on scratch paper. Spend the last 5 minutes revising, correcting typos (I hope I got all of them!)
Quant:
I wasn’t too sure about quant. MGMAT had kinda scared me, and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Overall strategy employed was to keep track of time, and guess when solving a problem was taking more than 3 minutes. Would you believe it, I actually had 5 minutes left on the quant section, something that never happened on any of the practice tests.
Only suggestion for quant, is while practicing keep track of the time. Initially when you are learning concepts or solving new problem types, take AAALLL the time in the world to understand it. But once you get to the practice tests, you have got to pick up your speed.
Break : 10 minute break. They let me get to my locker, which was nice. I was starving after the quant!. Ate the energy bar, drank some water, walked around a bit and went back in for the verbal.
Verbal :
I had done well on the MGMAT tests, but one day before the test, on the poweprep, I f**ed up, and that had me worried. First up were a few SC’s and some CR’s which were okay I thought, not too hard. Then came the first RC which was like 25 lines or something. I had never seen such a short RC during practice before, and that got me a bit concerned that maybe I wasn’t doing too well. In fact I had to read it twice and the question to make sure it wasn’t a CR. Well after that one it was again the usual mix of CR’s and SC’s. Quiet a few of my SC’s were really short sentences with just a few words underlined, so that was something else I hadn’t seen before.
In all I had like 3 RC’s (maybe 4, I can’t remember now).
Sped through the screens at the end of the test. And then checked my score. 740, not too bad. Lets just say I had a smug smile on, for the rest of the day.
The important thing is, don’t guess how you are doing on the test. Focus on the question at hand. I had read this before on the forum, that guys (n gals) thought they were doing really poorly on the test, based on the easy questions (that they thought were easy) they were getting. Don’t second guess, let the GMAT figure out what question to throw at you, and you focus on getting the darn thing right!!
Good luck folks, may you achieve your goals.
And once again to the community here, the moderators, the resident experts, Eric, Everyone.... THANKS ! This site is invaluable! 8)
awesome work! also, great debrief...
would you recommend that i/others use MGMAT CATs to practice? did you find that MGMAT CATs properly reflected your performance? are they comparable to the real thing? thanks!
would you recommend that i/others use MGMAT CATs to practice? did you find that MGMAT CATs properly reflected your performance? are they comparable to the real thing? thanks!
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mmukher
- Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
- Posts: 34
- Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:15 pm
- Thanked: 6 times
- Followed by:1 members
I definitely would recommend Manhattan GMAT cat's. I haven't used any of the other products. But the 6 CATS from MGMAT are great, plus the 2 from powerprep, that should be plenty of good practice.
The closest thing to the real GMAT is ofcourse the powerprep, but the MGMAT cats also definitely improve your test taking skills and as can be seen from some others here as well, the scores on the MGMAT are within a respectable std deviation from your real GMAT test score. (Ofcourse there will be exceptions to that rule).
The closest thing to the real GMAT is ofcourse the powerprep, but the MGMAT cats also definitely improve your test taking skills and as can be seen from some others here as well, the scores on the MGMAT are within a respectable std deviation from your real GMAT test score. (Ofcourse there will be exceptions to that rule).
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abhaypratapsingh
- Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
- Posts: 51
- Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2008 1:08 am
- Thanked: 2 times
