daraverla Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 Hey fellas, I have been a quiet lurker on this board. Nevertheless, after successfully finishing my 3rd GMAT test last week, I would like to share some useful information with you fellas. First of all, I would like to let you know my previous test results prior to the one I took last week. 1st 650 Q: 47, V: 32 2nd 620 Q: 43, V: 28 So here we go. You are reading a post written by someone who is not anywhere closely labeled as a genius. If anything, I am a normal, sub-IQ130 person who has simply succeeded in mastering some useful test taking techniques. For those of you who have at least broken 650 mark during your previous tests, you HAVE POTENTIAL to score well over 700. In other words, the only reason you have not scored well on GMAT is not a lack of knowledge or information necessary to "ace" the test; rather you have not approached this test in most effective and efficient manner. Here are a few tips you may find interesting: Math 1. If you carefully look at the answers provided in your [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] book for math section, you should be immediately able to notice that the length of the answer on average is not more than 200 characters. In other words, you will deal with math questions that does not need special knowledge, messy calculation, or complicated logistic mindset. Indeed, a shortcut to every single math question is available in every problem. You just have to find one in a given time. I know it's easier said than done, but you just have to twitch your mindset in this way so that you would not panic about the apparent difficulty of the problems you see on the exam. 2. Do not study one of those Permutation/Combination BS. With all due respect to those helful posters who have provided useful information on these topics, I have to say that Permutation/Combination questions are overrated as far as the number of questions present in the test. I saw only one very basic Permutation problem, and I have seen this exact pattern in a number of times from various sources. So don't waste your time trying to perfect your Permuation formula smackdown, because you will only see only 1~2 basic questions about them. 3. Data Sufficiency: I know this is the area from which some of you guys take severe punishments. However, I have to say this: this is easier than the problem solving questions. Don't solve it. Just know whether you can set up an equation to find an answer. That's all these questions are asking. CAN YOU SET UP A VIABLE EQUATION? Practice, practice, I can't overemphasize the importance of doing [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] problems over and over again, which I have managed to do at least three times in the last 3 months or so. Basically, try to force yourself to spend enough time to make sure that you can identity the question types on an actual test. 4. Try to allocate enough time on first 10~15 questions. If you are doing OK in the first 15 questions, you will see the immediate dropoff in difficulty of questions following the first 15. I barely had time for the first 2 tests, but I managed to have more than 10 minutes left in the last test. Granted, I was extremenly lucky to have much easier questions than what I had orginally expected. Verbal 1. There is no excuse whatsoever to miss SC questions. This is not about some sort of skill, talent, or ability. It is purely about how much you have done those SC problems. Try to do at least 30 SC questions a day in order to familiarize yourself with these types of questions. Again, don't be happy about being "70%" right. You - every single one of you - should get more than 95% of the questions right. 2. RC: You have to paraphrase each paragraph, and you need to practice on RC with paraphrasing to sharpen your critical abilities. Do every single passage with this technique. This is not optional for you, if I must insist. Do it if you feel your English is a sore spot. I will think about a few more things later, and I will try to write out more stuff. However, keep this in mind. If I could raise my score from 620 to 710 in a couple of months without hardly studying other than reviewing the questions I have solved before, YOU CAN ALSO DO IT. Trust me on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manusmile144 Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 Hi Daraverla, Congrats for your Success!!!! You've shown that with determination and hard work success can be achieved. Tell me what strategy you used for RC? As fas as SC is concerned is [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] enough for practise? Regards Manu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manusmile144 Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 Hi Daraverla, Congrats for your Success!!!! You've shown that with determination and hard work success can be achieved. Tell me what strategy you used for RC? As fas as SC is concerned is [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] enough for practise? Regards Manu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roborob Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 congrats darva.... where are you thinking about applying to ? i like the message you have written in your signature area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daraverla Posted April 6, 2004 Author Share Posted April 6, 2004 Originally posted by manusmile144 Hi Daraverla, Congrats for your Success!!!! You've shown that with determination and hard work success can be achieved. Tell me what strategy you used for RC? As fas as SC is concerned is [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] enough for practise? Regards Manu Hey thanks for the congrat. As you can see, I did it with my determination, not with any sort of intellect. Having said this, if you get consistently 4 or 5 out of 6 questions on practice RC, you should be gunning for perfect on any kind of RC questions. Here are my personal strategies. 1. Paraphrase each paragraph. eg. " 1. Two theories (Anne Summers and editor) -> 2. Anne Summers (bad), "overeaggeration", "propangandistic" 3. editor (good) , "improved sanitary condition", "created facilities" ->4. author's take (good overall, with Anne Summers partially correct) 2. Approach the "According to the passage", "According to the author" questions with the kind of mindset that "I have to get this right! After all, all I need to do is FIND , not think of, the section which the questions pertain to." 3. By practicing this paraphrase steps (i know this is time-consuming), you will naturally develop a critical reading skill to help you forsee what is coming ahead. 4. You should always anticipate what may lie in the next paragraph by closely reading the first sentence of each paragraph. Think of this way, it is much easier to watch a movie with weird twists and turns when you know the plots ahead of watching the movie. The same principle applies here as well. 5. Minimize re-reading the passages by accurately paraphrasing each paragraph. 6. I will personally guarantee you that once you have intensively practice this method for a week (at least 2 hours a day), you will notice significant improvement in your reading skills. I will personally guarantee you on this one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daraverla Posted April 6, 2004 Author Share Posted April 6, 2004 Originally posted by roborob congrats darva.... where are you thinking about applying to ? i like the message you have written in your signature area. Thanks man! :) This is the wisdom I have learned in the hard way through the years of agony, I guess. My stats: 710 GMAT, 3.25 GPA from UCLA, 4 yrs of WE, some extra. I plan to apply for Tuck School in the 3rd round, on April 19th. I know this is a long shot, but I will try anyway since this will give you a good feedback for the next year's application procedures, should I fail to gain admission this year. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daraverla Posted April 6, 2004 Author Share Posted April 6, 2004 Originally posted by manusmile144 Hi Daraverla, Congrats for your Success!!!! You've shown that with determination and hard work success can be achieved. Tell me what strategy you used for RC? As fas as SC is concerned is [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] enough for practise? Regards Manu OG should be a plenty for SC. I didn't use any other book extensively for GMAT study, and I would assume any of us would need to so. Again, I would like to reiterate the fact that you guys should be really confident, given that a person like myself substantially raised the score from 620 to 710. I really mean this, fellas, Keep your head up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daraverla Posted April 6, 2004 Author Share Posted April 6, 2004 Originally posted by roborob congrats darva.... where are you thinking about applying to ? i like the message you have written in your signature area. I have noticed your signature as well. Are you still studying for GMAT? If so, try this strategy. Sign up for two GMAT tests, one for the month you wanna to take,and the other for the following month. And tell yourself, "you know what? If I mess up, fine, I will just take the test again next month. No biggie. I am going to take the test with comforts knowin that I have another chance for the next month." Many of us inadvertantly give ourselves extra pressure by unconsciously telling us that we need to score over 700. This is not true as many other people have said on numerous occassions. You should be fairly competitive with 680 with those with over 700 scores. 20 pts difference in GMAT is nothing. Nothing at all. So lower your standard, and surprise yourself at the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roborob Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 Originally posted by daraverla Originally posted by roborob congrats darva.... where are you thinking about applying to ? i like the message you have written in your signature area. I have noticed your signature as well. Are you still studying for GMAT? If so, try this strategy. Sign up for two GMAT tests, one for the month you wanna to take,and the other for the following month. And tell yourself, "you know what? If I mess up, fine, I will just take the test again next month. No biggie. I am going to take the test with comforts knowin that I have another chance for the next month." Many of us inadvertantly give ourselves extra pressure by unconsciously telling us that we need to score over 700. This is not true as many other people have said on numerous occassions. You should be fairly competitive with 680 with those with over 700 scores. 20 pts difference in GMAT is nothing. Nothing at all. So lower your standard, and surprise yourself at the end. That is a good testing stategy, but I think I am satisfied with my 680. :D Yeah, I'm going to wait until this fall to begin the admissions process. I don't have as many years w/e as you do, so I don't want to hurt my chances by applying to third round. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bazooka76 Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 Congratulations on your score. Way to go. You have given a pretty good boost to people in this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angels Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 Hi daraverla, Congratulations on your success. Your hard work and patience has paid in the end. I'm taking the test on 3rd may and doing the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] for the 2nd time now. Till now I was quite nervous, butafter reading your mail feeling a bit motivted and relaxed. Please suggest if [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] is sufficient practice for the real GMAT or not? are there questions from [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] or like [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip],specially verbal.If yes then appx what percent? All the bst for your future endeavours rgds Angel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaiva Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 Congradt'z on your score daraverla awesome job!!!! Best of luck with the app proccess and the future... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daraverla Posted April 7, 2004 Author Share Posted April 7, 2004 Originally posted by angels Hi daraverla, Congratulations on your success. Your hard work and patience has paid in the end. I'm taking the test on 3rd may and doing the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] for the 2nd time now. Till now I was quite nervous, butafter reading your mail feeling a bit motivted and relaxed. Please suggest if [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] is sufficient practice for the real GMAT or not? are there questions from [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] or like [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip],specially verbal.If yes then appx what percent? All the bst for your future endeavours rgds Angel Thanks for the kinds words. To answer your question, yes, it is more than sufficient to prepare for GMAT only with the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. Particularly the verbal section, that is. I did not use any other books to prepare for the verbal section, and I am not even a native speaker. So right there, you should feel some sort of security knowing that [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] itself provides enough preparation. One thing I would like to tell you is that while I highly applaud your efforts and dedication in going over the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] for the 2nd time, I must warn you that "reading through the solutions" will not help you. You have to get down and get nasty with each and every math problems as if you are taking a mini test. Even if you know some of the answers to easy questions, go ahead and solve them. To save some time, you should start from the back, since the difficulty tends to be high near the end of the book. On verbal section, analyst the solution. For SC, I think there are only a dozen major rules applied. I will try to post these rules by the end of this week. TAKE MY WORDS, I RAISED MY SC SCORE FROM 70% TO 90~95% WITHIN A MONTH. IF I CAN DO IT, I DONT SEE A DARN REASON WHY SOMEONE LIKE YOUR CALIBER CAN'T DO IT. MARK MY WORDS, AND THINK VERY HARD WHY I AM SAYING THIS TO YOU. On RC, try my paraphrasing approach, it really helps you to analyst the passage from the different light. Granted, this is a very time consuming, but at the end, you will feel that approaching a single passage with the paraphasing method will outweigh the benefits of doing 3~4 passages in a normal fashion. Again, dedicate yourself at least 1~2 weeks using this method, studying for about 1~2 hours a day. You will notice significant improvement in your reading speed. Good luck to you, and if you have succeeded in breaking the 650 mark, 700 mark is really, really within your reach. After all, there are only 4~6 correct answers apart from these scores IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angels Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 your advice is truely appreciated. thanks a lot. I'm already working on your RC mantra and surprisingly...the answers are not looking mysterious anymore.......though it took me more time than usual. but I guess with practice that will be fine. waiting to hear from you about the SC rules. have a nice day Regds Angel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sibs Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 I an confused on an issue . My target is too score 640-660(45q,35v). I am practising but not getting the idea that how many questions(number of questions in each section ) need to be correct to score 45 in Q and 35 in V(for example out of 37 in quant 30 should be the correct answer ? ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erkki Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 Sibs, I don't think you should really approach it that way, thinking that you need to get a certain number right. As you know, the GMAT is a computer adaptive test, so missing the first two will affect your score differently than missing the last two. And because a few of the questions don't count, this further complicates things. Just do your best, make a good effort on each question, and work on your timing. If you do all of this (and look up ursula's study methods), your target score will take care of itself. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sibs Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Thanks Erkki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daraverla Posted April 15, 2004 Author Share Posted April 15, 2004 Originally posted by sibs Thanks Erkki Fellas, I am currently working on SC strategies, and I will try to post it within a couple of days. So just hang on! :):D I am with you, as I have promised before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAJA Posted April 15, 2004 Share Posted April 15, 2004 Hi ... I have scheduled the test in May -end . My prev score was 600 (Q 43 and V 29) (in Jan) ...Feeling terrible about Verbal ... Some-how I can't focus on the Verbal it seems to keep getting more complicated... any books you recommend ? You have made a remarkable improvement in your verbal from 28 - 37 . Please advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkny02 Posted April 15, 2004 Share Posted April 15, 2004 Baja, Even I have my exam scheduled for May end.This is my first attempt.I work full-time and try to to devote rest of the time for preparation. Even for me Verbal is like climbing mount everest.Although I have been reading the Economist for RC practise and then I have the Princeton Review. Daraverla,congrats, the improvement u have made is remarkable.Please share your thoughts and experience. Raj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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