720 Q: 49 (90%) V40 (91%)

[TargetMBA]

Just finished my exam today (April 19th)! As a full time employee, I studied for 6 weeks around 10 hours per week.
Previous scores:
PP1: 710 (half way through Official Guide math) Mid March Q 49 V 38
Kaplan Test 4: 660 (April 10) Q 49 V 35
Kaplan Test 2: 610 (April 11) Q 47 V 35(not sure)
PP2: 720 April 18th Q 50 V38

Actual Test: 720 April 19th Q49 V40

You can see that I did not practice much.

Essays were easy. Issue was about the right of employees to design their office places and Argument was about the grocery store wanting to become a one-stop shopping center. I wrote at least 5 paragraphs in each essay and made atleast one point per paragraph.

I did take breaks after essays and after quant sections.

Quant was not tough but tricky. Questions about exponents, circular probability, co-ordinate geometry needed some thought and were full of land mines. No wonder I got a slightly lower score than my practice tests in PP.

Although I now know I did much better on Verbal, during the test I had no clue how I was doing. I was n't sure about many answers and stuck to the elimination of choices and some guesswork. first 3 questions: SC
Then reading comprehension (35 lines) and 2-3 critical reasoning and a big reading comprehension and then all mixed. In all four RCs, not too tough. I think the trick is to take your best guess and move on to the next question. Don't get bogged down if you were unsure about your answers. Before reporting the scores, I thought that I did very bad on verbal and good on Quant.

When I hit the proceed button, to my very surprise I had scored my best (40) in verbal and scored so so(49) (based on kaplan test's performance) on Quant. So the lesson is don't lose heart mid-way, give your best shot!

Regarding preparation, Official Guide is a must for Quant DS and PS and Verbal SC.
Kaplan tests are good for practice on Quant especially to see your mistakes (although don't heed to the scores). For essays, I used ARCO's guide. They have good points. Be sure to use your language in the test though. I also studied Barrons for SC and math problems with difficulty levels above 7. Most importantly I studied all the question and answers for DS and PS from this website. Also studied some SCs. This helped a lot.

Thats all I studied. Never really went through (didn't have time) the RCs and CRs of Official Guide. I did n't think I can improve my skills by doing some 400 questions of reading comprehension and critical reasoning. Practiced for this only during the practice tests.

Well, GMAT is done now the Target is MBA. I will be applying for some cal state univs in bay area and Santa Clara university which allow evening MBA. I doubt if have any chances for Cal Berk for evening MBA with just 3 years of experience, and also its a very costly program. Lets see what happens.

To all TestMagicians, all the best.

[thaiva]

You did awesome for not practicing much! Well done I hope that the applications go well for you.

Best Of Luck!

[manusmile144]

Congrats!!!!!!! 720 is awesome score.....You said that you got Questions about Circular Probability, Can you elaborate on that? I mean with the help of an example just let me know what exactly is Circular Probability.

Best of Luck for your Application.........

Regards
Manu

[TargetMBA]

Sorry, I meant circular permutation.
e.g. There are 5 chairs one of which is red. How many ways can 5 people (one of whom is say manu) sit on these chairs so that manu always sits on the red chair?
There was only one choice less than 4!. Somebody else might explain how to do this problem better.

[manusmile144]

Thanx a lot TargetMba, I wish you all the Luck and success in your Application Process!!!!!!!!

Manu

[angels]

is the answer to the above circular permutation problem 24.

if not what is the correct answer?

[vreddy]

I think, it is 24.

[Bart]

Originally posted by vreddy

I think, it is 24.

Yes, it is:

The question is actually: In how many different ways can 4 people be seated in a row of 4? (Knowing the fifth, red chair is "somewhere"; you don't need to know where, there's just one position for that particular chair).

Answer: 4 people can sit in 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 4! = 24 different ways.

[angels]

Thanks Bart.

[TargetMBA]

This was a circular permutation. i.e. the 5 chairs are arranged to form a circle e.g. around a table (instead of a row). Then I think the answer should be less than 4!.