I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi guyz,

I'm a new member of this forum. I've been a silent member of this forum for around 1 month reading all the posts and stuffs. This is my first post in this forum and i would like to share my experience with GMAT.

Started preparing for the exam with 0% idea of this exam during the month of Apr '09. Found time and Studied only during weekends as i'm working in an IT company and its certainly tough to study during weekdays. Booked the exam Jul 29th.. Had no idea whether the 4 months time and that too weekends is sufficient to crack.. On the Day of exam, i was a bit nervous and i'm not the kind of guy who gets nervous during exams. Something in me told that i was not that well equipped for the exam but still want to give a crack and had to nothing to give up. After finishing AWA, started quants and found very difficult right from 1st question. I had not anticipated the exam to be that tough.. I had the same experience with Verbal and i knew that i was fully beaten by the exam. Got a devastating score of 500 (Q36, V23). Never expected such a poor performance from me. The only positive score from this exam was AWA (5.0/6.0)

I never spoke to anyone after the exam.. My dad called me immediately after the exam to enquire. I couldn't speak a word to him over phone. I was totally choked by my score. My dad understood why i was not able to speak a word and he told me that he would call after a few hours and asked me to take good rest.

I tried to forget abt GMAT for a few days. After a few days, i casually passed by Beat the GMAT site. From then, i'm simply reading all kinds of posts (Exercise practices, Other's experiences abt the exam, Recommendations of books, suggestions etc.) After reading all kinds of posts, i got a good insight of the exam and now i realized what i was really missing in the exam.

First of all, to be honest, i took the exam very lightly like other exams. And believe me, after my first attempt, i realized that GMAT exam is not like any other exam. You can never take it very lightly even if you have GOD-gifted brains!! This is the first lesson i learnt.. Secondly, the kind of books i used for my preparation are way below the standards..

1. Official Guide (An exceptional case)
2. Barron's GMAT
3. Nova's GMAT
4. Few 1000 SC,RC,CR

I would not say that one must not use Barrons or Nova's but it must not be the only books for your preparation. Probably to start with, these 2 are good books to get an introduction of problems esp after a long break of college and work. From this forum, i understand that most of the people are recommending books like Powerscore CR Bible, MGMAT etc.. Now i have a good idea of how to prepare for the exam.

I'm thinking of adding high-school maths book to my list of preparation books as i think it is the best book to strengthen my basics. Also, my weakest part in verbal is CR. I'm planning to buy a Powerscore CR bible to learn the tricks and strategies.

There are lots of lessons learnt from my first attempt and i take this experience in a positive way. Had i scored 600-620 in my first attempt, i wouldn't have taken a decision to re-write the exam. Probably, i would have missed a chance to get into 700-club javascript:emoticon(':)')
by not re-writing the exam.. who knows!!

And finally before ending this post, thanks a ton to this forum!!! I'm absolutely rejuvenated by reading the posts!!! I now have an approach and road-map to tackle the exam.

Thank you very much for reading the post!!

-Pradeep

Hi Pradeep,

It is really encouraging to see how you have utilised the discussions in the forum. The books you have figured out for your upcoming study for GMAT are highly recommended. You are on a right path and I believe you will definitely join the 700 club.

Instead of being a dormant member, I would like you to be an active member and take part in discussions. You will always find amazing people to help you whenever you are in trouble.

Looking forward to hear more from you.

Regards

Hi Karan,

Thanks for your encouraging words. I remember reading one of your posts about your experience with CR and RC (the most challenging parts of verbal). I liked the way you marketed the books Powerscore CR bible and Kaplan LSAT for CR and RC. I realized a similar situation (getting correct only less than 50% with CR and RC) which you have written. I had faced and i'm still facing a similar situation and that motivated me to have a shot at these books. Hope it will improve my verbal scoring too as it did for you!!

And a small suggestion to not only you but ALL here.. Till now i've not seen someone starting a dedicated forum topic coming up with some shortcut formulae/approach for a particular type of problem. Probably i may be wrong too.. If we have these kind of posts, i'm sure that it will really help everyone who are having a tough time with quants.

Awaiting your responses!!

Thanks for your encouraging words. I remember reading one of your posts about your experience with CR and RC (the most challenging parts of verbal). I liked the way you marketed the books Powerscore CR bible and Kaplan LSAT for CR and RC.

I wish anyone from Powerscore/Kaplan is reading this. I want to get paid for advertising

Anyways, well, these two books were passed on to me by my seniors,so these became my practise material naturally. Had they given me Manhattan or princeton who knows I would have mentioned about Manhattan and princeton. Another most important fact is that my senior gave those books to his friend, who studied them for more than 3 months and scored 590! So we both studied the same material and in fact his studied for a longer duration than I did, so where lies the difference??

I read a post where a guy scored 770 with only OG and nothing else and similarly I know people on personal level who have all the comfort in the world, they practise the best materials, good mock tests and yet still score in 600's.

It is all about attitude, strategy and practise which makes a difference.

And a small suggestion to not only you but ALL here.. Till now i've not seen someone starting a dedicated forum topic coming up with some shortcut formulae/approach for a particular type of problem. Probably i may be wrong too.. If we have these kind of posts, i'm sure that it will really help everyone who are having a tough time with quants.

As far as Quant is concerned, I believe there is no fixed way of solving. On a personal note I would suggest try to avoid short-cuts. Attack a question from basics.

For other sections in Verbal, I did spoke to Eric about starting a section for SC's and CR's. We are yet to discuss in detail about the various possibilities. As for now, I am not very sure about that.

Hope this Helps

papgust wrote:Started preparing for the exam with 0% idea of this exam during the month of Apr '09. Found time and Studied only during weekends as i'm working in an IT company and its certainly tough to study during weekdays. Booked the exam Jul 29th.. Had no idea whether the 4 months time and that too weekends is sufficient to crack..

Pradeep:

I started preparing late May and did fine. Instead of searching for a "strategy," I committed my time and energy to work hard. I did 1,000 of practice questions and after awhile, things began flowing and details fell into their places to tell me a cohesive story of what my strategy should be. You have to be good to be lucky and there is no versatile, simple or easy strategy out there that can replace hard work.

There are stories of people here who claim to have only studied two weeks and scored in the 700+ range. But instead of of focusing on those rarities, control what you can control - yourself. You are responsible for your own fate so why not dedicate and devote some time to truly work hard.

You indicate that you work at an IT company have have "no time to study on weekdays." I find that incomprehensible as I also "work hard" for my day job. I get to work at 7:30 and work until 6:00 pm on average. Yet, I found time to study a few hours a day and squeeze the most out of every opportunity. For example, I regurgitated math equations in the shower, read grammar notes on the subway and studied for a few hours in the office every night after my work duties were complete. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Dear Pradeep,
I think you're on the right path; and I'm glad that forum is helping you build your own strategy to beat the GMAT!
You can always post more suggestions and forum feedback here, we'd like it. We hear your suggestion about topic for math shortcuts formulae etc. Personally these shortcuts come from instincts and yes practice. I believe the members who're regular @ math forum answer with explanation & they dont like IMO-B replies. I think it's a good practise. But it's people's forum, our community so I would rather expect somebody from us (ie. a member of the forum) come up, take an initiative about it. If it's impressive others will encourage it and admins will promote it; that's how the forums work, right!
All the best, & welcome to the forums!

PS:I also agree with brandonsun & gmat740.

gmat740 wrote: I read a post where a guy scored 770 with only OG and nothing else and similarly I know people on personal level who have all the comfort in the world, they practise the best materials, good mock tests and yet still score in 600's.

It is all about attitude, strategy and practise which makes a difference.

Karan,

Completely agree with you.. It depends on each and every person's attitude and strategy. Hope i have found a right strategy for myself.

[quote="brandonsun
You indicate that you work at an IT company have have "no time to study on weekdays." I find that incomprehensible as I also "work hard" for my day job. I get to work at 7:30 and work until 6:00 pm on average. Yet, I found time to study a few hours a day and squeeze the most out of every opportunity. For example, I regurgitated math equations in the shower, read grammar notes on the subway and studied for a few hours in the office every night after my work duties were complete. Where there's a will, there's a way.[/quote]

Agreed brandonsun. Even i manage to squeeze in some time to study few hours in some weekdays but not always! Most of the days, I start from home at 8 and come back at 9.30-10 pm. I feel really tired and my body aches. Its really hard to sit and concentrate during those days and i honestly feel that studying is useless without good concentration.. So during these days, i would not be able to study..

Considering the fact that i already dont have much time to apply for Fall 2010, i dont have to rush up with my preparation as i did during my first attempt.