Hi Guys,
I thought I would also give my debrief on the GMAT.
I took my GMAT on the 23rd of December 2010.
My Study Pattern:
Before I start, A little bit of background about me. I am a working professional with about 11 years of experience. Picked up books after 11 years of my graduation. Booked the test 1 month in advance and took 2 weeks leave from office. For the first 2 weeks, just got my hands dirty understanding how the GMAT works, the question types etc.
The next 2 weeks, I studied religiously. Studied almost 8-9 hours a day including weekends.
Study Books:
MGMAT all verbal books. But later realised that RC and CR is not particulary great. CR Powerscore Bible is far better.
OG 12th Edition and Verbal 2nd edition..One has to finish the CR's and SC's & RC's of these books.
Quant. MGMAT Word Translations (excellent book. A must buy). 300+ GMAT Questions with Best Solutions. I found it on the internet. Really tough questions, but i guess if you study these questions, you will be allright.
Copy Pasted the difficult questions in order to read it just before the DDAY.
AWA -- needless to say, Chinese Burned found on the BeattheGMAT site. Just learnt by heart those 2-3 introduction & conclusions lines and in my exam just wrote those lines even without reading what the argument or the issue was. Will update the AWA score later when i get it. Gave only 2 proper exams GMAT prep 1 and MGMAT CAT 6 with essays. Other exams just gave the quant and verbal. I know this is not recommended, but i did not have the luxury of time.
I gave GMAT prep 2 2 days before the exam and scored a lowly 640. This did not do wonders for my confidence.
The day before the exam:
Solved 20 SC's, Solved 20 CR's a couple of RC's and again read my notes (the copy pasted quant questions and solutions).
Went for a couple of beers in the evening. Just chilled out as I wanted to get some sleep. I had been sleeping only about 6 hours for the past 2 weeks. Needless to say, i did not get any sleep. You may call butterflies, or tension or whatever. Hardly about 4 odd hours i would have slept.
D-Day
Read my Quant (copy pasted stuff) again on the way to the centre. Did not look at verbal at all.
Up came the Argument, it was about some automobile industry and software industry.
Up came the Issue, it was about moral and ethical values. Gave some gas.
Got ready for my Quant.
Started with my quant with relatively easy sums, and i thought i was doing well, but i did not get a single probability or a combanitorics question during the first few ones...I thought i screwed up...DS was particularly tough and i had no choice but to guess. Then i thought the level started going down...so much so that it asked me a question what is the sqrt of 4 + 4+ 4. This is where panic set in. Its a bloody 200 level question..and i am like...oh god...i am dead...anyways, did not bother, answered the question in 10 secs and moved on. The only 'tough' question i thought i got was on overlapping sets. I did not get any RTD or Probability or Combanitorics question in the entire exam. During the break, I thought i had done miserable. And since Verbal was never my forte, I thought its time to say good bye to GMAT.
Up came the verbal section. Started with CR, then immediately SC and on the 5th question it was RC. Really sad passage. I could not make head or tail out of it and as is the usual strategy, i spent a lot of time on the first 10 questions. Then kind of paced myself. SC was the same, modifiers, parallelism, idioms. CR was a bit tough and RC passages were on Women's Liberation (as if we had not enough of those), another one on Women's History (wonder why GMAT is so fixated on Women) and the third RC was on Business plan by banks etc. I managed to finish my last SC with about 30 secs left on the clock. Then came the beautiful screen which asks you to report or cancel your score and if you dont decide, it decides for you in 2 minutes. In my anxiety, i pressed the next button without clicking any option and thankfully, which i say it again, thankfully, GMAT asks the question that you have not selected any option. Had the software assumed that i have to cancel my scores, I would not have written this post. So yes, i clicked on the button and looked away. And it appeared and i sat smiling at the screen. Anything above 700 would have been a bonus for me and anything below 700, it would have been a bad thing.
Retrospect:
As they say, one is always intelligent in retrospect.
Here are a couple of things which i think i missed or did wrong.
Firstly, I only selected 1 college. That is a crime. I should have selected 5 colleges for which the GMAT sends score, Now i have to waste 25$ per college. It is a waste of money.
I should have started and finished CR with Powerscore. I only read their 'Weaken' chapter. But then, I got this book from one of my friends pretty late. She had recommended me MGMAT and I am indeed thankful to her.
Quant OG, some of the problems are tough, but the rest are just there i guess to fill the volume. Verbal OG CR & SC, try to finish this off.
Lastly
I know this is not a great score, but at least it gives me a chance that my application would be read by the B-School. After having spoken with a few of the alumnii, they say that as soon as the admission committee sees a '7', the definitely read it. Otherwise, in my pool, they would not even bother opening the application.
Now comes the difficult part as i do not even know whether i will be applying for full-time or part-time. Don't even know, which school to apply.
I know, that hope is not a strategy, but i am hoping that things would fall in place just as they did for my GMAT and that my work ex should compensate for my reasonable score.
p.s. Although i have not been a contributor to this community, I have read almost every other problem that i have got wrong and the solutions on this site. some of the solutions are really great and the concepts are pretty well explained.
Thank you BeatTheGmat.
AND PLEASE DO NOT DO ANY SC ON THE ABOVE POST. YOU WILL SIMPLY WASTE YOUR TIME.
I thought I would also give my debrief on the GMAT.
I took my GMAT on the 23rd of December 2010.
My Study Pattern:
Before I start, A little bit of background about me. I am a working professional with about 11 years of experience. Picked up books after 11 years of my graduation. Booked the test 1 month in advance and took 2 weeks leave from office. For the first 2 weeks, just got my hands dirty understanding how the GMAT works, the question types etc.
The next 2 weeks, I studied religiously. Studied almost 8-9 hours a day including weekends.
Study Books:
MGMAT all verbal books. But later realised that RC and CR is not particulary great. CR Powerscore Bible is far better.
OG 12th Edition and Verbal 2nd edition..One has to finish the CR's and SC's & RC's of these books.
Quant. MGMAT Word Translations (excellent book. A must buy). 300+ GMAT Questions with Best Solutions. I found it on the internet. Really tough questions, but i guess if you study these questions, you will be allright.
Copy Pasted the difficult questions in order to read it just before the DDAY.
AWA -- needless to say, Chinese Burned found on the BeattheGMAT site. Just learnt by heart those 2-3 introduction & conclusions lines and in my exam just wrote those lines even without reading what the argument or the issue was. Will update the AWA score later when i get it. Gave only 2 proper exams GMAT prep 1 and MGMAT CAT 6 with essays. Other exams just gave the quant and verbal. I know this is not recommended, but i did not have the luxury of time.
I gave GMAT prep 2 2 days before the exam and scored a lowly 640. This did not do wonders for my confidence.
The day before the exam:
Solved 20 SC's, Solved 20 CR's a couple of RC's and again read my notes (the copy pasted quant questions and solutions).
Went for a couple of beers in the evening. Just chilled out as I wanted to get some sleep. I had been sleeping only about 6 hours for the past 2 weeks. Needless to say, i did not get any sleep. You may call butterflies, or tension or whatever. Hardly about 4 odd hours i would have slept.
D-Day
Read my Quant (copy pasted stuff) again on the way to the centre. Did not look at verbal at all.
Up came the Argument, it was about some automobile industry and software industry.
Up came the Issue, it was about moral and ethical values. Gave some gas.
Got ready for my Quant.
Started with my quant with relatively easy sums, and i thought i was doing well, but i did not get a single probability or a combanitorics question during the first few ones...I thought i screwed up...DS was particularly tough and i had no choice but to guess. Then i thought the level started going down...so much so that it asked me a question what is the sqrt of 4 + 4+ 4. This is where panic set in. Its a bloody 200 level question..and i am like...oh god...i am dead...anyways, did not bother, answered the question in 10 secs and moved on. The only 'tough' question i thought i got was on overlapping sets. I did not get any RTD or Probability or Combanitorics question in the entire exam. During the break, I thought i had done miserable. And since Verbal was never my forte, I thought its time to say good bye to GMAT.
Up came the verbal section. Started with CR, then immediately SC and on the 5th question it was RC. Really sad passage. I could not make head or tail out of it and as is the usual strategy, i spent a lot of time on the first 10 questions. Then kind of paced myself. SC was the same, modifiers, parallelism, idioms. CR was a bit tough and RC passages were on Women's Liberation (as if we had not enough of those), another one on Women's History (wonder why GMAT is so fixated on Women) and the third RC was on Business plan by banks etc. I managed to finish my last SC with about 30 secs left on the clock. Then came the beautiful screen which asks you to report or cancel your score and if you dont decide, it decides for you in 2 minutes. In my anxiety, i pressed the next button without clicking any option and thankfully, which i say it again, thankfully, GMAT asks the question that you have not selected any option. Had the software assumed that i have to cancel my scores, I would not have written this post. So yes, i clicked on the button and looked away. And it appeared and i sat smiling at the screen. Anything above 700 would have been a bonus for me and anything below 700, it would have been a bad thing.
Retrospect:
As they say, one is always intelligent in retrospect.
Here are a couple of things which i think i missed or did wrong.
Firstly, I only selected 1 college. That is a crime. I should have selected 5 colleges for which the GMAT sends score, Now i have to waste 25$ per college. It is a waste of money.
I should have started and finished CR with Powerscore. I only read their 'Weaken' chapter. But then, I got this book from one of my friends pretty late. She had recommended me MGMAT and I am indeed thankful to her.
Quant OG, some of the problems are tough, but the rest are just there i guess to fill the volume. Verbal OG CR & SC, try to finish this off.
Lastly
I know this is not a great score, but at least it gives me a chance that my application would be read by the B-School. After having spoken with a few of the alumnii, they say that as soon as the admission committee sees a '7', the definitely read it. Otherwise, in my pool, they would not even bother opening the application.
Now comes the difficult part as i do not even know whether i will be applying for full-time or part-time. Don't even know, which school to apply.
I know, that hope is not a strategy, but i am hoping that things would fall in place just as they did for my GMAT and that my work ex should compensate for my reasonable score.
p.s. Although i have not been a contributor to this community, I have read almost every other problem that i have got wrong and the solutions on this site. some of the solutions are really great and the concepts are pretty well explained.
Thank you BeatTheGmat.
AND PLEASE DO NOT DO ANY SC ON THE ABOVE POST. YOU WILL SIMPLY WASTE YOUR TIME.
Is the official score ever different from the unofficial score that we receive right after the test?
