-
aditya.kapur
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2013 10:16 am
- Thanked: 4 times
My first GMAT experience didn't live up to my expectations. After 3 months of dedicated study i scored a miserable 690 (Q50, V33). Clearly i underestimated the verbal section.
I got back and immediately registered for the next available date (5 weeks away). I never got disappointed with my score. i looked at this as an opportunity to improve my verbal score and started work right away.
I reside in New Delhi, India. I spoke to people at Princeton review and Kaplan GMAt training. I visited 4 centres and realised it was too late to take their help. These guys are good at providing overall help. but i needed verbal centric help, especially sentence correction. I thought i'll look for online courses because i also needed new practice material (I'd exhausted all the OGs, OF Prep software questions, Kaplans, Manhattans, Veritas question bank, 800 score tests, etc)
After reading online reviews, i registered for Knewton test prep. I read a lot of reviews. I didn't register for manhattan because i had already purchased the verbal strategy books, which meant i won't get access to any new CATs. It came down to Veritas vs Knewton. I chose knewton because it had good reviews and they had a money back guarantee as well.
I spent the next 4-5 days going through the manhattan sentence correction guide. I went point by point and made my own notes. While doing so, i realised how lightly i had treated sentence correction the first time. Although english is my second language, it has always been the language of instruction. So my ear is attuned to english. I took advantage of this fact in my first attempt. I went through the sentence correction guide rigourously. i made my own notes and these notes were the key to my success.
After this i went through all 13 verbal lessons on knewton.com. These lessons are nowhere close to manhattan guide books as the guidebooks are very details! But these lessons helped me refine my strategy. i realised how important it is to understand RC passages first time round. They also have excellent tips on how to avoid wrong answer types. I started realising the typical traps of GMAt answer choices.
In the final weeks of my prep i focused on tests from Knewton, Kaplan, Veritas and Manhattan. I focused more on questions which i got wrong. I didn't focus on the score at all (None of these are as accurate as GMAT prep). This really helped my realise mistakes i was making. In the last week these were my scores:
Veritas: 760 (Q50, V44)
Kaplan: 750 (Q51, V41)
Princeton Review: 750 (Q51, V42)
Knewton GMATs: scored 720 - 760 in all
GMAT Prep 1: 750 (Q50, V41)
GMAT Prep 2: 760 (Q50, V42)
GMAT Prep 3: 760 (Q50, V42) (purchased from mba.com)
GMAT Prep 1: 760 (Q49, V45) (purchased from mba.com)
EXAM DAY: As i had chosen a 1 pm slot, i got up late around 10 am after a good 8 hour sleep. I was feeling very confident on test day.
AWA: Went of really well. I never really practiced after the first attempt. Finished with 3 minutes in hand
IR: I wasn't very worried about IR because is scored a score of 8 last time. Although IR started strong, i fumbled in the middle when the first multi source reasoning question came up. This is the only question type i fear. Anyway i thought i'll power through it and just get it over with. I was really happy will the 10th question when i got another multi source table with 3 questions. I was just taken back. I also had only 4 mins 30 secs remaining. i decided i'll guess the first one and then calm myself. went through the table and passage properly and then answered the last 2 questions correctly.
Break 1: This time i carried 2 red bulls with me. And these really helped. I was hopped up on caffeine and very active mentally. Went to the loo, had half a redbull and just centered myself for quant.
Quant: Quant started of with a very simple question but i just couldn't solve it! I formed the equation but both times i wasn't getting the right value. I changed my strategy and went through the answer choices instead. Even though i got this question right, i wasted 4 minutes here. And the next question too was tougher than i expected. I somehow didn't let this affect my speed (i usually answer quant questions in less than 1 minute and have about 15 mins left at the end). As the questions progressed, i picked up pace again and was in control again. But this time i fumbled on a lot of questions. i found the quant section significantly tougher. The last 2-3 questions weren't that tought and i thought i'd tanked.
Break 2: I was very disappointed! i thought i'll score 47/48 on quant. I told myself it doesn't matter. What's done is done. time to look ahead. I'd spent the last 5 weeks on verbal and i told myself to just focus now. I was going to kill it!
Verbal: From go verbal was a breeze. I didn't struggle with a single RC or SC questions. My problem point has always been CR. I can never improve my skills beyond a point. So i knew that i need to spend extra time with CR questions and i will have to guess some CR questions. Finished the section with 6 minutes in hand.
Once i selected report my score i was just praying i at least get a 720! i knew verbal was my savior. and then BAM - 750! Q50, V42. A perfectly balanced score. I was just elated!
Some tips i think will help everyone:
1. When practicing questions, always practice in sets of 37 for quant and 41 for verbal and time yourself (75 minutes/set). This is the only thing which will make you excel at time management. you might end up getting more questions wrong because you will restrict yourself to the time limit in practice but remember time management is as important as getting the question right.
2. For verbal first go through all the manhattan guide books first. The critical reasoning and sentence correction books are particularly good.
3. Please focus on all aspects of the test. You'll notice that a lot of practice material will focus on the tougher areas in quant (modulus, inequalities, probability, etc). However, the GMAT will test you on everything in equal proportion. so if you're not good at one or two topics (like I suck at probability and triangles) it's alright. the GMAT tests all round performance.
4. Error Log: I never maintained an error log as such but its very important to go through your mistakes after every test/practice sessions. you must go through mistakes right after and make sure you understand why you made the mistake. Do this from the very beginning.
5. The GMAT rewards people who master the format. so earmark the last week (at least) for tests. this will help in 2 ways
a. You will get used to the format of the test. do not skip the AWA and IR in practice in the last week. remember the GMAT is also a test of endurance
b. You will start recognizing patterns. The GMAT scores are valid for 5 years. so they cannot change the format of the tests. Each topics (eg: parallelism, percentages, etc) are tests in 4-5 ways. when you are doing tests you will start recognizing the patterns. this will ensure that on test day you know how to approach the question.
I got back and immediately registered for the next available date (5 weeks away). I never got disappointed with my score. i looked at this as an opportunity to improve my verbal score and started work right away.
I reside in New Delhi, India. I spoke to people at Princeton review and Kaplan GMAt training. I visited 4 centres and realised it was too late to take their help. These guys are good at providing overall help. but i needed verbal centric help, especially sentence correction. I thought i'll look for online courses because i also needed new practice material (I'd exhausted all the OGs, OF Prep software questions, Kaplans, Manhattans, Veritas question bank, 800 score tests, etc)
After reading online reviews, i registered for Knewton test prep. I read a lot of reviews. I didn't register for manhattan because i had already purchased the verbal strategy books, which meant i won't get access to any new CATs. It came down to Veritas vs Knewton. I chose knewton because it had good reviews and they had a money back guarantee as well.
I spent the next 4-5 days going through the manhattan sentence correction guide. I went point by point and made my own notes. While doing so, i realised how lightly i had treated sentence correction the first time. Although english is my second language, it has always been the language of instruction. So my ear is attuned to english. I took advantage of this fact in my first attempt. I went through the sentence correction guide rigourously. i made my own notes and these notes were the key to my success.
After this i went through all 13 verbal lessons on knewton.com. These lessons are nowhere close to manhattan guide books as the guidebooks are very details! But these lessons helped me refine my strategy. i realised how important it is to understand RC passages first time round. They also have excellent tips on how to avoid wrong answer types. I started realising the typical traps of GMAt answer choices.
In the final weeks of my prep i focused on tests from Knewton, Kaplan, Veritas and Manhattan. I focused more on questions which i got wrong. I didn't focus on the score at all (None of these are as accurate as GMAT prep). This really helped my realise mistakes i was making. In the last week these were my scores:
Veritas: 760 (Q50, V44)
Kaplan: 750 (Q51, V41)
Princeton Review: 750 (Q51, V42)
Knewton GMATs: scored 720 - 760 in all
GMAT Prep 1: 750 (Q50, V41)
GMAT Prep 2: 760 (Q50, V42)
GMAT Prep 3: 760 (Q50, V42) (purchased from mba.com)
GMAT Prep 1: 760 (Q49, V45) (purchased from mba.com)
EXAM DAY: As i had chosen a 1 pm slot, i got up late around 10 am after a good 8 hour sleep. I was feeling very confident on test day.
AWA: Went of really well. I never really practiced after the first attempt. Finished with 3 minutes in hand
IR: I wasn't very worried about IR because is scored a score of 8 last time. Although IR started strong, i fumbled in the middle when the first multi source reasoning question came up. This is the only question type i fear. Anyway i thought i'll power through it and just get it over with. I was really happy will the 10th question when i got another multi source table with 3 questions. I was just taken back. I also had only 4 mins 30 secs remaining. i decided i'll guess the first one and then calm myself. went through the table and passage properly and then answered the last 2 questions correctly.
Break 1: This time i carried 2 red bulls with me. And these really helped. I was hopped up on caffeine and very active mentally. Went to the loo, had half a redbull and just centered myself for quant.
Quant: Quant started of with a very simple question but i just couldn't solve it! I formed the equation but both times i wasn't getting the right value. I changed my strategy and went through the answer choices instead. Even though i got this question right, i wasted 4 minutes here. And the next question too was tougher than i expected. I somehow didn't let this affect my speed (i usually answer quant questions in less than 1 minute and have about 15 mins left at the end). As the questions progressed, i picked up pace again and was in control again. But this time i fumbled on a lot of questions. i found the quant section significantly tougher. The last 2-3 questions weren't that tought and i thought i'd tanked.
Break 2: I was very disappointed! i thought i'll score 47/48 on quant. I told myself it doesn't matter. What's done is done. time to look ahead. I'd spent the last 5 weeks on verbal and i told myself to just focus now. I was going to kill it!
Verbal: From go verbal was a breeze. I didn't struggle with a single RC or SC questions. My problem point has always been CR. I can never improve my skills beyond a point. So i knew that i need to spend extra time with CR questions and i will have to guess some CR questions. Finished the section with 6 minutes in hand.
Once i selected report my score i was just praying i at least get a 720! i knew verbal was my savior. and then BAM - 750! Q50, V42. A perfectly balanced score. I was just elated!
Some tips i think will help everyone:
1. When practicing questions, always practice in sets of 37 for quant and 41 for verbal and time yourself (75 minutes/set). This is the only thing which will make you excel at time management. you might end up getting more questions wrong because you will restrict yourself to the time limit in practice but remember time management is as important as getting the question right.
2. For verbal first go through all the manhattan guide books first. The critical reasoning and sentence correction books are particularly good.
3. Please focus on all aspects of the test. You'll notice that a lot of practice material will focus on the tougher areas in quant (modulus, inequalities, probability, etc). However, the GMAT will test you on everything in equal proportion. so if you're not good at one or two topics (like I suck at probability and triangles) it's alright. the GMAT tests all round performance.
4. Error Log: I never maintained an error log as such but its very important to go through your mistakes after every test/practice sessions. you must go through mistakes right after and make sure you understand why you made the mistake. Do this from the very beginning.
5. The GMAT rewards people who master the format. so earmark the last week (at least) for tests. this will help in 2 ways
a. You will get used to the format of the test. do not skip the AWA and IR in practice in the last week. remember the GMAT is also a test of endurance
b. You will start recognizing patterns. The GMAT scores are valid for 5 years. so they cannot change the format of the tests. Each topics (eg: parallelism, percentages, etc) are tests in 4-5 ways. when you are doing tests you will start recognizing the patterns. this will ensure that on test day you know how to approach the question.
