I am a little shaken!

God loves you kevin.... I came back to the forum and read what Ihad written to you, I couldnt believe I wrote that. It was so personal, something that I normally wouldnt write in a public forum, and while a lot of people have written to me about how inspiring the story was, I never felt the need to write what I have written to you.

It almost felt like I couldnt stop, I felt the need to write that message. I wasnt kidding when I told you, that god has come to me in many forms. I believe that if you have an open mind and heart, he comes to you whenever you need him, and tells you what you need to hear to move forward. It coudl be in the form of a colleague in the office, a child in the temple, or just somone in the forum feeling the need to write a reply to you ....

I do believe it is a sign, and that he believes in you, and is just telling you to get focused, put in your effort in whatever you are tryign to achieve in life, and leave the rest to him, everything will fall into place.

I feel thankful that you wrote to me/read my blog, god works in mysterious ways. Now wouldnt it be interesting if all the hard work I put in, the 720 I got, the blog I wrote, was all just a part of some big plan that he has, to ensure you stumbled upon it, and read it . In that case I guess all I can say is THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Take care, and wish you all the best, needless to say if you need anything anytime, please feel free to ask me.
-ngufo

Fantastic thread! and wonderful achievement!

Congratulations!

ngofu, your story is of courage and great inspiration. I started my GMAT prep last friday 2/1. I am very rusty aat math too. So I plan to spend the first 3- 4 weeks of my prep getting my math basic right. I'm using the Kaplan Math work book for my quant review, though you used the Princeton, and i think you also used the kaplan math review at a time, my question is do you think kaplan is a good start for math, or should i use the priceton. You have a first hand experience. I have not done any diagnostic test yet, i plan to do that after getting my maths basic together. I think I have most of the resource suggested here, but I want to start right by that i mean starting my prep with the right stuff and to make sure i'm on the right track.

Any further suggestions.

Hi,
thanks a bunch - really appreciate you saying that. When I started out, i was terrible at maths, so I picked the book that I thought explained all teh fundamentals/concepts the easiest. Princeton did that for me. I do remember that princeton shared teh concepts of data sufficiency much much better than kaplan. At the end of the day, as long as you are understanding all the fundamentals clearly I dont think it matters which book you use. However if you are rusty, I would suggest doing as many questions as possible - (thats why I did Princeton, kaplan, and OG (all three books from each - maths, verbal and the main guide). Gave me much needed practise... (Do the OG at the end, as that is the closest to what come on the actual GMAT, and you want the moemntum going at the end).

If you dont have the princeton data sufficiency chapter, I attached it to one of the emails in this post. It should be on page 1 to someone call imfatt. Please download rthat - the data sufficieny concept explained there really helped me get going .....

What I also noticed was that Princeton/GMAT prep tests (1,2) Power Prep tests 1,2 are teh closest that you will come to getting scores similar to what you should expect in the final test. I did the GMAT prep test 1 to see wehre I was. Its a golden test, very valuable for you to write right before the exam also. I wished I hadnt written it earlier, as I remembered a few answers, adn wasnt sure if what I got, reflected my true capability. Try the Princeton test 1 for your diagnostic. You will know where you stand, plus you will not have used up an important test....

do make flash cards, and work on your timing by writign teh time when you start one question on the paper, adn then writing the tiem again before you start the other, tells you precisely how much time you used up - in GMAT approximation in time can be an expensive penalty . By doing this I was able to get a feel of how far ahead/back I wsas and time myself on the other questions appropriately. No matter what dont leavce any questions, even if you have to randomly guess.

another thing I learned in time is that if you have a very tough question, dont waste too muh time on it, make a best guess and move forward. Worst thing is that you spend ample time adn then get it wrong, brings your entire score down.

Wish you all the very best - I do believe that you if you first analyse your weaknesses, see where you stand, and then create a study plan to hit on those spots, and work hard on it, there is no way you wont ace it - (god helps those who help themselves), he absolutely pitches in at the end, to give you a small push across the finishing line

Looking forward to hearing yoru success story, please feel free to ask me any question any time
-ngufo

one of my weakness is vocab..
words that aren't so familiar makes me to stumble when solving CR or RC under pressure and timing. i found that there are about 1500 words that are often used in GMAT. did you study those vocabs, or you just concentrated more on tackling the test set in simulated condition?

kevin

Hi there kevin,
I posted a reply to you a day back, its a few threads back - do read it, it was in response to your previous email .....

I didnt specifically work on improving my vocab separately kevin. Waht I woudl do is, when I come across a word that i dont understand, I would try to get an idea of what it means based on the context of the sentence, and then try my best to answer it. Also once the test was over would make a flash card with the word adn its meaning, so that I keep revising it and next time it comes, it is familiar...

Also it helps if you start reading articless in cnn, wall street, one every day, and make sure that you can summarize the content of the article you read. Helped get me more focused. It was hard for me at first, but after a while got easier. Also I learnt that focus on the first para, and the last para, they provide you with the main outline to the whole paragraph. The body just has details for certain aspects .... (I tried to keep track of what the main flow of the para was)..

Finally just a lot of practise. Verbal was never my strongest. Even though I practised like crazy, I barely made a 40 in the same....

I have a strong belief (cant explain why), that you are going to nail this test - just continue with the focus and the hard work...

Take care,
-ngufo

are you kidding me? 40 is my dream score in verbal..
thank you for your answer and belief..i'll take it as good sign.

kevin

Hi ngufo,

My Verbal scores are still very low 15 -20 ...I'm planning to entirely focus on Verbal.Whenever I give the Full Length Practice Test I find I take me whole day to solve and do detail analysis of all the questions.
At this point I have decided not to give any of the Practice Test till I get enough confidence on Verbal....
Let me know in case you have any comments/suggestions at this point....
Thanks,
Ajay

Hi Ajay,
Your persistence and hard work inspires me. You have the guts and the determination, you are putting the hard work, I know that you will improve and do a great job in time. It took me 6 months too

Which areas in verbal are you having a problem. Is there a specific area?

-ngufo

Hi ngufo,

Great to read ur post. Well i have just started preparing for GMAT and i am also an average guy and came through long way uptil now in my life. What u had said uptil now about urslef applies to me too i.e Worst in maths and Verbal. I always counted myself as a hard worker. Lets see what happens in future. Right now i dont have any question for u however may be soon I will ask u few questions too.


Best Luck for admission

Hey there enjoystar,
Just keep at it - I've realized in life that hard work is all that counts, + having an idea of your weaknesses, and working on them to get stronger in those areas.When I started out, I was so bad in maths, its unbelievable. Just read all teh concepts and did lots and lots of questions. Same with verbal. In time I hve gotton better. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions - it willb e a pleasure to help!

take care,
-ngufo

Hi ngufo,
My weak areas are RC and CR we have discussed on my earlier mails.My question is at this point of time should I drop Full Lengths Test for some days till I get enough confidence on Verbal ?
Thanks,
Ajay

ngufo wrote:Hi Ajay,
Your persistence and hard work inspires me. You have the guts and the determination, you are putting the hard work, I know that you will improve and do a great job in time. It took me 6 months too

Which areas in verbal are you having a problem. Is there a specific area?

-ngufo

ngufo wrote:Hey there enjoystar,
Just keep at it - I've realized in life that hard work is all that counts, + having an idea of your weaknesses, and working on them to get stronger in those areas.When I started out, I was so bad in maths, its unbelievable. Just read all teh concepts and did lots and lots of questions. Same with verbal. In time I hve gotton better. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions - it willb e a pleasure to help!

take care,
-ngufo

Hi ngufo,

Please answer following 4 queries of mine:

1) As i am weak in Maths i have started preparing Maths from R.S Aggrawal (I am sure u must be knowing this book for quant). My plan is before going for any GMAT book make myself good in the quant topics from R.S aggarwal and then start with Kaplan or OG11. I know my plan is time consuming however please comment on it.

2) In one of the post you have mentioned that you studied every day from 5 to 7 may I know u studied in evening 5 pm or morning 5 am.

3) I can study word problems from the resources I have, however i dont understand from where to study Numbers or algebra questions?

4) One of my alternative plan was to directly start with OG11 instead of using any other books and practice each and every problem by looking at their solutions and practice the same problem again and again. I mentioned to look at the solution of the problems because I know i wont be able to solve the OG problems without studying from other books like R.S aggarwal or Kaplan. may I know ur opinion on this.

Hi enjoystar,
Sorry for the delay in answering back. I was out of the country travelling for a week on some office work, and didnt get a chance to check my mail.

<<1>>

That sounds very good. Thats exactly what I did too - I was really really weak in both maths adn verbal. I used the Princeton maths, to brush up on all my basics. I unfortunately dont know about the RS Aggarwal book, but as long as it helps you brush up on your basics adn feel more confident, its doing its job!! Once the basics are solid, then moving on to Kaplan and OG is a good idea. Itr will give you a lot of practise too.

I would sincerely suggest goign thru the Princeton maths chapter on Data Sufficiency. Its very well explained, and really hleped me get my basics strong. I uploaded the chapter in the GMAT post I had written to a response to a user call imfatt. You can download it from there. I aslso have a soft copy of the whole book. In case you need it let me know which email address to forward it to you on?

<<2>>

For the first months of my study I would study eveyr day from 5-7 in the evening after office. However when I got to the Official guide, it had so many questions, plus to build up stamina I did 20 questions of (RC, SC, CR) each, and then 20 questrions of quant (from DS/Problem solving) respectively every day. Doing these 100 questions every day was very time consuming and energy draining, hence doing it in the evening didnt work for me - was too tired at that time. For that I would do it every morning from 5-8. This really helped me build my stamina up and keep the momentum going to the days of the exam.

<<3>>

I used the princeton maths, and for specifica areas of weaknesses, I would google for the same and see the explanations and learn. Plus as and when you do a lot of practise problems you start getting a hang of how to answer the tough questions. if you are extremely weak in some area, then using the high school books may be useful - I just didnt know where to lay my hands on the same, and hence used google.

<<4>>

I really think what you mentioned earlier is better than going to OG directly specially if you are weak in certain areas. I used OG as the final frontier. The final boulder to over come. I had practised a lot from Princeton, Kaplan, and OG for me was to start honing/sharpening my skills even further. Its very important to understand/learn every question in OG specially the one you get wrong, but I think your approach of first getting comy with the maths/verbal by practicing other books, and then using Official Guide, might pay better dividends to you.

Do make sure you revise all the questiosn specially the ones you did wrong, and please do make flash cards, for the maths difficult questions, formulate that you tend to forget, and also for the Sentence correction questiosn that you get wrong. This will really help you as you cotinue with the studies, as just revising the flash cards once a week, will keep you refreshed, with all the tough questions/questions that you previously got wrong.

Hope this helps. Wish you all the best,
Take care,
-ngufo

ngufo wrote:Hi enjoystar,
Sorry for the delay in answering back. I was out of the country travelling for a week on some office work, and didnt get a chance to check my mail.

<<1>>

That sounds very good. Thats exactly what I did too - I was really really weak in both maths adn verbal. I used the Princeton maths, to brush up on all my basics. I unfortunately dont know about the RS Aggarwal book, but as long as it helps you brush up on your basics adn feel more confident, its doing its job!! Once the basics are solid, then moving on to Kaplan and OG is a good idea. Itr will give you a lot of practise too.

I would sincerely suggest goign thru the Princeton maths chapter on Data Sufficiency. Its very well explained, and really hleped me get my basics strong. I uploaded the chapter in the GMAT post I had written to a response to a user call imfatt. You can download it from there. I aslso have a soft copy of the whole book. In case you need it let me know which email address to forward it to you on?

Hope this helps. Wish you all the best,
Take care,
-ngufo

Hi ngufo,

- If i am going to get my queries solved with details explanation then i am ready for such delays in ur answers .

- Yes I have updated my email Id in my profile pls forward the complete soft copy.

- I will follow ur advice to make my basics clear from the books before starting OG11.

- I have already downloaded the DS chapter which u have uploaded .

- Today started with MGMAT SC spend most of the time in reading Wren and martin book for Verb tenses. At this moment I am happy i read that book as my basic were cleared little bit.

Please answer the following queries:
1) Well I have got one habit of making notes of the topics which i study. I know its time consuming but it works for me.
Did u ever made any notes while studying. By notes i dont mean Flash cards.

2) Did u studied any wordlist for preparing Verbal section???

Ur advice definitely Helps

Thanks and regards.