I beat the GMAT on my fifth attempt - 720 (Q49, V39)
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somsubhra86
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Hi there,
I just happen to read your debrief and should say it mirrors my current preparation experience. Your experience and analysis are very much true and valid. During the past 8 months of my preparation, I never scored more than 530 in my GMAT prep practice test.
I'm very confident that something other than the knowledge/practice is stopping me to achieve my current score level of 600+.
I spent more time on practice but results were still the same. I kept thinking about this situation for many days and finally realised that I lose focus, energy/stamina and concentration while answering verbal questions. In addition, I have urge to finish the exam and get over with it.
Last week I took the GMAT PREP practice test and scored 570. Though it is not the desired score but at least my new approach is showing some improvement.
What I did?
I didn't rush to finish Quant side
I read the verbal questions carefully and slowly.
I didn't panic or consider the time constraint.
What I learnt?
Need to improve mental alertness during verbal test.
Improve focus and discipline
Strengthen CR & SC knowledge
Definitely need to take 5 minutes break before verbal and do some mind relaxation.
From the start of my preparation, I planned not to take REAL GMAT until I score 670+ in GMAT prep practice test. With that note, I will continue my preparation.
Ta
I just happen to read your debrief and should say it mirrors my current preparation experience. Your experience and analysis are very much true and valid. During the past 8 months of my preparation, I never scored more than 530 in my GMAT prep practice test.
I'm very confident that something other than the knowledge/practice is stopping me to achieve my current score level of 600+.
I spent more time on practice but results were still the same. I kept thinking about this situation for many days and finally realised that I lose focus, energy/stamina and concentration while answering verbal questions. In addition, I have urge to finish the exam and get over with it.
Last week I took the GMAT PREP practice test and scored 570. Though it is not the desired score but at least my new approach is showing some improvement.
What I did?
I didn't rush to finish Quant side
I read the verbal questions carefully and slowly.
I didn't panic or consider the time constraint.
What I learnt?
Need to improve mental alertness during verbal test.
Improve focus and discipline
Strengthen CR & SC knowledge
Definitely need to take 5 minutes break before verbal and do some mind relaxation.
From the start of my preparation, I planned not to take REAL GMAT until I score 670+ in GMAT prep practice test. With that note, I will continue my preparation.
Ta
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Elad@Ready4GMAT
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Hi All,
Thank you all for your kind words. I appreciate it. I got so many private messages about Irene and few questions about my Quant and CR strategies. I have an interview today so I promise to post another debrief later.
Just one note - Irene is placed in the middle east and currently won't be available for the next months since, as I wrote, she is travelling in Africa in places that have limited ways of communications.
Just take into account that she is not a magician and you'll still need to work hard. After my 4th exam, I studied another 2 months with her and she provides her own course material. Obviously I cannot provide it so don't ask me that (it's the same as distributing Manhattangmat or Knewton course material).
Promise to write later,
eladshush
Thank you all for your kind words. I appreciate it. I got so many private messages about Irene and few questions about my Quant and CR strategies. I have an interview today so I promise to post another debrief later.
Just one note - Irene is placed in the middle east and currently won't be available for the next months since, as I wrote, she is travelling in Africa in places that have limited ways of communications.
Just take into account that she is not a magician and you'll still need to work hard. After my 4th exam, I studied another 2 months with her and she provides her own course material. Obviously I cannot provide it so don't ask me that (it's the same as distributing Manhattangmat or Knewton course material).
Promise to write later,
eladshush
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Elad@Ready4GMAT
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Hi All,
Not long time ago, I got back from my interview to Ross, which went pretty good. So thank you for your support and kind wishes.
I got so many questions in private. Most of them are similar, so I figured out it will be easier to write another post so that the rest can benefit (and I will save a lot of time).
So let's start:
Quant strategies:
Many of you questioned me about my quant strategies. Frankly speaking, I never had problem with the Quant section and my scores ranged between 48 and 51 (in practice tests and the real GMATs). Please read my response to fareenj. But in short - I have good tips that I recommended some of my friends which worked well for them:
I usually finished Quant about 5 min before the time so I don't have insights here apart from practice a lot to be able solve every question in every level. The quant concepts, for me, were the easiest to master (either you solved the question correctly or not).
RC
I got many questions regarding my RC strategy. Here it goes. As soon as you get RC question, you write down the following table with number of rows equal to the number of paragraphs.
In the structure cell you write few words that describe the structure of the idea presented in the first 1-2 sentences (such as: point of view, a discovery, general idea, an experiment results, etc) and in the keyword cell you fill all the keywords from that paragraph (dates, names, etc). Then, skim the rest of the paragraph and find transition words that point to important ideas (such as: another experiment, a counter premise, exception to the experiment results, contradiction to common beliefs, etc). You do that for each paragraphs. At the end, review quickly the table and make sure to understand the theme of the passage in general .
DETAILS ARE NOT IMPORTANT at this point!! Don't waste your time trying to remember. This approach is very hard to master, because you feel you don't understand the passage at all when you start to answer the questions, but believe me, it is working. When you see a general questions - such as main point, author p.o.v, paragraph function, etc - use the table to answer the question. For specific questions - identify the relevant passage (sometimes you need to use your common sense to locate the passage, it won't be so easy, but with practice you'll get better), read it through and answer the question.
As for extra reading material - I forced myself to read on daily basis at least 1 hour the nytimes, the economist, and science news. I downloaded these applications to my iPhone and just read in the morning and before I went to sleep.
Irene contact details
As for Irene - since I got MANY private requests for her details (more than 50 requests
), I will send her an email and ask if I can publish her contact information and see if she is OK with that. Either way, she is travelling right now in Africa and have limited access to means of communications (and in general she is very busy tutor) so don't expect to have a lesson tomorrow. It will take some time to get in touch with her.
Error log
I didn't really use one, but I reviewed once every week my mistakes from the last week.
CR
I read PowerScore CR bible. It helped me to realize the types of questions and the types of errors I need to expect on the test day. Here I've noticed something that Ron Puerel talked about - the more I tried to formalized the process of answering those questions, the more I answered questions incorrectly. I was so obssessed with decomposing the argument to elements (premise, conclusion, transition words) that it affected my understanding of what I am reading. So, I formed my own approach that worked perfectly for me (I barely made CR mistakes) - I read the question stem first, understanding the question type. Then, I read the argument slowly and after each sentence I moved my eyes from the screen and paraphrasing it in my head. I didn't rush to the answers. Throughout the process I identified the conclusion and verified I understand it. Only after that, I read the answer choices and the answers usually was very obvious to me. In my opinion, good grip of the argument is 90% of the solution. During my preparation time, I used Ron study approach - whenever I answered CR question incorrectly, I dedicated significant time to write a parallel argument and answer choices with the same logic (but with different elements and topics). It really helped me to take my CR understanding to the next level.
Q&A (to some of your questions)
Vidhya16 - what was the breakdown of your score? I also thinks mastering the concepts and answering correctly the questions is important before taking the real GMAT.
Vin - as for my SC learning style, I solved SCs in batches of 10 questions, and then went over each question and analyzed it thoroughly. I wrote detailed solution to each answer choice (errors tested, what I notice and what I didn't, whether there was a faster way to solve the question). I tried to repeat what I originally thought when solving the question and understand how I could have done it better or what I did wrong.
Hope it helps! Promise to post following Irene's reply.
eladshush
Not long time ago, I got back from my interview to Ross, which went pretty good. So thank you for your support and kind wishes.
I got so many questions in private. Most of them are similar, so I figured out it will be easier to write another post so that the rest can benefit (and I will save a lot of time).
So let's start:
Quant strategies:
Many of you questioned me about my quant strategies. Frankly speaking, I never had problem with the Quant section and my scores ranged between 48 and 51 (in practice tests and the real GMATs). Please read my response to fareenj. But in short - I have good tips that I recommended some of my friends which worked well for them:
- 1. Register to GMATClub and become a follower of their Quantitative famous moderator - Bunuel - who consistently answers about 5-15 questions a day, providing detailed explanations.
- 2. Next, Check bunuel name signature that has links to summaries of many topics in Quant. I think it's the best Quant material you can find - fully detailed, with examples, and it provides many math shortcuts to solve questions, the kind of tricks the GMAT is looking for.
- 3. Also, GMAT Club provides 25-30 Quant tests, the hardest I've found. Worth every penny.
I usually finished Quant about 5 min before the time so I don't have insights here apart from practice a lot to be able solve every question in every level. The quant concepts, for me, were the easiest to master (either you solved the question correctly or not).
RC
I got many questions regarding my RC strategy. Here it goes. As soon as you get RC question, you write down the following table with number of rows equal to the number of paragraphs.
In the structure cell you write few words that describe the structure of the idea presented in the first 1-2 sentences (such as: point of view, a discovery, general idea, an experiment results, etc) and in the keyword cell you fill all the keywords from that paragraph (dates, names, etc). Then, skim the rest of the paragraph and find transition words that point to important ideas (such as: another experiment, a counter premise, exception to the experiment results, contradiction to common beliefs, etc). You do that for each paragraphs. At the end, review quickly the table and make sure to understand the theme of the passage in general .
DETAILS ARE NOT IMPORTANT at this point!! Don't waste your time trying to remember. This approach is very hard to master, because you feel you don't understand the passage at all when you start to answer the questions, but believe me, it is working. When you see a general questions - such as main point, author p.o.v, paragraph function, etc - use the table to answer the question. For specific questions - identify the relevant passage (sometimes you need to use your common sense to locate the passage, it won't be so easy, but with practice you'll get better), read it through and answer the question.
As for extra reading material - I forced myself to read on daily basis at least 1 hour the nytimes, the economist, and science news. I downloaded these applications to my iPhone and just read in the morning and before I went to sleep.
Irene contact details
As for Irene - since I got MANY private requests for her details (more than 50 requests
), I will send her an email and ask if I can publish her contact information and see if she is OK with that. Either way, she is travelling right now in Africa and have limited access to means of communications (and in general she is very busy tutor) so don't expect to have a lesson tomorrow. It will take some time to get in touch with her.Error log
I didn't really use one, but I reviewed once every week my mistakes from the last week.
CR
I read PowerScore CR bible. It helped me to realize the types of questions and the types of errors I need to expect on the test day. Here I've noticed something that Ron Puerel talked about - the more I tried to formalized the process of answering those questions, the more I answered questions incorrectly. I was so obssessed with decomposing the argument to elements (premise, conclusion, transition words) that it affected my understanding of what I am reading. So, I formed my own approach that worked perfectly for me (I barely made CR mistakes) - I read the question stem first, understanding the question type. Then, I read the argument slowly and after each sentence I moved my eyes from the screen and paraphrasing it in my head. I didn't rush to the answers. Throughout the process I identified the conclusion and verified I understand it. Only after that, I read the answer choices and the answers usually was very obvious to me. In my opinion, good grip of the argument is 90% of the solution. During my preparation time, I used Ron study approach - whenever I answered CR question incorrectly, I dedicated significant time to write a parallel argument and answer choices with the same logic (but with different elements and topics). It really helped me to take my CR understanding to the next level.
Q&A (to some of your questions)
Vidhya16 - what was the breakdown of your score? I also thinks mastering the concepts and answering correctly the questions is important before taking the real GMAT.
Vin - as for my SC learning style, I solved SCs in batches of 10 questions, and then went over each question and analyzed it thoroughly. I wrote detailed solution to each answer choice (errors tested, what I notice and what I didn't, whether there was a faster way to solve the question). I tried to repeat what I originally thought when solving the question and understand how I could have done it better or what I did wrong.
Hope it helps! Promise to post following Irene's reply.
eladshush
Hi eladshush,
Thank you for your detail posting.
Would you please let me know how do you practice questions (for example how many PS, DS, RC, SC, CR per time)? After how many days you do a test like a real test and from what source?
Thank you, dude.
Phuoc
Thank you for your detail posting.
Would you please let me know how do you practice questions (for example how many PS, DS, RC, SC, CR per time)? After how many days you do a test like a real test and from what source?
Thank you, dude.
Phuoc
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Elad@Ready4GMAT
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Hi all,
My private tutor, Irene, has approved to post her contact info.
So, here is her email: Irene [email protected]
As I know, she is charging by the hour.
eladshush
My private tutor, Irene, has approved to post her contact info.
So, here is her email: Irene [email protected]
As I know, she is charging by the hour.
eladshush
Congrats!!! Thanks so much for this de-brief. I am in the same situation as you were, so this really helps! Thank you for also shedding light on the fact that the real GMAT is different from practice questions! (I, too, have noticed a trend in answering practice verbal questions.)
In the last few months, what did you use for your practice tests? How did you know you were ready?
In the last few months, what did you use for your practice tests? How did you know you were ready?
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Elad@Ready4GMAT
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Hi pitpat
In response to your questions - I re-solved OG questions and GMAT Prep questions (there are documents with all GMAT Prep questions available to download at GMATClub.com). When I was done with those, I practice questions from this forum that are tagged as 1000 SC. Those are also very good ones and are close in their format to the real ones (although some of them are really bad).
GMAC updated their GMAT Prep few months ago and this gave me another 2 new tests with many questions I haven't seen before. So, in the last 2 months, I took about 4 practice tests in total and scored 700-730 (a test every 2 weeks). Taking a test is less important because they waste a lot of precious time. You better master the concepts rather spent your time on simulations.
Very important - treat your simulation as if it's the real thing. I simulated the exact test center conditions (timed breaks). Don't skip the AWA and treat it as if you are in the real exam! Approaching the Verbal section after ~2.5 hours is significantly different than after ~ 1.5 hours.
Hope it helps,
eladshush
In response to your questions - I re-solved OG questions and GMAT Prep questions (there are documents with all GMAT Prep questions available to download at GMATClub.com). When I was done with those, I practice questions from this forum that are tagged as 1000 SC. Those are also very good ones and are close in their format to the real ones (although some of them are really bad).
GMAC updated their GMAT Prep few months ago and this gave me another 2 new tests with many questions I haven't seen before. So, in the last 2 months, I took about 4 practice tests in total and scored 700-730 (a test every 2 weeks). Taking a test is less important because they waste a lot of precious time. You better master the concepts rather spent your time on simulations.
Very important - treat your simulation as if it's the real thing. I simulated the exact test center conditions (timed breaks). Don't skip the AWA and treat it as if you are in the real exam! Approaching the Verbal section after ~2.5 hours is significantly different than after ~ 1.5 hours.
Hope it helps,
eladshush
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Wildbub
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eladshush,
You mentioned that GMAT prep has two new tests now.. How recent is that information? I took GMAT last June i.e. 2011 and scored 670 but my application to B-school had to be postponed until the next year i.e. 2012 due to some unforeseen reasons. So I decided to test it again since I have time at hand, so I scheduled it again for this spring. But mba.com did not send me another GMAT prep software saying my earlier GMAT prep CD was issued to me less than 1 year ago. Do you mean to say GMAT prep has changed since June 2011 ?
Thanks for your time.
You mentioned that GMAT prep has two new tests now.. How recent is that information? I took GMAT last June i.e. 2011 and scored 670 but my application to B-school had to be postponed until the next year i.e. 2012 due to some unforeseen reasons. So I decided to test it again since I have time at hand, so I scheduled it again for this spring. But mba.com did not send me another GMAT prep software saying my earlier GMAT prep CD was issued to me less than 1 year ago. Do you mean to say GMAT prep has changed since June 2011 ?
Thanks for your time.
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Elad@Ready4GMAT
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Wildbub wrote:eladshush,
You mentioned that GMAT prep has two new tests now.. How recent is that information? I took GMAT last June i.e. 2011 and scored 670 but my application to B-school had to be postponed until the next year i.e. 2012 due to some unforeseen reasons. So I decided to test it again since I have time at hand, so I scheduled it again for this spring. But mba.com did not send me another GMAT prep software saying my earlier GMAT prep CD was issued to me less than 1 year ago. Do you mean to say GMAT prep has changed since June 2011 ?
Thanks for your time.
Hi Wildub, I am not sure when exactly GMAC have changed their software, but GMAT Prep tests before my 5th attmpt (on Sep 2011) contained many new questions that I didn't see before my 4th attempt (on Septempber). It might be that the GMAT Prep software that was installed on my computer was very old (from my previous attempts), but I downloaded the software again from mba.com website before my fifth attempt and it was definitely different.
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Elad@Ready4GMAT
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vidhya16 wrote:Hi there,
Can anyone tell me how to find the verbal/ quant break down in the review screen. I tried my best to find the break down but didnt know how .
Ta,
Vidhya
If you refer to the verbal/quant breakdown in the review screen of GMAT Prep, so please note that it doesn't exists. It is only shown once when you finished the exam.
