760 (Q49, V46)

[ursula]

Originally posted by jjomalls

Do you feel that your quant questions from the real test mirrored the harder Official Guide questions, or more so the Kaplan questions?

I took the test and scored a 640 the first time. My verbal's not the issue, just the math. Have 4 weeks to go, and am working both Kaplan and Official Guide. Not sure where/how to focus the best, especially on probability, comb/perm, and exponent questions. Any suggestions?

I would say the actual GMAT is best mirrored by the harder Official Guide questions - the thinking patterns are just a little different in Kaplan. But the Kaplan strategies are sometimes better than official Official Guide explanations, e.g. using backsolving or number picking instead of a more conventional approach.

I believe that earlier editions of Official Guide had questions divided by difficulty, but now they're all mixed together. Based on my own experience, though, difficult questions occurred more frequently in the last 80 PS questions - from #361 on, I missed 1 in 10 on my first attempt, while on the 80 questions just before that I didn't miss a single one. Similarly, in the final 50 questions in the Official Guide DS section I missed or was slow or unsure for 2 in 10 questions, while for the rest of DS my average miss rate was about 1 in 10.

I think comb/perm is freaking a lot of people out unnecessarily. I only had one combinations question where it really helped to know the xCy formula (the number of ways to choose y elements from a set of x elements). On a second comb/perm question, the trick was more to translate the word problem into a comb/perm concept - the actual answer was small enough that I could have just enumerated the possible outcomes. For probabilities, just the basics were sufficient - nothing beyond what's covered in the math review that's in the beginning of Official Guide.

My feeling is that you are far more likely to need solid arithmetic and algebra skills (including exponents) than esoteric comb/perm/probabilities.

[erkki]

Great post. I really admire your study habits. Thanks for sharing. Maybe the next time I have to take a standardized test (which I hope is never again!) I will mimic your strategy.

[ursula]

By the way, I emailed Erin a copy of the Official Guide practice grid I discussed under Getting the most out of OG in my long post above. He has kindly posted it for download at http://www.sentencecorrection.com/fo...?showtopic=714

[caorui]

Congratulations!!!

[luve]

What a wonderful score and post...Congratulation!

[sibs]

WOW.. Congratulations URSULA for your G-SCORE and what a post .

[hi_bonjour]

Excellent post !!
Thanks for your great ideas.
Which school(s) are u targeting ?

[rkny02]

Ursula,

Congratulations. 760 will get you into top 10.Way to go, you deserve it.And thanks for such a nice post abt your preparation. I have made a copy of the same and will try to apply similar kind of strategy. Its really inspirational.

Raj

[ursula]

On Friday I submitted my application to the John Molson School of Business (Concordia University, here in Montreal). It's one of the top 5 programs in Canada, and I'm applying to start this fall.

Also, in a strange twist of timing, just the day before writing the GMAT, I got a call from a headhunter about a possible 1-year contract position. If that works out, I may start my MBA part-time in the fall, and switch to full-time at the end of the contract. So I may end up doing a job interview and an MBA interview in the same week

[mba_in2005]

Hello Ursula,

I am starting to prepare for the GMAT,and what better timing than this, to get such a good guidance. Great post!!

Wish you all the best for your double interview :-) and hope you get into a business school of your choice.

Regards,
Neeru.