All,
I have been reading about people getting scores above 700 and the amount of prep they did. It is very scary for people who are just getting started. Thankfully, I did not start haunting such forums until about a week from my actual GMAT or I would have crashed. So, I decided to add a little different perspective to people who are just starting. Depending on individuals, the key to the GMAT is not the number of prep books, videos, podcasts etc you can finish. You have to understand the logic behind the answer!
When I started preparing for my GMAT, I had no clue how difficult it could get. All I had was a gmatprep book that I picked from the city library. Then I was chatting with a friend and he scared me - told me to go find this and that and this...some 4-5 prep books. I was reluctant to buy all the stuff (or beg people for their material) because given my timing, I had just about a month to prepare and I knew that I could not possibly finish all that prep material.
This is what I did - bought the Kindle version of the Official Verbal, Quant and the Overall Prep Guides. Just focussed on finishing the problems in these three guides. That is it. I had about a month before my GMAT date of Dec 8, 2011. Thankfully, office was not super busy so I could use a lot of time in office to study. I got a pretty good score - 710 (47Q,41V) and I am happy with it.
The main thing that I focussed on, was not whether my answer was right or wrong, but whether my reasoning for reaching my answer was right or wrong. If you understand the reasoning, the logic, the step-by-step process of reaching a conclusion, be it maths or english, then you can easily crack the GMAT.
I don't have an engineering background (its almost a liberal arts background) but I am comfortable with Maths. English is my second langauge but I like to read a lot and that helped.
Believe me, if I can do it, so can you!!
I have been reading about people getting scores above 700 and the amount of prep they did. It is very scary for people who are just getting started. Thankfully, I did not start haunting such forums until about a week from my actual GMAT or I would have crashed. So, I decided to add a little different perspective to people who are just starting. Depending on individuals, the key to the GMAT is not the number of prep books, videos, podcasts etc you can finish. You have to understand the logic behind the answer!
When I started preparing for my GMAT, I had no clue how difficult it could get. All I had was a gmatprep book that I picked from the city library. Then I was chatting with a friend and he scared me - told me to go find this and that and this...some 4-5 prep books. I was reluctant to buy all the stuff (or beg people for their material) because given my timing, I had just about a month to prepare and I knew that I could not possibly finish all that prep material.
This is what I did - bought the Kindle version of the Official Verbal, Quant and the Overall Prep Guides. Just focussed on finishing the problems in these three guides. That is it. I had about a month before my GMAT date of Dec 8, 2011. Thankfully, office was not super busy so I could use a lot of time in office to study. I got a pretty good score - 710 (47Q,41V) and I am happy with it.
The main thing that I focussed on, was not whether my answer was right or wrong, but whether my reasoning for reaching my answer was right or wrong. If you understand the reasoning, the logic, the step-by-step process of reaching a conclusion, be it maths or english, then you can easily crack the GMAT.
I don't have an engineering background (its almost a liberal arts background) but I am comfortable with Maths. English is my second langauge but I like to read a lot and that helped.
Believe me, if I can do it, so can you!!
