flex_manny Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 Finally Done!!!! Lots of lessons learnt. Final Score 740 Truly speaking, you should not do your GMAT prep like me at all. I was very busy at work. I was renovating my home and hence involved in a lot of construction which I was doing myself. And because of the few summer months I have, I could not postpone that. Plus I was lazy. I did not give GMAT the seriousness it deserves. For example, I would sit and watch TV once I came home from work and was not very consistent. To add to the drama, I feel very ill during my preparations. So overall, my study time was more like 3-4 hours on the weekends, and about an hour every week day. But after my excuses, let’s come to the lessons I have learnt Quant: I am attaching my Math cheat sheet. It’s not perfect, but if you get one or two tips from it, it’s probably done it’s job. I was fast from the beginning, but not smart enough. I scored 700 on Kaplan but 640 in Gmat prep. You get the idea!!! I have always been good at Math, but realized I was solving too much. Plus since I didn’t know some of the shortcuts, I was using all my thinking abilities to solve a question. Now this is essential, because if you need to think deeply for every question, it will drain you out in the main exam. My highest recommendation for Math is two things. One: Get the basics correct. You should understand what the formula for “Rate- Time” problems means and not just the formula. In GMAT as they twist questions, this will be a very useful tool. The same applies to other areas like percents, probability etc. Just get the concept once and then you can solve them like a robot. It’s called deliberate practice. Unlike solving or practicing 1000’s of questions, you solve fewer but do more introspection at the end of every question. TWO: Buy one of the MGMAT books and get access to the 6 tests it has. When I started I could never finish the MGMAT Quant part on time. I thought the probs are too tough and was solving way too much. But as I got better, I realized that if you think clearly, you won’t get stuck and you can approach the problem much more quickly. Hence, your aim should be that you are able to finish the quant part of MGMAT tests on time. Verbal: I have come to the conclusion, that the worse you are in English, the better you do. Cause, then you treat English like quant, come up with some formulae of “past – participle + x + Y + blah blah blah” and GMAt likes that. Without sounding pompous, I pride myself as an articulate speaker, but SC always threw me off. The same with CR and RC. But, I also did not practice enough, to really master them. So, no complaints there. One of the things I did, was to record an audio of my Verbal cheat sheet on a CD. And I started listening to it on to and fro from work. So if you guys have that luxury, it would be a good idea. The main exam: Was extremely busy at work. Had to go for some campus recruitment 3 days back. Hence did not get much time to study. Plus, I got only 4 hours of sleep before the test. I don’t do very well without sleep. My problem is that I panicked in the beginning in Quant. For some reason, my cognitive abilities vanished and I was all over the place. I got a really tough 4th question or rather I didn’t think clearly on it and ended up spending 8 minutes on it. When I looked up, at the clock, I had consumed 20 minutes for 4 questions. I decided to cool down and hurry up. I think I got some easy questions and was finally able to finish quant 3-4 mins in time. So if you get a few wrong in the first 15, the test is still smart enough to help you recover if you do well after that. Now this is where I screwed up. I drank an energy drink to negate my lack of sleep. But what it did instead is send my heart rate soaring. My eyes felt very weird and the whole screen started looking blurry. Plus my thinking also got affected. I noticed that I had to concentrate really hard on each question. Like even on the easier ones I had to use all my thinking and focus. But Verbal has never been my forte on GMAt and that’s the way it went. I think I managed the time okay. I think I have summarized most of it. I live around Boston and have a lot of books. They are all unmarked and would be happy to pass them along, if you e-mail me. My Scores: GMAT Prep: 640 770 710 KAPLAN: 610 620 680 640 MGMAT: 670 580 (paused the test) 720 (paused the test a few times to get more time) 720 710 Power Prep 760 Finally!!! Thanks to Kroviddy, makujmon, aviator and all others who helped me out. Names are too many to mention. But I think krovviddy and makujmon are in Quant at the same pedestal as 800Bob is in Verbal explanations. It's a good idea to look at their, posts. Added my verbal Cheat sheets as well!!! You can find them on page two Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 congrats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mydreamGMAT Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 Wow...thts great...i don't what you would have managed if you had given your 100% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbball Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amitabh007 Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 congrats...!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ameetsingh Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 CONGRATS :tup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitzi Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 Congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ap1010 Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 Great score !! Congratulations ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyGmatter Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Congrats mate... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mail2jkd Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Congrats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonkachi Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 congrats on the score Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flex_manny Posted September 28, 2008 Author Share Posted September 28, 2008 Thanks to everyone for their wishes.I am attaching my verbal notes here too. I forgot CrazyGmatter, in my acknowledgements. I hope your prep is coming along well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gmater-1 Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Congrats !! and thanks a ton for sharing your material By looking at your posts it was obivious that you will make it above 700 :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xunil56 Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Congrats !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ares666 Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Congratulations and thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiver Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 Hey Flex, great show champ!!! I've gathered a lot of sense out of ur possts (especially DS), and thanks for sharing the afterthoughts in this de-brief. One question that i'd like to get an answer for: if the sets (22-31) make a good representation of the verbal part of the real test this time around? I mean are these questions as demanding as the real ones? Also, I heard that one needs to make way through 5 RCs these days. Is this true? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hina_0611 Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 wow...:tup: Congratulations, Flex. You've done a good job. Best wishes further on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flex_manny Posted September 29, 2008 Author Share Posted September 29, 2008 Thanks guys!!! Thanks hina!!! I guess you have lately taken over as one of the star problem solvers here. Good luck, am sure you will do well. Thanks Fiver!! I am sure you will easily get 700+. I have seen your posts and you should do just fine. The sets 22- 31 are okay for practice. But some of the answers tend to be incorrect. So if you get any wrong, just search this forum for those questions and confirm them. I got I think about 4 RC's. Overall verbal is not that bad. But it wasn't my strongest suit. So my suggestion is be strong in SC, so that you can spend more time on RC and CR. Good luck and let me know how it goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sprakash Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Congrats.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retake_GMAT Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 [clap]Great Show Flex. You were always great at Quant!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaTum Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 I really appreciate your notes; all of them are very useful. Thank you and best of luck with your application! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyssa Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Congrats Flex ! If it is not too much of a trouble, could you please mail your notes to my email Id: nyssa21@gmail.com since i'm not able to view it. Thanks in advance :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schumi9876 Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Congrats Flex_Manny , how did you find the level of difficulty of quant vis GMAt prep ? It would be really nice, if you could upload the docs in some sharing site eg enips , i am sure lot of exam takers will learn a thing or two from your cheat sheets ...and benefit immensely Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russty Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 V. good score Flex_manny, congrats! Can you please please upload your documents to some site as many of us newbies are unable to download them , thanx a ton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wannabee Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Congrats Flex. Great score alright! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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