740

[java_ka_jalwa]

Hello everyone thanks a lot to BTG. This forum rocks.

Background - Studied Engineering in India, did my masters at a top 10
engineering program
work exp - 18 months. GRE score was 1470, 5.0 / 6.0, TOEFL - 289 (Aug 2003 and Oct 2004 resp)

Preparation - 3 months. First 2 months studied only on weekends(total 6 - 8 hours). last 4 weeks, studied atleast an hour on weekdays(except for 3 days). Final week, studied atleast 3 hours on weekdays.

Test Prep Scores:

Kaplan 1 - 580
Kaplan 2 - 580
Kaplan 3 - 690
Kaplan 4 - 570 (Freaked out with two weeks to go)

Princeton 1 - 710
Princeton 2 - 730
Princeton 3 - 610 (Freaked out, took it on the same day as Kaplan 4)
Princeton 4 - 730

These two tests which caused me to freak out - I realized that I was not focusing well and had too much of GMAT in my head, plus there was a little pressure at work. So I decided to take a complete break for 3 days.
This worked wonders.

For all MGMAT tests except first and last I set the timer to an extra 15 minutes for the quant section. MGMAT quants are too wordy and lengthy

MGMAT 1 - 630
MGMAT 2 - did not complete it
MGMAT 3 - 740
MGMAT 4 - 750
MGMAT 5 - 740
MGMAT 6 - 780 (2 days before the real exam, however the quant grading was strange I got just one 700 - 800 level question which I got wrong , all other questions were 600- 700 level, out which I got 4 wrong and yet got a 51 on quant. Was happy about getting a 48 on verbal)

PowerPrep 1 - 770 (too easy cannot compare to GMATPrep, esp since most verbal questions are from OG)
PowerPrep 2 - did not complete

GMATPrep1 : 700
GMATPrep2 : 730 (took both exams 2 weeks before the real one)

Study Material : OG11 + Quant and verbal supplement. (The best)
MGMAT sentence correction (Really good starting point)
Powercore - CR bible (Excellent !!!)
Kaplan 800 - (CR is good, everything else was
very unOG-like)
Princeton Verbal Workout (Nothing great, could have
done without it)
Princeton Math Workout (Ditto).
Used the various Sentence Correction Notes on BTG for
memorizing Idioms.

I hope my debrief helps , esp ppl with engineering background.

Quant :

Did not have to study a lot, so dont have much to put in here. Since I had taken some adv math courses at grad school some math concepts were relatively fresh, esp probability, statistics and set theory.

Although I have an engineering background and relatively solid quant fundamentals, DS was a new beast and no matter how good ones fundamentals are, one needs to solve a lot of DS questions. Also it had been ages since I studied the basics of number properties (when I saw the term "evenly divisible" I thought it meant divisible by an even number!!!).PS is relatively easy since we have the answers in front of us it is easier to eliminate wrong choices.

I spent the last week solving only DS problems, and I believe that it helped me a lot.

Also the biggest challenge is to puncture your ego while solving quant. Many a times I would dwell over a problem and waste time , just to prove that since my math fundas are strong I should be able to crack every problem. This attitude cost me dearly in the first few exams.

On the real test I set myself 5 minutes at the most to do a tough problem.
(note that I was confident I could make up time on rest of the questions)

Verbal:

Started of reading MGMAT SC. This book is an excellent place to start. It is a good way to refresh all the grammar rules. Once you know all the rules, SC is pretty much like a Quant problem. I solved OG + verbal supplement SC questions twice. The area in which I was struggling was Idioms. So every day in the morning I would pick an idiom and google for sentences using that Idiom, then form a humorous sentence using the Idiom.I found that it worked for me better than looking at flashcards. I used the same technique for memorizing GRE wordlist and it had worked for me.

Half way through my prep I realized that I was not making any progress in Critical Reasoning. So I purchased Powerscore's CR bible, a decision I do not regret. This is one of the best prep materials out there and I believe is a must have. My CR hit rate improved significantly after using this book. I wish I had bought this book earlier. I used OG and Kaplan 800 for CR questions


Reading Comprehension - was familiar since GRE also had RC, did OG questions once. Contrary to most prep materials, reading the RC at a very relaxed pace without taking any notes helped me. What worked for me was creating a causal map in your mind as you read the RC. For example:
" The planets were formed due to A when B kind of gases were emitted by C. At same time constellation X was evolving from a gaseous mass formed by Y. "

The map would look something like:
C -> B -> A at the same time Y -> X

This is difficult to apply to passages related to arts and humanities, but with little practice you can do it.

My RC performance was much better than GRE days.

AWA -
Did not bother to study until the day b4 the exam, since GRE had a similar section.
The day before the exams looked at some sample essays on BTG, formed a template for both types of essays.


Actual Test:

8:00 am in the morning , although I am not a mornings person, I had to report to work, so had to take an early appointment. My aim was to cross my GRE score (1470 /2 = 735). Did that by a whisker .

Score 740:

Math 49: 88 percentile (punctured my "engineering" ego again)
Verbal 42: 95 percentile (was happy with the score)

AWA was ok - argument - I know I have made a spelling mistake, lets see what the score would be. issue was easy.

The questions were of GMATPrep level, Quant probably had slightly lengthier problems (Or maybe I could not think of short cuts).
Verbal was the same level as GMATPrep.


A big thanks to the BTG community and good luck !!

I do not plan to apply to univs any time soon , probably after a couple of years.

Thanks again !!

[smalishah84]

Well done. Congratulations.

[jaybrium]

Excellent score! Congrats!