-
karthmba011
- MBA Student
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:12 am
- Thanked: 4 times
- GMAT Score:690
Hi guys,
I have given my GMAT and have scored a decent 690 with AWA Score of 5.5/6.0! I am really happy and satisfied with my score and would like to thank all the members of this forum for giving valuable and timely advice when in need. Today, I decided to contribute to this forum with a debrief of my GMAT preparation journey.
First of all, I am from a pure life sciences background and have never studied math after 12th grade! Even in my school days, my greatest weaknesses were Math and English!!! I simply used to hate both these subjects and never scored above 60% in these! But, unfortunately, the GMAT primarily tests the two areas that have been my greatest weaknesses right from my school days!
I prepared for 5 months for the GMAT, out of which I have done hardcore studying only in the last two months! Till date, I might have given around 12 mock tests, out of which 10 were GMATprep! I repeated both the GMATprep practice tests 5 times, and also the number of questions getting repeated increased each time! In my last mock attempt (scored 680), I got near about 15 questions that were repeats!
1 Princeton Review - Q33 / V10 - 380
2 GMATPrep ? ? - 450
3 GMATPrep ? ? - 550
4 GMATPrep - Q47 / V27 - 590
5 Kaplan GMAT - Q41 / V31 - 570
6 GMATPrep - Q44 / V34 - 640
7 GMATPrep - Q47 / V31 - 640
8 GMATPrep - Q47 / V32 - 650
9 GMATPrep - Q49 / V32 - 670
10 GMATPrep - Q48 / V32 - 650
11 GMATPrep - Q48 / V40 - 710
12 GMATPrep - Q49 / V34 - 680
But, trust me, this really worked out for me in a great way! When I was giving the real GMAT, I got a feel as if I were attempting a mock test again sitting at home, due to the identical structure and background colors of both the GMATprep and the real GMAT! Moreover, even when I scored only a 680 in GMATprep (just 2 days before the real deal!), I could score 690 in the real test! Also, I felt that the questions in the real test were no more difficult than those that appear in the GMATprep! So, all these factors boosted my confidence dramatically! People who attempt the GMATprep not more than twice, actually waste their valuable opportunities by fearing about seeing repeated questions again! And, as per my experience, GMATprep is the only mock test that can gauge your real ability most accurately! So, please do not hesitate to repeat these free mock tests and use them to the maximum possible extent!
Materials used by me -
1. IMS (theoretica Quants, theoretica verbal, octane series and class sheets) - Trust me, these are the best GMAT prep books you can ever get! I found these much better than even the famous Kaplan or Manhattan. Studying from these books only helped me out in boosting my Quants score dramatically - from 33 to 49!
2. Kaplan Advanced - I found this book just OK! It really didn't help me much actually. But found the answer explanations to be really good! But the book was really not upto what it claims - money back guarantee, if score doesn't improve by using this book! haha... good marketing strategy! But, being a marketing professional myself, I was really not impressed with this marketing gimmick!
3. OG/Official Guide aka GMAT BIBLE (Edition 11 - Quants, Verbal and Review; Edition 12 - only Review book) - The best books one can refer to, if one is interested in solving mainly the 'typical' GMAT type questions and in increasing familiarity with the 'real' GMAT content!
4. Sahil's grammar notes - I really owe a lot to this community for providing me this free grammar notes. It helped me dramatically increase my accuracy in solving SC questions.
I limited my preparation to only these above mentioned books, unlike many others who believe in referring to 6 - 10 different books! But, anyways, effectiveness in referring to these many number of books might differ from person to person, and in my case, I would have surely got confused and ended up jumbling the basics!
Finally, I would like to thank the BTG community again for mailing me daily the day-wise 60-day preparation plan.
"WITH ORDINARY TALENT AND EXTRAORDINARY PERSEVERANCE, ANY TARGET IS ATTAINABLE"...
All the best for your prep!
- Karthik Seshan
Background -
M/22, B.Tech Biotechnology,
Work experience - 1.7 yrs (Business Development),
Speak 5 languages
I have given my GMAT and have scored a decent 690 with AWA Score of 5.5/6.0! I am really happy and satisfied with my score and would like to thank all the members of this forum for giving valuable and timely advice when in need. Today, I decided to contribute to this forum with a debrief of my GMAT preparation journey.
First of all, I am from a pure life sciences background and have never studied math after 12th grade! Even in my school days, my greatest weaknesses were Math and English!!! I simply used to hate both these subjects and never scored above 60% in these! But, unfortunately, the GMAT primarily tests the two areas that have been my greatest weaknesses right from my school days!
I prepared for 5 months for the GMAT, out of which I have done hardcore studying only in the last two months! Till date, I might have given around 12 mock tests, out of which 10 were GMATprep! I repeated both the GMATprep practice tests 5 times, and also the number of questions getting repeated increased each time! In my last mock attempt (scored 680), I got near about 15 questions that were repeats!
1 Princeton Review - Q33 / V10 - 380
2 GMATPrep ? ? - 450
3 GMATPrep ? ? - 550
4 GMATPrep - Q47 / V27 - 590
5 Kaplan GMAT - Q41 / V31 - 570
6 GMATPrep - Q44 / V34 - 640
7 GMATPrep - Q47 / V31 - 640
8 GMATPrep - Q47 / V32 - 650
9 GMATPrep - Q49 / V32 - 670
10 GMATPrep - Q48 / V32 - 650
11 GMATPrep - Q48 / V40 - 710
12 GMATPrep - Q49 / V34 - 680
But, trust me, this really worked out for me in a great way! When I was giving the real GMAT, I got a feel as if I were attempting a mock test again sitting at home, due to the identical structure and background colors of both the GMATprep and the real GMAT! Moreover, even when I scored only a 680 in GMATprep (just 2 days before the real deal!), I could score 690 in the real test! Also, I felt that the questions in the real test were no more difficult than those that appear in the GMATprep! So, all these factors boosted my confidence dramatically! People who attempt the GMATprep not more than twice, actually waste their valuable opportunities by fearing about seeing repeated questions again! And, as per my experience, GMATprep is the only mock test that can gauge your real ability most accurately! So, please do not hesitate to repeat these free mock tests and use them to the maximum possible extent!
Materials used by me -
1. IMS (theoretica Quants, theoretica verbal, octane series and class sheets) - Trust me, these are the best GMAT prep books you can ever get! I found these much better than even the famous Kaplan or Manhattan. Studying from these books only helped me out in boosting my Quants score dramatically - from 33 to 49!
2. Kaplan Advanced - I found this book just OK! It really didn't help me much actually. But found the answer explanations to be really good! But the book was really not upto what it claims - money back guarantee, if score doesn't improve by using this book! haha... good marketing strategy! But, being a marketing professional myself, I was really not impressed with this marketing gimmick!
3. OG/Official Guide aka GMAT BIBLE (Edition 11 - Quants, Verbal and Review; Edition 12 - only Review book) - The best books one can refer to, if one is interested in solving mainly the 'typical' GMAT type questions and in increasing familiarity with the 'real' GMAT content!
4. Sahil's grammar notes - I really owe a lot to this community for providing me this free grammar notes. It helped me dramatically increase my accuracy in solving SC questions.
I limited my preparation to only these above mentioned books, unlike many others who believe in referring to 6 - 10 different books! But, anyways, effectiveness in referring to these many number of books might differ from person to person, and in my case, I would have surely got confused and ended up jumbling the basics!
Finally, I would like to thank the BTG community again for mailing me daily the day-wise 60-day preparation plan.
"WITH ORDINARY TALENT AND EXTRAORDINARY PERSEVERANCE, ANY TARGET IS ATTAINABLE"...
All the best for your prep!
- Karthik Seshan
Background -
M/22, B.Tech Biotechnology,
Work experience - 1.7 yrs (Business Development),
Speak 5 languages
- Attachments
-
- GMAT-Progress-chart.xls
- My GMAT mock test score progress chart
- (47 KiB) Downloaded 386 times
Last edited by karthmba011 on Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:22 pm, edited 9 times in total.
