-
thermcin
- Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
- Posts: 23
- Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:51 pm
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- GMAT Score:750
Hi guys, I just got home from the test center; I scored 750 (Q50, V41)!!. This is my second attempt -I scored 610 in my first attempt. I am not an active member on the community but I am a frequent visitor. I would like to thank ALL the members of the BTG community for all the posts, recommendations and reviews. I want to share some of my thoughts when they are still very fresh in my mind. I apologize for the really long post.
First attempt: (June 2010)
My job requires a lot of travel and most of my preparation was done in the airports and in the hotels. When I gave the GMAT the first time around, I knew that I 'deserved' (if I can use that word) better. My mind was not in the right place because of some issues and I went to the test center very disturbed. Clearly, this had a big impact on the score. The score of 610 is lower than the score I got when I took a practice test for the first time WITHOUT ANY STUDY! So, needless to say, I was pretty disappointed and lost a lot of confidence. I was especially very disappointed at my verbal score because that was lower than what I got without any preparation.
One good thing I did after coming home that day was to write down my test day experience for myself. I wrote down how I felt in each section in as much detail as I could remember. This really helped me the second time around. I strongly recommend this to anyone who plans on retaking GMAT.
I went ahead and applied to the part-time MBA program at Robert Smith School of business. I was offered an admission there but I didn't take it as I didn't think that their program was a good return on investment, even after my company was ready to cover a (small) part of the tuition.
Second attempt: (today - Aug 18th 2012)
Verbal preparation:
Due to heavy travel and work load, I didn't get back to the books until late last year. I think I re-started my preparation sometime in December of last year. I realized that I need to take a very fundamental approach for my verbal preparation. MGMAT Sentence correction, which was the only resource I used the first time, is a good book but it does not cover the foundations needed for non-native English speaker like me. I read about e-gmat on the forums and wanted to give it a try since it was said to be targeted for non-native English speakers. I tried their free videos and was immediately impressed. I signed-up for the full verbal prep course including live sessions.
Though e-gmat has sentence correction and critical reasoning (very minor focus on RC though), I was especially impressed by the sentence correction part. I learnt how to breakdown a complex sentence into smaller, more manageable clauses and this helped me in better comprehending the meaning of the sentences. A very important note to non-native English speakers: NEVER underestimate the importance of meaning in the GMAT SC. Most of the SC questions I saw today in the actual GMAT and in the GMATPrep, OG 12 and other official sources can be easily solved once you focus on the meaning of the sentence. If you don't focus on the meaning, you are certain to make a mistake on many medium and high difficulty SC questions. In addition, I noticed that once I started to focus on sentence structure and meaning, I was able to do better on critical reasoning and RC as well! This was a big bonus as both CR and RC NEED YOU TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS THE MAIN POINT - something that you will not get unless you understand the meaning of the sentence, argument or the passage.
For critical reasoning, I used MGMAT critical reasoning book. This is, in my opinion, the BEST book on critical reasoning.
I didn't use any resource for RC as I was pretty good at RC already and I have been getting almost all of the RC questions correct in all of the practice tests. The main thing in RC is to summarize to yourself the essence of each paragraph - I have never written down a thing during RC but I ALWAYS summarized each paragraph in one sentence in my mind. The smaller passages are the worst; they do not really have the same organization and structure of a big passage. To me, the smaller passages were much more difficult to comprehend than the longer ones. If you are like me, you need to realize that even though the smaller passage seems like one big paragraph without any breaks, make sure you mentally break it into easy to understand chunks - again, summarize intermittently in order to continue to build the BIG PICTURE in your mind. OG 12 and OG verbal 2 are the best resources for RC - note that the answer explanations for RC in the OG are much better than those for other sections. So, be sure to read each and every explanation, even for wrong answer choices.
Quant preparation:
Like any other Indian, I am good at Math in general. In addition, I have Masters in Engineering and have aced some of the most advanced math courses at the Masters degree level. But I had trouble with GMAT math. If you are like me, you need to realize that GMAT math is NOT AS MUCH ABOUT MATH AS IT IS ABOUT HOW YOU THINK!!!! The sooner you realize this, the better. The GMAT math is pretty fundamental but you need to work through the initial 'obscurity' that GMAT adds to the problem. This one realization really pushed up my math score.
I used MGMAT math books for my preparation. If you have these books, you really don't need anything else for math prep - period. GMATCLUB tests (they came free when I signed up for e-gmat live prep) are VERY good for practice. I took only 3 (out of 30-something) in the past couple of weeks, but those 3 tests really boosted my confidence and speed. I suggest that you first study the MGMAT books and then start trying out the GMATCLUB tests.
IR SECTION:
I didn't get a chance to prepare well for IR. I spent the few hours I got each day during the week on SC, CR and Quant and I didn't have any time to prepare much for IR. I viewed the IR introductory videos on BTG and bought access to MGMAT IR question bank for $2 - great deal, thanks to BTG! I was totally devastated by my performance on MGMAT IR questions. I felt that they were very very difficult and I soon realized that I need to develop a new set of skills in short notice, which is not realistic. I decided that given my time limitations, I am going to focus only on Multisource reasoning and two-part analysis - for the rest, I am going to do my best on the exam day and hope for the best! That is what I did. I hope that my score won't be too low!!! I will update the post after I get my score report.
Test day experience:
I stopped all preparation yesterday since I didn't want to be burned out like I was during my first attempt. I think this really helped put things into perspective for me - I spent the day playing with my 2 year old son.
My test was at noon today and I was at the test center by 11:30 am. The staff at the test center has changed - I didn't remember seeing any of them before.
Argument essay was OK. Then came the IR section - the question were not as bad as the MGMAT questions but they did drain my mental energy.
When I came out for the break, the proctor, who was clearly new in her job didn't know whether I can go to my locker and have a snack!! When I told her that I want to go to my locker, she opened GMAT rules book and started reading it!!!! DAMN IT WOMAN - YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS!! I lost valuable time. I was late for Math session, I lost a full minute!!!
I was pretty mad at her and at Pearson VUE for letting such untrained people be proctors but I didn't let this get to me. As I started solving the questions, I fell right back into the groove and midway through the section, I realized that I was doing OK on time. I had to get a new notepad - which again wasted some time. I had to guess on probably a couple of questions but overall felt that the section went OK.
During the break I quickly returned from the restroom, fearing that I will lose valuable minutes in verbal section where I cannot afford to lose any time. I was parched and hungry - my tummy started rumbling as soon as I started the verbal section. I felt that I was doing OK but I was behind on time by around 6 mins when I reached question # 20 - not good. I tried to speed up but it is really difficult to speed-up. I had to guess on the last 4 questions. I felt that I probably totally messed up the entire section.
After the background info, I selected 'report scores' and 'next' and just closed my eyes and stated to think about what I need to do if I score below my 610. When I raised my head, I was glad to see 750 on the screen!!
[/b]
First attempt: (June 2010)
My job requires a lot of travel and most of my preparation was done in the airports and in the hotels. When I gave the GMAT the first time around, I knew that I 'deserved' (if I can use that word) better. My mind was not in the right place because of some issues and I went to the test center very disturbed. Clearly, this had a big impact on the score. The score of 610 is lower than the score I got when I took a practice test for the first time WITHOUT ANY STUDY! So, needless to say, I was pretty disappointed and lost a lot of confidence. I was especially very disappointed at my verbal score because that was lower than what I got without any preparation.
One good thing I did after coming home that day was to write down my test day experience for myself. I wrote down how I felt in each section in as much detail as I could remember. This really helped me the second time around. I strongly recommend this to anyone who plans on retaking GMAT.
I went ahead and applied to the part-time MBA program at Robert Smith School of business. I was offered an admission there but I didn't take it as I didn't think that their program was a good return on investment, even after my company was ready to cover a (small) part of the tuition.
Second attempt: (today - Aug 18th 2012)
Verbal preparation:
Due to heavy travel and work load, I didn't get back to the books until late last year. I think I re-started my preparation sometime in December of last year. I realized that I need to take a very fundamental approach for my verbal preparation. MGMAT Sentence correction, which was the only resource I used the first time, is a good book but it does not cover the foundations needed for non-native English speaker like me. I read about e-gmat on the forums and wanted to give it a try since it was said to be targeted for non-native English speakers. I tried their free videos and was immediately impressed. I signed-up for the full verbal prep course including live sessions.
Though e-gmat has sentence correction and critical reasoning (very minor focus on RC though), I was especially impressed by the sentence correction part. I learnt how to breakdown a complex sentence into smaller, more manageable clauses and this helped me in better comprehending the meaning of the sentences. A very important note to non-native English speakers: NEVER underestimate the importance of meaning in the GMAT SC. Most of the SC questions I saw today in the actual GMAT and in the GMATPrep, OG 12 and other official sources can be easily solved once you focus on the meaning of the sentence. If you don't focus on the meaning, you are certain to make a mistake on many medium and high difficulty SC questions. In addition, I noticed that once I started to focus on sentence structure and meaning, I was able to do better on critical reasoning and RC as well! This was a big bonus as both CR and RC NEED YOU TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS THE MAIN POINT - something that you will not get unless you understand the meaning of the sentence, argument or the passage.
For critical reasoning, I used MGMAT critical reasoning book. This is, in my opinion, the BEST book on critical reasoning.
I didn't use any resource for RC as I was pretty good at RC already and I have been getting almost all of the RC questions correct in all of the practice tests. The main thing in RC is to summarize to yourself the essence of each paragraph - I have never written down a thing during RC but I ALWAYS summarized each paragraph in one sentence in my mind. The smaller passages are the worst; they do not really have the same organization and structure of a big passage. To me, the smaller passages were much more difficult to comprehend than the longer ones. If you are like me, you need to realize that even though the smaller passage seems like one big paragraph without any breaks, make sure you mentally break it into easy to understand chunks - again, summarize intermittently in order to continue to build the BIG PICTURE in your mind. OG 12 and OG verbal 2 are the best resources for RC - note that the answer explanations for RC in the OG are much better than those for other sections. So, be sure to read each and every explanation, even for wrong answer choices.
Quant preparation:
Like any other Indian, I am good at Math in general. In addition, I have Masters in Engineering and have aced some of the most advanced math courses at the Masters degree level. But I had trouble with GMAT math. If you are like me, you need to realize that GMAT math is NOT AS MUCH ABOUT MATH AS IT IS ABOUT HOW YOU THINK!!!! The sooner you realize this, the better. The GMAT math is pretty fundamental but you need to work through the initial 'obscurity' that GMAT adds to the problem. This one realization really pushed up my math score.
I used MGMAT math books for my preparation. If you have these books, you really don't need anything else for math prep - period. GMATCLUB tests (they came free when I signed up for e-gmat live prep) are VERY good for practice. I took only 3 (out of 30-something) in the past couple of weeks, but those 3 tests really boosted my confidence and speed. I suggest that you first study the MGMAT books and then start trying out the GMATCLUB tests.
IR SECTION:
I didn't get a chance to prepare well for IR. I spent the few hours I got each day during the week on SC, CR and Quant and I didn't have any time to prepare much for IR. I viewed the IR introductory videos on BTG and bought access to MGMAT IR question bank for $2 - great deal, thanks to BTG! I was totally devastated by my performance on MGMAT IR questions. I felt that they were very very difficult and I soon realized that I need to develop a new set of skills in short notice, which is not realistic. I decided that given my time limitations, I am going to focus only on Multisource reasoning and two-part analysis - for the rest, I am going to do my best on the exam day and hope for the best! That is what I did. I hope that my score won't be too low!!! I will update the post after I get my score report.
Test day experience:
I stopped all preparation yesterday since I didn't want to be burned out like I was during my first attempt. I think this really helped put things into perspective for me - I spent the day playing with my 2 year old son.
My test was at noon today and I was at the test center by 11:30 am. The staff at the test center has changed - I didn't remember seeing any of them before.
Argument essay was OK. Then came the IR section - the question were not as bad as the MGMAT questions but they did drain my mental energy.
When I came out for the break, the proctor, who was clearly new in her job didn't know whether I can go to my locker and have a snack!! When I told her that I want to go to my locker, she opened GMAT rules book and started reading it!!!! DAMN IT WOMAN - YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS!! I lost valuable time. I was late for Math session, I lost a full minute!!!
I was pretty mad at her and at Pearson VUE for letting such untrained people be proctors but I didn't let this get to me. As I started solving the questions, I fell right back into the groove and midway through the section, I realized that I was doing OK on time. I had to get a new notepad - which again wasted some time. I had to guess on probably a couple of questions but overall felt that the section went OK.
During the break I quickly returned from the restroom, fearing that I will lose valuable minutes in verbal section where I cannot afford to lose any time. I was parched and hungry - my tummy started rumbling as soon as I started the verbal section. I felt that I was doing OK but I was behind on time by around 6 mins when I reached question # 20 - not good. I tried to speed up but it is really difficult to speed-up. I had to guess on the last 4 questions. I felt that I probably totally messed up the entire section.
After the background info, I selected 'report scores' and 'next' and just closed my eyes and stated to think about what I need to do if I score below my 610. When I raised my head, I was glad to see 750 on the screen!!
[/b]
Last edited by thermcin on Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
