Thanks guys.As promised,I will post my debrief.I hope it is as helpful as possible.
This is gonna be a very long review!
This is my third attempt of GMAT.My 2 previous attempts were back in March 2010 and October 2010.
My first attempt- 640 (Q44 V34)
I decided in late November 2010 to take the GMAT.After reading GMAT success stories on the internet, I decided to purchase OG12,Verbal Edition,Quantitative Edition,and Kaplan premier.I thought that if I studied these books a score of 700+ would be guaranteed.Little did I know that I was badly mistaken.While solving the OG12 I could not get a hang of why an answer was wrong. I used to choose an answer based on how it sounded,but my accuracy was dismal 50-60% on the Verbal Review. I was worried, so I decided to purchase PowerScore SC guide,after reading some good things about it. I immediately saw some improvement,so I decided to take the GMATPrep sometime in first week of December,but I got a dismal 620 (Q47 and V28).I was barely able to complete the verbal section! I was pathetic!
Since the semester exams were approaching in December, I decided to give my prep a pause and resume it after I am done with my exams in January.I began my prep again in last week of January.I decided to do all the OG's as many times as possible and forget about everything else.
In the last week of February I started to take the practice exams.
My scores ranged from 640 to 690.I do not remember the splits exactly.Hoping that I would score atleast 670-680, I arrived at the test center,but the moment I started taking the quant section I was totally stunned by the difficulty level of the questions.Although the final score of 640 shocked me,it was, nonetheless,expected because I performed dismally on the quant.
Lessons Learnt
- I was totally unorganized in my prep
- I underestimated GMAT
- I prepared mechanically
Second Attempt - 650 (Q47 V32)
My solutions were
- Join a Prep company,which would help me study in a more organized way
- Take as many CATs as possible to build stamina
- Study analytically rather than Mechanically
I joined Knewton for I knew that I was never gonna improve SC skills on my own.Knewton's curriculum gave my preparation more method. I immediately started seeing improvement in SC,but my CR and RC remained at the same level [ at least I felt that]. My mock scores used to range from 700 to 770. Confident that my scores were finally hitting 700+ mark consistently, I booked an appointment on 26th October at 2 pm.
I was quite confident that I was gonna nail the GMAT this time around,but the moment I arrived at the test center [ different from the previous one] I was put off. First off, it was a pain in the *** to find the place [ the test center was not located where it was supposed to be].Second off,the test center's website mentioned that it was in a hotel.It, infact, was alloted a small room [same size as that alloted to the guests].This ******* small room was partitioned into 2 parts.In one room,there was the invigilator ,and in the other, there was testing room [about 6 desktops were in the room].So, basically,it was a cyber cafe.Little did I know that this was the end of the trouble,the ear plugs were of poor quality and keyboards were a thousand years old.There was a lot of noise.
I basically blew up the second test.Technically,I would have been over with GMAT the second time itself.
I complained to GMAC regarding this incidence and was awarded a free retake,This gave me a lot of confidence,for in part,GMAC was admitting that it was at fault and that this affected my performance.
I booked my third appointment on 8th December.
Third Attempt - 720 (Q49 V40)
I basically reviewed all that stuff that I had studied earlier on.
Meanwhile,I took the third attempt as a chance to improve my CR and RC skills further.I got hold of LSAT papers during the last 20-25 days of my prep.I did about 5-6 of them [concentrated on learning something rather than just doing questions mindlessly].While solving the CR questions,I tried to eliminate each answer for a solid reason.I didn't care about time.Soon my accuracy jumped from 50% to 90% on LSATs.I repeated the same procedure for RCs.I read passages as though I were really interested in what the author wanted to say.This really helped me.If you DO NOT understand the passage completely,you will inevitably get questions wrong.I DO NOT advocate the strategy of skimming through the passage.Instead improve your reading speed by doing as many RCs as possible to improve comprehension power.
The benefit of doing LSATs was that my reasoning skills reached totally different level.I could also read passages faster and comprehend much more.I didn't need to make notes.The biggest improvement was the pace at which I could look up data in the passage.Before,it was a pain in the ***.
For quant I purchased all the 3 GMATFocus exams offered by GMAC.I also took MGMAT CATs to get accustomed to the insanely hard questions.
My Mock test Scores
Knewton Cats
- 700
- 700
- 770
- 730
GMATPrep
-730
-740
-760
MGMAT CATs
- 710
- 690
- 720
- 750
- 730
- 730
Prep Materials used
Verbal
- MGMAT SC guide [ for rules] , Knewton [ for clarification of doubts], OG [10,11, and 12] and Oxford Dictionary [for usage of words] for SC
- OG [10,11,and 12] ,Knewton, and LSAT later on.
- OG [10,11,and 12],Knewton, and LSAT for RC.
Quantitative
- Avoided OG
- MGMAT CATs
- GMAT Focus
- GMATPrep
- Knewton
My Ratings of various materials in terms of quality and and difficulty versus the real test.
5 star
- OG for CR and SC,Knewton for CR,SC,and RC,LSAT for CR and RC, MGMAT for quant, GMATPrep and GMATFocus for quant
Average
- OG for RC, Knewton for quant, MGMAT for CR and RC.
Junk
- OG for quant [except last 10% questions and the diagnostic].
Thanks guys.
If there are any questions you want to ask,please PM me or post the forum.
