740(Q 49, V 41)

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740(Q 49, V 41)

by Cheers123 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 7:44 am
Hi,

I took my GMAT on 29th June and scored 740(Q 49 V 41). It was my first attempt and am pleasantly surprised with the score. I am not a very organized person and when it came to GMAT preparation, I had no one strategy to follow. I tried a number of different approaches. I started with maintaining error logs but then could not keep up with it because I thought it ate up a lot of time. I wanted to practice a lot of prep tests towards the end of the preparation but then I realized that if I took tests very often, I was left with little time to work on my weak areas. Also, I felt that a lot of tests had a different question pattern from the official Prep tests and therefore I did not find their evaluation credible.

I have been a regular visitor of Beat the GMAT forum. Undoubtedly, it helped me a lot with the preparation. All my doubts were answered within minutes by members or experts, the 'I Just Beat the GMAT' section motivated me when I thought I won't be able to make it. Strategy section helped me try different strategies before settling on one that helped me the most.

I am currently going through a very rough phase of life. Studying for GMAT was a respite from my real world problems. Because of my personal circumstances, it was difficult for me to devote more than a couple of hours every day to books and that too hardly in one stretch. I tried to take out 15 or 30 minutes whenever I could for GMAT prep. It was only during the last ten days that I could study for 4 hours at a stretch every day. I spent a total of 4 months preparing for the test.

Major take aways from my experience:

1. OG 12th Edition - It is the GMAT Bible. I would recommend going through it twice so that you are proficient in most of the problem types.
2. 'Thursdays with Ron' - I discovered them in the last week of my preparation. They are very good lectures. Do go through them whenever you get time.
3. Make your own notes while studying. Revise and Revise.
4. Identify your weak areas early and spend time to understand the concepts.
5. For RC - I realized it 2 days before the exam that my accuracy was highest when I read the passage thoroughly before solving the questions. I spent almost 3 minutes reading the passage but the time spent was worth it.
6. Since I am a non native English speaker, I had to spend a lot of time on Verbal, SC and CR to get a decent score.
7. Focus and stay committed. No matter how much time you can afford to GMAT prep, be realistic and keep your eyes on the goal.
8. Don't panic. During the actual test, I wasn't doing well in the Quant section. I was nowhere as comfortable as I was during my prep tests. At one point, I almost gave up but then I sat back, took a deep breath and proceeded with my best guess. I made sure that I managed time well. Guess, that did the trick.

Let me know if you have any questions. Would be happy to help!

All the best!
Last edited by Cheers123 on Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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by vijayrr007 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 7:52 am
Great score. All the best for your application process.Can you share what books you used to prepare for verbal?

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by Frankenstein » Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:55 am
Hi,
Great score...Congrats!
Good luck with your apps!
Cheers!

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by Cheers123 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:25 am
@vijayrr007

Besides going through OG and Kaplan explanations, I used following resources:

CR
GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible
Thursdays with Ron Recordings of CR topics

SC
Manhattan Review Sentence Correction Guide
Notes downloaded from BTG forum - Sahil's Grammar Notes, Spidey Sentence Correction Notes

Discussions on BTG forum were a great help too.

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by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:10 am
Congrats for the great score.

5. For RC - I realized it 2 days before the exam that my accuracy was highest when I read the passage thoroughly before solving the questions. I spent almost 3 minutes reading the passage but the time spent was worth it.
you were able to finish the RC in 3 minutes. What approach were you using overall ?

What were your overall apporaches in verbal for time management?

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by Cheers123 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:43 am
@GMATMadeEasy - Thanks. I spent three minutes reading the passage. Answering questions was easy when I understood the entire passage.

My RC strategy was:
1. Read the passage thoroughly with interest.
2. Skip details like names, years etc but remember the location of those details in the passage.
3. Make mental notes of the main idea of each paragraph.
4. Go back to the passage and confirm answers before submitting.

I actually never had difficulty with time management in Verbal and therefore had no specific strategy. In the actual exam, I was able to finish the section with 3 minutes remaining. It was Quant that I found difficult to finish in time.

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by gmayreddy » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:14 pm
Congratulations! That is my target score. I have 2 more months until my exam and I am barely touching 600. My quant score is above 40 but my verbal is below 35. Do you think there is a possibility to increase 100+ points in the next couple of months?
How did you find the actual exam? Are the questions similar to Official Guide?

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by Cheers123 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:29 pm
@gmayreddy - Thanks! I believe two months is a long time. You can definitely work your way up if you are sincere. Identify your weak areas and work on them. Post your doubts in forums, understand concepts and keep practicing.

Yeah, I found the questions in actual exam similar to OG/GMATPrep.

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by sourabh33 » Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:47 pm
Congrats !! Cheers....where r u from?

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by Cheers123 » Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:47 am
Thanks Sourabh, I'm Charu from Rajasthan, India. Howz your preparation going? What colleges are you targeting other than ISB?