. I got my AWA score yesterday and ended up with a disappointing 4.5. I was thinking whether I should debrief at all with a 700. However, 700 made me think more about what went wrong and I feel sharing them could help some of you. So, I'll go ahead and share my prep experiences, the best resources that I collected, the best things that I did and things that I clearly know went wrong and could have done better. Prep Experiences:
Rising from 570:
I started off with OG diagnostic tests and GMAT Prep Test 1. I just scored an above average in Problem Solving, an average in all other sections and a devastating 570 (Q 42, V 27) in Prep test 1. I realized that there is a long way to go and I was unclear on how and where to start. I stumbled upon https://www.gmating.com/gmat/gmat-prep-guide.php and found it very useful. I developed a Plan based on Gmating in an excel sheet(attached) and kept updating it every day for almost 10 weeks sincerely. You can make use of it as a template. I used the attached TestGrid4GMAT.xls to do a timed practice right from the beginning. GMAT timer in https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-timer-56014.html was also very helpful. After brushing up Math and completing the schedule till 10th week in the attached sheet I gained some confidence though my Kaplan Test Scores were still in the 620 plus or minus 20 ranges.
Beat The Gmat Forum:
I happened to visit beatthegmat and wished that I should have done so earlier. I searched for a lot of questions and found the explanations really helpful. The explanations helped me gain clarity on many concepts. I tried to answer the unanswered questions to increase my 'First Replies in Last 30 Days' count. However I found the questions answered by somebody as soon it was posted. It was highly motivating.
Let me share my experiences section wise.
Sentence Correction:
This was the section that I made the most number of mistakes in my initial prep. After going through Manhattan SC and solving the corresponding problems in OG, I could improve my accuracy from 40 - 50 % to 60 - 70 %. I had an opportunity to be an Alpha trial participant in https://e-gmat.com/home.php and it helped me in a great deal. I could improve my SC accuracy from 60 - 70 to about 90%. The approach to solve the SC problems and the clarity and depth of the concepts in https://e-gmat.com/home.php is unbeatable. Modifier and Verb tense SC problems were vague to me and I almost always got them wrong until I went through the detailed lessons on these sections in e-gmat.com which gave me a lot of clarity of concept and confidence. I would recommend e-gmat.com to anybody who would like to improve their SC accuracy.
Critical Reasoning:
My CR accuracy remained at 70-75 %. Most of the times, I would narrow down to 2 contenders and mark the wrong answer. LSAT LR bible which almost the same as GMAT CR Bible except for few additional chapters is an excellent resource. I couldn't complete the book though. I completed 'Must be true' and 'Main Point Questions 'chapters completely and found that I got most of the CR problems of this type right. I just read the summary of other chapters and I wish I should have read the other chapters too in detail. The level of detail this book pays to the types of question s is amazing.
Reading Comprehension:
Only thing I would like to stress upon is not to overlook RC as I did. There were 4 RCs in the actual GMAT and almost all of them had the author's main point question and I know I screwed up RC as I wasn't confident on many of my answers.
Problem Solving:
This happened to be one of my strongest sections in GMAT. However I found that I kept making several silly mistakes. A decent amount of practice problems and practice tests helped me correct them. I was scared of Probability and Permutation and Combinations right from the beginning. After taking few practice tests, I realized that not many questions appear in GMAT in these areas and even if they appear, they are relatively easier. I gained confidence in these areas too. I found inequalities combined with modulus tricky. I learnt certain subtle aspects, nuances and formulae such as zero is even and neither positive nor negative, properties of fractions between -1 and 1, finding the number of factors by prime factorization, AP, GP, properties of the sides of a triangle and similar triangle etc., after either taking too much time or marking wrong answers in the practice tests and these concepts stayed strong and long.
Data Sufficiency:
This happened to be the section that often gave me surprises and shocks. One main thing, I would like to stress upon is to clearly understand what is being asked in a DS question. I made many mistakes by not doing this in the initial stages. One should also clearly know the type of question (yes/no or what is x..) being asked. The given information is sufficient even if we can conclude that the answer is no for a yes/no question. It also took a little while for me to completely ignore the statement 1 when considering statement 2 which is the key to any DS problem. Only after a lot of practice, I got the hang of solving DS questions.
Five Best things that I did:
"¢ A lot of practice tests:
I would have taken about 20 to 25 practice tests including the Manhattan CATs. Knewton, Veritas, Manhattan, Kaplan and various other prep companies offer a free full length practice tests and I took each one of them at least twice. For at least three times, GMAT Prep didn't give many repeated questions. My main mode of preparation was to take a practice test and analyze the answers. I was not able to sit for one continuous hour initially. However after all these practice tests, I could easily sit for 4 hours continuously. Except for the repeat tests my scores were in the range of 680 to 720 till the end.
"¢ e-gmat.com:
Hadn't I used https://e-gmat.com/home.php, my SC accuracy would have remained around 70 %. I could consistently get around 90% just because of e-gmat.com.
"¢ Study Partner:
For about 1.5 to 2 months I partnered with my colleague and friend and I feel this was the best part of my prep. He used to come over to my place and we took practice tests together. We analyzed the problems together and learnt the approaches of each other. We were more productive as we didn't want to waste the other person's time.
"¢ Beat the gmat and other forums
The resources available in the forums such as the flash cards, debriefs and explanations to questions especially the answers by Ron Purewal/ lunarpower are amazing. I have given some of the links that I found useful and bookmarked for future usage in the attached excel sheet. I used to go to grockit.com whenever I feel stressed out and enjoyed solving questions along with others.
"¢ Resources that I collected:
I have collected a lot of prep resources from different people. I have shared some of them and I can share some others such as my 1 year mgmat CAT, paper based tests, books etc., later on personal request. Please feel free to mail me at [email protected] or pm me if you would require any of them.
Five things that went wrong:
"¢ AWA length:
I would have written only about 250 words in both my essays and only after I got my score I researched and found out that the length of the essay should be around 500 words.
"¢ Overlooked RC:
I overlooked RC. Had I practiced more RCs, I would have improved my verbal score from 37 to 40+.
"¢ How to Solve technique at the later part of prep:
I couldn't change the approach after substantial initial practices though I found the SC approach in e-gmat.com and CR approach in LR Bible too good and foolproof. So, please start off your SC and CR prep with these approaches. I followed the Kaplan Premier Live approaches for DS and RC and they worked fairly well.
"¢Timing Strategy:
I was tracking time by dividing the questions equally. I would see if I have completed 14 questions when 50 minutes are left and 25 when 25 minutes are left. Though this approach helped me keep track of time, it made me lose 1 or 2 points in Quants. I was consistently scoring 50 or 51 in Quants in my practice tests but finally ended up with 49. In my actual GMAT, I was well ahead of target for the first two sections as the questions were very easy when compared to the ones in Manhattan CAT and so I slowed down. But the last 10 to 12 questions, most of them DS, were really tough and each one them took more than 2.5 minutes. I marked the last 2 to 3 questions without solving as I ran out of time. I realized that rather than equally distributing time, I should've kept my pace.
"¢ Failed to focus on concepts and accuracy:
I failed to focus on the concepts and accuracy taken away by the pressures of time. I feel that I shouldn't have timed my practice in the initial stages until the concepts are clear to me.
Thanks to all those who were supportive. It is now I need more support and guidance in choosing B schools, writing essays etc., I hope to get some help from the experts in the forum.
I didn't realize that my post would go this long. Before you start cursing me, I'll share some of the resources that I collected. I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions and share resources that I legally can. I have given the list of resources I have in the attached excel sheet.
