-
pg850
- Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2009 12:33 pm
- Location: Mumbai, India
I have been delaying this post for a while now but decided to finally sit down and write it. I gave my test on 14th Aug in Mumbai, India after preparing for about 2 month and scored a 770, AWA 5.0.
I started my prep in the first week of June. Luckily, I stumbled on this website early on in my prep and spent a lot of time reading posts in the "I Just BTG" and the "GMAT strategy" forums. These posts not only inspired me but also helped me immensely in forming my own strategy to tackle the GMAT.
After reading a few posts by the experts on BTG (esp. Stacey, Ron, Stuart & Ian), I realized that quality is much more important than quantity while practicing questions. Instead of doing hundreds of practice questions, I concentrated mostly on the OG and then went over the answers for EACH question. This is very important as you get a better idea of why a particular answer is wrong which helps in eliminating answers when you stumble on the tough questions. Also, I would time every single question I did and then put more emphasis on the questions in which I spent more than 2 mins (for the quant section) or more than 1m 45s (for the RC and CR section) and 1m 30s for the SC questions.
SC - I did miserably in this section when I gave the diagnostic test (less than 30% hit rate). But after reading a few posts here, I got hold of the MGMAT sentence correction book. Apart from OG, I think this is the most useful book for GMAT out there. This book covers almost all of the important grammar concepts needed to solve the SC questions. I must have read this book atleast 3 times to drill in the basic concepts!
RC/CR - For CR, I went through the Powerscore Bible as I heard good things about it. It is basically a comprehensive book describing in detail each type of question you can expect in CR but I wish it had more practice questions. I did a few LSAT exams to practice CR and RC. The LSAT questions give you a good practice for tackling the hard bin questions from GMAT and I would definitely recommend doing a few of these to improve your RC/CR.
Quant - I studied engineering in my undergraduate so didn't have as many problems in Quant. DS can be tricky, but with enough practice its not too bad. My first diagnostic I had a score of 48 even though I had 15 questions wrong. So, I started practicing a tonne of questions - from BTG forum, OG, Kaplan 800 (just do the math from Kaplan 800, I felt verbal from this book was a lil off mark compared to the official questions) - basically anything I could get my hands on. But, the most help I got was from the MGMAT tests. Just reviewing these tests will teach you new tricks and shortcuts to solve the problems.
Here are my practice test scores. Except the first 2, I did these under exam conditions. I.e. essays, timed breaks etc.
Test scores:
6/20 GMAT testprep 1 710 (Q48, V41)
6/27 MGMAT 1 640 (Q44, V34)
7/19 MGMAT 2 660 (Q44, V36)
7/26 MGMAT 3 750 (Q48, V44)
7/30 MGMAT 4 740 (Q50, V41)
8/2 MGMAT 5 760 (Q51, V42)
8/10 GMAT testprep 2 760 (Q50, V43)
8/14 Actual Test 770 (Q50, V44)
General tips:
For verbal, try and stick to the official questions as much as you can. It is not so much about right vs wrong but GMAT right vs GMAT wrong. The more official questions you do, the better you will get at knowing what GMAt considers wrong. Once I was done with my MGMAT 5, I did only OG questions - redid the ones I got wrong in OG 11, got hold of OG12 and did the 300 odd new questions from it.
Remember, there are many many ways to get your dream score. Don't think that there is just one way. You have to figure out what is the best approach for You. Work on your weaknesses but don't ignore your strengths. If you think you are good in quant, don't be satisfied with a 47 or a 48. Try and push for a 50/51.
Do the practice tests in exam conditions. When I did my 1st practice test under exam conditions (MGMAT 2), I was so exhausted and bored when I got to verbal that I just wanted to get over with it. I realized my concentration absolutely sucked and that I would need to work on it to do better. For my next test, I was much better prepared to handle the 4 hr stress and so did a lot better! Also, make sure you review each question before moving onto something else. Tests will sap your energy and its very unlikely that you will want to do any more questions that day. So just review your mistakes and try and understand why you are getting the answers wrong and work on them!
Keep motivating yourself. Preparing for the GMAT is a strenuous process. There were times when I just didn't want to look at the material because I was so fed up. I would just take a break for a couple of hours and watch Ironman or some other crazy motivational videos on youtube - it helped!
Exam day-Be relaxed. I know its easier said than done, but the more you simulate the test conditions when you do the practice tests, the more relaxed you will be. I had seen a clip of a sumo wrestler preparing for his fight and he had this ritual where just before he enters the ring he would ask himself.. "What is it all for?.. all this hard work, all those hours spent practicing.. what is it all for?" That line just stuck with me and I was raring to go into the exam hall and beat the shit out of GMAT!
Lastly, spend some time everyday on the BTG forums (Can't thank you enough ERIC for starting this forum).
I wish you all the best to get your dream score!
-Piyush
PS - If there is any more info that you guys may require, just let me know and I ll be glad to help in any way I can.
I started my prep in the first week of June. Luckily, I stumbled on this website early on in my prep and spent a lot of time reading posts in the "I Just BTG" and the "GMAT strategy" forums. These posts not only inspired me but also helped me immensely in forming my own strategy to tackle the GMAT.
After reading a few posts by the experts on BTG (esp. Stacey, Ron, Stuart & Ian), I realized that quality is much more important than quantity while practicing questions. Instead of doing hundreds of practice questions, I concentrated mostly on the OG and then went over the answers for EACH question. This is very important as you get a better idea of why a particular answer is wrong which helps in eliminating answers when you stumble on the tough questions. Also, I would time every single question I did and then put more emphasis on the questions in which I spent more than 2 mins (for the quant section) or more than 1m 45s (for the RC and CR section) and 1m 30s for the SC questions.
SC - I did miserably in this section when I gave the diagnostic test (less than 30% hit rate). But after reading a few posts here, I got hold of the MGMAT sentence correction book. Apart from OG, I think this is the most useful book for GMAT out there. This book covers almost all of the important grammar concepts needed to solve the SC questions. I must have read this book atleast 3 times to drill in the basic concepts!
RC/CR - For CR, I went through the Powerscore Bible as I heard good things about it. It is basically a comprehensive book describing in detail each type of question you can expect in CR but I wish it had more practice questions. I did a few LSAT exams to practice CR and RC. The LSAT questions give you a good practice for tackling the hard bin questions from GMAT and I would definitely recommend doing a few of these to improve your RC/CR.
Quant - I studied engineering in my undergraduate so didn't have as many problems in Quant. DS can be tricky, but with enough practice its not too bad. My first diagnostic I had a score of 48 even though I had 15 questions wrong. So, I started practicing a tonne of questions - from BTG forum, OG, Kaplan 800 (just do the math from Kaplan 800, I felt verbal from this book was a lil off mark compared to the official questions) - basically anything I could get my hands on. But, the most help I got was from the MGMAT tests. Just reviewing these tests will teach you new tricks and shortcuts to solve the problems.
Here are my practice test scores. Except the first 2, I did these under exam conditions. I.e. essays, timed breaks etc.
Test scores:
6/20 GMAT testprep 1 710 (Q48, V41)
6/27 MGMAT 1 640 (Q44, V34)
7/19 MGMAT 2 660 (Q44, V36)
7/26 MGMAT 3 750 (Q48, V44)
7/30 MGMAT 4 740 (Q50, V41)
8/2 MGMAT 5 760 (Q51, V42)
8/10 GMAT testprep 2 760 (Q50, V43)
8/14 Actual Test 770 (Q50, V44)
General tips:
For verbal, try and stick to the official questions as much as you can. It is not so much about right vs wrong but GMAT right vs GMAT wrong. The more official questions you do, the better you will get at knowing what GMAt considers wrong. Once I was done with my MGMAT 5, I did only OG questions - redid the ones I got wrong in OG 11, got hold of OG12 and did the 300 odd new questions from it.
Remember, there are many many ways to get your dream score. Don't think that there is just one way. You have to figure out what is the best approach for You. Work on your weaknesses but don't ignore your strengths. If you think you are good in quant, don't be satisfied with a 47 or a 48. Try and push for a 50/51.
Do the practice tests in exam conditions. When I did my 1st practice test under exam conditions (MGMAT 2), I was so exhausted and bored when I got to verbal that I just wanted to get over with it. I realized my concentration absolutely sucked and that I would need to work on it to do better. For my next test, I was much better prepared to handle the 4 hr stress and so did a lot better! Also, make sure you review each question before moving onto something else. Tests will sap your energy and its very unlikely that you will want to do any more questions that day. So just review your mistakes and try and understand why you are getting the answers wrong and work on them!
Keep motivating yourself. Preparing for the GMAT is a strenuous process. There were times when I just didn't want to look at the material because I was so fed up. I would just take a break for a couple of hours and watch Ironman or some other crazy motivational videos on youtube - it helped!
Exam day-Be relaxed. I know its easier said than done, but the more you simulate the test conditions when you do the practice tests, the more relaxed you will be. I had seen a clip of a sumo wrestler preparing for his fight and he had this ritual where just before he enters the ring he would ask himself.. "What is it all for?.. all this hard work, all those hours spent practicing.. what is it all for?" That line just stuck with me and I was raring to go into the exam hall and beat the shit out of GMAT!
Lastly, spend some time everyday on the BTG forums (Can't thank you enough ERIC for starting this forum).
I wish you all the best to get your dream score!
-Piyush
PS - If there is any more info that you guys may require, just let me know and I ll be glad to help in any way I can.
