I just Beat The GMAT!

Time to give back to this community/forum. Many thanks to members for their posts, moderators, and webmasters.

710 = 92 Percentile (Q45 - 71 Percentile, V41 - 92 Percentile)

The percentile rankings above reflect that more people do better at quant than they perform on the verbal section. This is most likely on account of the large numbers of South Asian engineers who take the test.

Okay, so 710 isn't a sensational score, but it's an 18.3% improvement and it puts me in the top 10. I hold a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Political Science and the last math class I took was about a decade ago. I'd set the ceiling at 680, but surprised myself.

I took the test the first time around without much preparation in order to get a 'feel' for it and that helped me figure out what I needed to do. I'd polished off a bottle of Vietnamese rice wine the night before, taken the red eye to Singapore, and had to keep from getting sick at the examination station.

Over the last month I spent about two hours (of focused study) a day on the GMAT.

- I recommend going through earlier posts and studying other's suggestions. They contain sagacious advice. Some are incredibly detailed.
- If math is your weak point like it is mine, go through the fundamentals of one topic/sub-topic at a time and do numerous practice questions on that single topic until you understand how it works and you are confident that you've understood how to apply the concepts, manipulate information, and arrive at a definitive answer.
- Set up RSS feeds for questions of the day and content related to the GMAT. If you're on Google Reader, you can mark feeds for follow up. Go through the 3 or 4 questions that come up daily. Make sure you understand them.
- Refer to forums for help. Post a question or five. People are helpful.
- Don't overload yourself with study material. Buying ten more books at a time will most likely hamper your schedule and understanding.
- Every now and then, look at a questions and try to formulate a similar one of your own. It may help you understand how the GMAT spooks think.
- Sleep well and enough. Don't study if you're tired. It is futile.
- I despise RCs for the usual reasons that they are dry, trivial, and annoying and messed up on them on my first test. I then told myself that I'm going to spend a maximum of 25 minutes reading a maximum of 4 passages and answering 12-16 questions tops. Changed my attitude and practiced as many RCs as I could.
- Timed practice tests. Some people keep them for the last few days before the test. Don't do that. Try to invest time for about 2 to 3 timed practice tests a day. The software from MBA.com gives you two tests, the Kaplan book comes with a CD, Barron's, Princeton Review, and other books also come with CDs. In addition, there are a number of free tests available. No harm in doing them over either. You'll improve your timing and have more time to spend on questions that are particularly challenging for you. Try to do a test a day for a week before your test. You may want to keep the day before test day open so you can relax.

Here's what my test comprised of:

= The SCs were quite tricky. Go through the basics (less/fewer, among/between, etc.) of grammar as well as idiom lists. NOTE: A good 50% of the SCs I get yesterday had Option Choice A (original sentence) as the correct answer. I think I lost the most number of points on SCs. Look up 'Grammar Girl' at https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ (you can also podcast episodes through iTunes).

= CRs were easy. Here's the deal: There's only one fitting choice for each. I sort of 'zoomed in and out' (if you will) of each CR question and its answer choices and the correct one just stood right out.

= RCs: All that practice paid off. I got 4 passages: 1 business (medium length), 1 biology (short), 1 history (medium length), 1 economics (short).

= Quant: Got about 15 DS (+/- 2) questions. Counting, exponents, sequences/logic, triangles and proportions/similar triangles, weighted averages, number properties, 1 combination problem. Will post more if I remember what categories the test of them fall into.
I stared at 3-4 questions for a bit before guessing and moving on. About 10 questions I got on the test were unlike anything I had seen before. I tried applying fundamental principles on these questions but, honestly, I could not figure out about half of them.

Books I used:
OG11
OG12
OG - Quant Review 2nd Edition
OG - Verbal Review
Kaplan
Kaplan Advanced
Nova - DS (complicated stuff here)

Do let me know if you have any questions. I'm here to help.

Hi, Congrats on your score.. This much improvement in 32 days is brilliant...

I have the same problem in RC.. They are dull and somehow I can't put myself to read them...
What should I do??

Congratulations mate. Well done. Thanks for the tips.

Congrats thb_1981, great stuff. You are right about the quant percentile and the south Asia engineers to be blamed for it{especially indian and chinese}. Well I am one of them. Unfortunately not as quant gifted as the general crowd.

@cans - check out my RC post and see if it helps a little!!

@bblast: didn't check ur RC post earlier.. Its really good... Thanks a lot )
I have booked for 13th Oct . So I have one month to go... Any suggestion on how I should plan this month for Verbal??

cans wrote:@bblast: didn't check ur RC post earlier.. Its really good... Thanks a lot )
I have booked for 13th Oct . So I have one month to go... Any suggestion on how I should plan this month for Verbal??

Actually I have golden suggestions for u :
Download below documents - {I am pasting this from my debrief }
GMAT prep question banks :
1>Zuleron's 198 quant questions - I am sure you are already hitting quant 51, so skip this.
2>Sodenso's 198 gmat prep SC's - solid gold, download the 2 docs- 1 is MS word question bank and second is MS excel with answers and links to MGMAT forums for all 198 questions. Your one month with this doc and explanations from RON on MGMAT forums will give a booster doze to ur SC prep and overall verbal score.
3>Whiplash's 108 CR's - its a PDF on gmat club.
4>Bblast's gmat prep RC. - you've already seen this :mrgreen: .

Above GMAT prep material is a superb resource in the last month. Skip any 3rd party material which u may have lined up.

Alternatively, you can pay and use all gmat prep material with solution at a few websites. Google these.
1>Dabral's - quantum gmat. {only for quant}
2>Patrick sieve's - gmat flix {cheaper and quant verbal both}

Thanks, prodizy and bblast.

cans, I agree with bblast. Practice as many RCs as possible. I hit the 'aha moment' after the first eight or ten RCs in OG12.
Convince yourself that it is a one-time thing and that you're actually learning something from each passage. As you read each practice passage, look for the standard general meaning of the topic and rephrase and reiterate what you've just read. Invest a little more time in the beginning, you'll see that RCs will be much easier after a bit.
Keep in mind that it is not incomprehensible garbage.

Verbal in general: Don't overload yourself. Master the basics and revise targeted questions. There is indeed plenty of free and paid material out there; get your hand on it. When you arrive at the correct answer choice, analyze why the other choices are incorrect.

@ bblast,
Could you share the link for Sodenso's 198 gmat prep SC's?
I searched but could not find the link!

Hi

Can someone please help me out with this . I have been searching for it but unable to find it

2>Sodenso's 198 gmat prep SC's - solid gold, download the 2 docs- 1 is MS word question bank and second is MS excel with answers and links to MGMAT forums for all 198

Thanks

bblast wrote:

cans wrote:@bblast: didn't check ur RC post earlier.. Its really good... Thanks a lot )
I have booked for 13th Oct . So I have one month to go... Any suggestion on how I should plan this month for Verbal??

Actually I have golden suggestions for u :
Download below documents - {I am pasting this from my debrief }
GMAT prep question banks :
1>Zuleron's 198 quant questions - I am sure you are already hitting quant 51, so skip this.
2>Sodenso's 198 gmat prep SC's - solid gold, download the 2 docs- 1 is MS word question bank and second is MS excel with answers and links to MGMAT forums for all 198 questions. Your one month with this doc and explanations from RON on MGMAT forums will give a booster doze to ur SC prep and overall verbal score.
3>Whiplash's 108 CR's - its a PDF on gmat club.
4>Bblast's gmat prep RC. - you've already seen this :mrgreen: .

Above GMAT prep material is a superb resource in the last month. Skip any 3rd party material which u may have lined up.

Alternatively, you can pay and use all gmat prep material with solution at a few websites. Google these.
1>Dabral's - quantum gmat. {only for quant}
2>Patrick sieve's - gmat flix {cheaper and quant verbal both}