My GMAT Story --- 780 --- 49Q, 50V

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My GMAT Story --- 780 --- 49Q, 50V

by gravlax » Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:14 am
Hooray!

I am more of a lurker than a poster, so first off, I want to thank everybody at BTG. This is my first post, but I have been reading the site for several months ... it has been worth a lot in my prep.

I will try to hit all the important points so maybe this will help you too. I had no idea I was even capable of a 780 ... I would have been thrilled to score 720.

TEST CENTER --- I have read all the horror stories ... but the center, computer, etc. was all exactly as expected. I had a bit of an advantage here since I have taken a few professional licensing tests at the same place so it was very familiar to me. No complaints.

THE TEST --- Nothing unexpected here either ... I suppose I deserve that since I think I looked at about ten thousand practice questions! I had a bit of a rough start in the quant ... I spent five minutes or so on the third or fourth question, still not sure if I got it right ... but a couple of DS questions after that were very quick so I was back on track by #10.

Verbal was easier than expected ... again, maybe because I did so much practice. I finished with more than 10 minutes to spare.

MY PREP --- Started around the beginning of the year with a Kaplan class offered by my employer. I was not able to go to all of the sessions or do all of the homework so when I finished the class I was scoring around 650. The class was fine ... nothing spectacular ... looking back, I think it helped me in terms of getting used to the question formats and just spending a few months with the GMAT on the brain.

Some crazy stuff at work forced me to take a month or more off after that ... so I did not take the test right after the class. Finally got back at it about two months ago ... that is when I started really improving.

I was always confident with the Verbal, so aside from reviewing some verbal in the Kaplan books, most of that time I spent on Quant. I only used two materials:
- OG12
- GMAT Hacks Challenge Questions

I probably spent a full month doing nothing but OG12 quant, just reviewing and reviewing and reviewing. I took a GMATPREP test around that time and scored 680, so I found the GMAT Hacks sets to try and really learn the concepts behind the tough Quant questions that I had not figured out. Apparently it worked ... those sets are just about all I did for the last month. I would recommend them to anyone who wants to score 700 or higher.

I don't think I did anything very unique ... so not sure if I can give very much advice beyond the description. As you can see, I was very focused on one thing at a time ... that was easy for me since I knew the Quant was going to make or break my score. There were days that I probably spent an hour or more on three or four questions to make absolutely sure I understood it. Maybe this was not the best way ... it worked for me though.

Anyway ... thank you again for the community and the motivation and I hope this helps some people!

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by gmatmachoman » Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:50 am
wow..wow.wow.. 50 in verbal is the greatest score I have ever seen !!

Great Man...ur hardwork has paid off!!


All the best..

Plz write a very detailed debrief for Verbal prep..

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by Frankenstein » Wed Jun 15, 2011 7:04 am
Hi,
Congrats buddy. 50 in Verbal is just inhuman. Really never heard that score in Verbal. Could you share any tips on Verbal? It doesn't matter whether they work for others or not, just want to know.
Good luck with your apps!
Cheers!

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by bblast » Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:00 am
O My Goodness, 50 verbal, that's ridiculous,


I am out of words, well done mate.
Superb stuff.


Small query- I had a look at the hacks extreme challenge, did not seem very appealing to me as almost 40% of the questions are combinatorics. Did u use all 1800 questions by hacks ? or particular sets ?
Cheers !!

Quant 47-Striving for 50
Verbal 34-Striving for 40

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by pemdas » Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:13 am
THE TEST --- Nothing unexpected here either ... I suppose I deserve that since I think I looked at about ten thousand practice questions!
MY PREP --- Started around the beginning of the year with a Kaplan class offered by my employer. ...
Some crazy stuff at work forced me to take a month or more off after that ...
I only used two materials:
- OG12
- GMAT Hacks Challenge Questions
I probably spent a full month doing nothing but OG12 quant, just reviewing and reviewing and reviewing.
... I found the GMAT Hacks sets to try and really learn the concepts behind the tough Quant questions that I had not figured out. Apparently it worked ... those sets are just about all I did for the last month.
Following your post, I've noticed that it contains some text fragments (highlighted above). What was your actual preparation track and what is your test score? I am asking you this question because you say that your GMAT preparation began in January (I assume this year, otherwise you've spent full year and half and your remark about nothing special done in the test would not be relevant, sorry). SO this leaves us with 5 complete months of preparation for GMAT (calendar-wise). You were out for GMAT for a month and ONE month you just spent for doing and reviewing OG problems, correct? I doubt that OG-12 contains more than 800 questions and its Quant section contains only 400 questions. Again without any reference to your capacities - ONE month was devoted to doing 400 questions from OG-12 and ONE (another) month was left out -because you were busy at work. Now with 3 months in hand you were preparing for GMAT. You could solve (10,000-400)/3=107 (roughly 100-110) questions every day. With 2 minutes @ 1 question rate you must have spent 4 hours on solving only practice questions for each day during your GMAT preparation. Yet you have completed Kaplan's course and invested some time for this. You say that the only sources utilized for GMAT were OG-12 and GMAT Hacks challenge sets. I doubt that these two sources combined may contain even the fourth of 10,000 practice questions reported by you. How it comes?

What benefit we may derive from your post?
Success doesn't come overnight!

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by gravlax » Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:53 pm
gmatmachoman and Frankenstein:

Thank you. As to your questions about Verbal ... I worked through all the OG problems and a lot of the Kaplan homework, but it was always very easy for me. I took the LSAT a few years ago so that background probably helped. I know some people use LSAT practice questions ... they are certainly harder.

There wasn't anything on the Verbal section that surprised me ... if you have done a GMATPREP test you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. There was a lot of science, both CR and RC.

bblast:

I used the GMAT Hacks challenge sets ... there are several 100-question sets, I think 10 in all. Most of the sets are topic specific ... there is an exponents/roots set, a number properties set, a geometry set, and so on.

pemdas:

You ask me for my test score, which is in the subject line. I didn't tally all of the questions I did one by one, so I can't give you an exact count. I'm sorry you didn't find my post helpful.

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by Slayr » Fri Jul 15, 2011 12:22 pm
Isn't the highest score in GMAT 800 -> Q51(52) and V46(48)?
Earlier paper based GMAT gave scores of Q51 V51, but I haven't seen anyone else get more than 45/46 in Verbal.

A Q52 and V48 is awarded for the person who has answered all the questions correctly in Quant and Verbal respectively. This special score is to recognize their achievement.

Can you confirm if it was a V50?