I just Beat The GMAT!

Took the test today and Got 760! I thought reading P G Wodehouse would enable me to express my exact thoughts better, but I am completely at loss for words. In fact, I looked at the score card at least four times during the journey back home to convince myself that I had indeed scored 760. Both relieved and happy! Will update the scores of AWA section soon....I hope I get more than 3 in that section as well....Before I forget, A Big Thank You is of the order to all friends at this wonderful forum. For the past two months, this was the most frequented site on my laptop. Resolutions to most of the questions that troubled me were found here, and for that, I must thank the GMAT instructors as well for their clear explanations!

Background:
27 yr old,Indian, Male, completed graduation (BE Electrical) in 2004. Worked for five years in a software company. Quit the job to prepare for CAT ( a national level aptitude test for admissions to IIMs; for many years, THE test to take). Currently working in a start-up firm.

Booked the dates for GMAT on 20 June and started the preparations for verbal section soon after.

Quant:
The GMAT test-makers scrupulously ensure that, as stated in the OG, the difficulty level won't exceed the elementary math level. No need to waste time doing too many difficult-to-understand problems. As another GMAT-beater put nicely, it's better to practise intensively rather than extensively. The tricky part in quant section is, of course DS, for which there really can't be a clear-cut strategy other than to be extremely suspicious and play a devil's advocate against each of the two statements. Needless to say, DS questions do take up a lot of time, and hence, it's important to practise all the short-cuts to the standard problems that you come across. PS problems won't be that challenging. I prepared for quant mainly from R.S. Aggarwal, a book that contains a LOT of simple-to-medium level problems. For algebra, a good online resource is https://www.purplemath.com/. And by the way, OG is a MUST. Its DS problems are not that simple and are appropriately tricky. Revise also all the questions that you come across in Manhattan tests. They are slightly on the tougher side but at the same time, they are really instructive. The explanations are also great.

Verbal:
While taking the test, I had to really rush through the last five questions. I was left with only five minutes to attempt five questions and my mind was in a complete mess. So the verbal score was a pleasant surprise.

RC: LSAT and OG passages for practice. I had prepared a small utility for myself that allowed me to view the passages and the questions in the same split-screen format as in GMAT. I didn't time myself in RC and instead focused more on accuracy.
SC: Manhattan Sentence Correction Guide. Excellent book. Try finishing the first reading at least a month before the actual test, as it takes time for the concepts to 'sink-in'. I initially started solving questions from old 1000 SC but properly shunned it and instead revised Manhattan guide again and again. As with DS, the problems in OG in this section were sometimes really nasty. Sentence correction is a vast topic and there is bound to be a question in the actual test which would seem too difficult for you. Your best bet then is to mentally go through all the checklist you'd prepare as you go through the Manhattan guide. As a non-native speaker, I was more troubled by questions involving idiom usage but realised that it would impossible for me to master all idioms in two months time.

CR: OG + OG Verbal + PowerScore bible + LSAT questions.

Test Performance:
GMAT TestPrep 1 (With little verbal and no math preparation; July first week): 710 (Q 48, V 38)

Manhattan CAT 1 (14 July): 700 (Q47, V 39)


Manhattan CAT 2 (25 July): 710 (Q48, V 38)


Manhattan CAT 3 (2 Aug): 690 (Q48, V 36) Bad.....Shouldn't have taken the test then...was just recovering from fever.


Manhattan CAT 4 (6 Aug): 680 (Q49, V 34) Really really bad day at office.

I couldn't take any more Manhattan tests as I was off to my native place where there was no internet connection.

GMAT TestPrep2 (21 Aug): 730 (Q 49, V 40) I found the quant in this test quite tough. Had to rush through the later questions.

Actual GMAT (25 Aug): 760 (Q 50, V 41). For the first time in seven tests I took overall, I finished quant five minutes before time (that too because of my tendency to triple-check my options) but had significant difficulties completing verbal section.

Thanks again!

Vipul

Great Score! Congrats!!

beatthegmatinsept wrote:Great Score! Congrats!!

Thanks mate!

nice score! what is the best way to prepare for Quant?

Congratulations!! Can you comment on relative difficulty levels of each section on the real test?

such a great score! congrats! Did you see alot of combination/permutation questions on the quant section?

kvcpk wrote:Congratulations!! Can you comment on relative difficulty levels of each section on the real test?

Thanks a ton Kvcpk! Quant is easy but tricky. As I said, it's the DS that makes this section time-consuming. Verbal was tough. But I really don't know whether I found the verbal tough because the problems were inherently difficult or because I was beginning to drain out. I hope these were the sections you were talking about.

mustbeatgmat wrote:such a great score! congrats! Did you see alot of combination/permutation questions on the quant section?

Thanks mate... Even if they do appear, I don't think they would be based on some advanced topic like groupings-distribution or combination with repetition. Also, GMAT must be having a large database of questions, so they can put difficult questions from any topic.

Great job. That's a fantastic score!

kal750gmat wrote:Great job. That's a fantastic score!

Thanks!

thank you!

Congrates! Would you mind sharing RC utility?

anilsdomain2003 wrote:Congrates! Would you mind sharing RC utility?

Sure...I am not in town right now...I'll do so once I get back home in a few days...But it's a rather crude app...

RC: LSAT and OG passages for practice. I had prepared a small utility for myself that allowed me to view the passages and the questions in the same split-screen format as in GMAT. I didn't time myself in RC and instead focused more on accuracy.

Could you share your strategy about RC? What strategy did you follow ? Did you have issue with any specific type of RC for xample science, social science , business , etc.

GMATMadeEasy wrote:RC: LSAT and OG passages for practice. I had prepared a small utility for myself that allowed me to view the passages and the questions in the same split-screen format as in GMAT. I didn't time myself in RC and instead focused more on accuracy.

Could you share your strategy about RC? What strategy did you follow ? Did you have issue with any specific type of RC for xample science, social science , business , etc.

I didn't really follow any strategy. In fact I decided that I would go for accuracy more than speed. I remember spending valuable two-three minutes on an RC question in the actual test. I desperately wanted to mark some option and move ahead but just couldn't muster enough courage. I would say, calculate the time taken to just read some RC's (without doing the questions). You'll be perhaps surprised to find that in most cases it's less than three minutes even with a careful reading. Also, I always believe that, we as test-takers are at an advantage because we are not required to know anything beyond the passage. In fact, I have made more errors in some science passages when I was knowing the topic beforehand. It's the questions that sometimes make a passage tough. Personally, I had some problems with scientific passages but I just slowed down the reading speed in such cases.
I'll upload the utility as soon as I get back home in a few days.