Veritas Prep On Demand Course Debrief 2 – Praveen

by , Nov 10, 2010

The following is a guest post by Praveen, better known as kvcpk on our forums. This is the second of 3 debriefs that Praveen will write for the Beat The GMAT community about his experiences with Veritas Preps On Demand GMAT Course. Without further ado, heres Praveen.

This is part-2 of debriefs relating to my experience with Veritas Prep on Demand course and Private Tutoring. Took me some time to write this, because I had to cover a lot of stuff before writing one. But I believe the time is worth spending. Here I share my review on the Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning and Combinatorics and Probability books.

Reading Comprehension

I am not a great reader and so, like many other non-native speakers I hated the RC section. Before starting with any material, I went through the OG RC problems. Having got most of them wrong, I decided to have a session with Jeff for Reading Comprehension. After analysing my test scores, Jeff advised me to concentrate on the Reading Comprehension section. This is one section that has been highly fluctuating for me. He made me understand that it was because I had no strategy to attack the questions. So without much delay I started off with the Veritas Prep Reading Comprehension guide. This book is just awesome. It explains a simple STOP approach to attack the passage. The number of practice problems drives us into the right path. The explanations for each problem are well directed and emphasize on the STOP approach. The topics are well distributed among the 23 passages. The book also discusses the different question types and provides strategies to attack each. One thing I could ask for is some more examples on finding the Tone of the passage.

After going through this book, I wanted to test my approach on the OG RC problems. Surprisingly I got an average of 85%. It was varying between 25-70% earlier. The Reading Comprehension guide is a must read book for precise strategy and practice. The course section that accompanied this book guided me in the right path. One thing I really liked about the on demand course is that the audio goes at a very relaxed pace so as to make the students absorb all that is being taught.

Combinatorics & Probability

My next target was to improve upon my Quant score. One area I frequently made mistakes in was Combinatorics and Probability. Once again, I approached Jeff for the right strategy. The Break-down method suggested by him made things look simple for me. At the end, Its all about counting the number of good outcomes and the number of bad outcomes. Feeling confident about it, I tried my hand on the Combinatorics and Probability guide of Veritas Prep. I have a lot to tell about this book. The book starts off from the very basic counting principles and cruises steadily to high level concepts like circle arrangements. It covers in depth the complete foundation needed to solve all GMAT type problems. Examples illustrating the learnt concepts make it very easy to digest the content. The challenge questions at the end mimic the 700+ level problems on GMAT. The on demand course took me through the concepts listed in the book. I love reading the books through the On-Demand course as it sets the framework for me and makes me feel comfortable. For those who are looking for quality Combinatorics problems, striving for that 46+ mark, the book is a must read. Few more data sufficiency problems will make this book a comprehensive guide for Combinatorics and probability problems.

Critical Reasoning

After this book, I moved on the Critical Reasoning section. I did problems from the CR section in the OG. Got most of them right in the beginning. When I moved to the other half, is when I understood that I lacked the strategy to attack. Also, I did not have enough practice. Veritas Prep CR guides came to my rescue. This course has not just one but two books dedicated to the CR section. Book 1 starts with explaining the structure of a CR problem. It then identifies the different types of CR problems and outlines the different approaches for attack. It lays out the methodology SWIMMER to attack the CR problems. Very good book to start your CR preparation. The practice problems and challenge problems are as always well directed and GMAT-like.

The second book for CR is the extension of the first book to answer the advanced problems. It covers in-depth everything the student needs to know about this section. It emphasizes on the Triggers-Focus-Answer Form Solution strategy to answer even the most obscure questions. After applying this strategy, I felt like I was holding the cheat-code in my hand to answer the questions. Highly precise explanations to the practice problems are an asset to this book. This book has 103 problems across all problem types with detailed explanations. Cant ask for more. A big thanks to the Veritas Prep CR team.

A Distinct Improvement in My Verbal Score!

With all these going along, I took the practice test last week and observed a distinct improvement in my Verbal score. I got only 2 mistakes in CR and 1 mistake in RC in a GMATPREP test. Something I never dreamt about. Before going through these books, my CR was between 50-80% and my RC was between 30-70%. Aila!! What a feeling.

All that said about the books, it was an equally important contribution from Jeff in channeling my efforts in the right direction. His approach and attitude towards a problem makes the problem look much easier than it is. Another strategy I learned from him: Keeping cool and composed during the test is the key to making your target.

Thats it from me for now. Will write about the other books & on demand course in my next Debrief.

Cheers,

Praveen