A couple of months back, the company I worked in faced a hostile takeover bid from a competitor. It was good because I finally decided to appear for the GMAT. I had desperately wanted a career change for quiet some time now. However soon after, I had to leave for a couple of international engagements and the entire plan for preparation got haywire.
I have an absolutely terrible, unmentionable, stupid and ridiculous GPA. Not sure how much of an impact will it have now on the application process.
Preparation
During the first 6 weeks, I had my manhattan sc guide with me at all times and would read it and reread it at whatever time I got. I went through all the sentence correction questions and their explanations on the OG11. I was always very confident on quant, so most, almost all of my focus was on verbal.
In the actual test, quant was much harder than any other mock test. Princeton was the closest in difficulty level. Got several questions on median and mean, a couple on probablity. Verbal was easier than the mock tests. The RC and CR had less ambiguity in their answers compared to say, kaplan. The passages were on standard topics. SC tested nearly all the concepts that we read in manhattan and OG.
Some advice
1. Don't panic before or during the exam. I had a panic attack in the first quant question. Something went wrong and it took me around seven minutes to solve the rather easy first problem (and I had almost clicked on the wrong answer). After the initial hiccup, I got more confident, and managed to finish the quant section just at the nick of time.
2. beatthegmat rocks. I found out about beatthegmat 10 days before the test. The last ten days were the most crucial for me. I went through most of the threads in sc and quant. I managed to finish the quant section in time only because I had browsed a similar question on the forum, and thus knew the formula. Thank you all.
3. Its better to make a lot of mistakes during the mock tests. It is better to make a lot of mistakes in the mock tests. It will come handy in the actual test, as it is easier to learn by making mistakes. Remember to go through all the explanations in the mock tests.
4. psahil notes and another document that I found somewhere on the internet called useful_idioms.doc were very helpful. Although, don't rely on the generalizations. 1000 sc is good, although i looked at only 300 or so questions in it. I noticed that several answers were wrong. Besides I made it a point to look at all the explanations I could find on various forums of the internet.
5. Every individual has his or her own style of preparation. Do whatever is best for you. I had put my maximum input in the last 7 days before my exam and gave a lot of mock CAT. I spent the last day revising all the sc problems of og.
6. A good site for polishing your basic grammar is https://www.grammar-quizzes.com/ Of course, there are other sites as well, but I found it quiet useful.
7. It feels weird after giving an exam and then not knowing how many questions I did wrong. But then, such is life.
My results of the mock tests were:
GMATPrep1 (T-15) - 750
GMATPrep2 (T-10) - 750
GMATPrep1 (retake, T-5) - 770
GMATPrep2 (retake, T-4) - 780
MGMAT Free Test (T-5) - 780
Princeton Review Free test (T-3) - 670
Crack-GMAT Free Test (T-2) - 660
Kaplan CAT 1 (T-7) - 670
Kaplan CAT 2 (T-6) - 660
PowerPrep CAT 1 (T-1) - 770
Powerprep CAT 2 (T-2) - 780
Best of luck to others.
I have an absolutely terrible, unmentionable, stupid and ridiculous GPA. Not sure how much of an impact will it have now on the application process.
Preparation
During the first 6 weeks, I had my manhattan sc guide with me at all times and would read it and reread it at whatever time I got. I went through all the sentence correction questions and their explanations on the OG11. I was always very confident on quant, so most, almost all of my focus was on verbal.
In the actual test, quant was much harder than any other mock test. Princeton was the closest in difficulty level. Got several questions on median and mean, a couple on probablity. Verbal was easier than the mock tests. The RC and CR had less ambiguity in their answers compared to say, kaplan. The passages were on standard topics. SC tested nearly all the concepts that we read in manhattan and OG.
Some advice
1. Don't panic before or during the exam. I had a panic attack in the first quant question. Something went wrong and it took me around seven minutes to solve the rather easy first problem (and I had almost clicked on the wrong answer). After the initial hiccup, I got more confident, and managed to finish the quant section just at the nick of time.
2. beatthegmat rocks. I found out about beatthegmat 10 days before the test. The last ten days were the most crucial for me. I went through most of the threads in sc and quant. I managed to finish the quant section in time only because I had browsed a similar question on the forum, and thus knew the formula. Thank you all.
3. Its better to make a lot of mistakes during the mock tests. It is better to make a lot of mistakes in the mock tests. It will come handy in the actual test, as it is easier to learn by making mistakes. Remember to go through all the explanations in the mock tests.
4. psahil notes and another document that I found somewhere on the internet called useful_idioms.doc were very helpful. Although, don't rely on the generalizations. 1000 sc is good, although i looked at only 300 or so questions in it. I noticed that several answers were wrong. Besides I made it a point to look at all the explanations I could find on various forums of the internet.
5. Every individual has his or her own style of preparation. Do whatever is best for you. I had put my maximum input in the last 7 days before my exam and gave a lot of mock CAT. I spent the last day revising all the sc problems of og.
6. A good site for polishing your basic grammar is https://www.grammar-quizzes.com/ Of course, there are other sites as well, but I found it quiet useful.
7. It feels weird after giving an exam and then not knowing how many questions I did wrong. But then, such is life.
My results of the mock tests were:
GMATPrep1 (T-15) - 750
GMATPrep2 (T-10) - 750
GMATPrep1 (retake, T-5) - 770
GMATPrep2 (retake, T-4) - 780
MGMAT Free Test (T-5) - 780
Princeton Review Free test (T-3) - 670
Crack-GMAT Free Test (T-2) - 660
Kaplan CAT 1 (T-7) - 670
Kaplan CAT 2 (T-6) - 660
PowerPrep CAT 1 (T-1) - 770
Powerprep CAT 2 (T-2) - 780
Best of luck to others.
