Phew - 740 - Q 50 - V 41

[thankful]

Phew - got done today - I think I did better than I had expected
I am really thankful to the people on this forum for their words of wisdom - really helped me understand the test (not so much the content but more the psychology). Again, I cannot stress enough that this is an exam of psychology more than content - make sure you dont get bogged down or you will be knocked out. It is a test of stamina and the mind- make sure you are prepared to not try and answer everything perfectly or the way you did at home cause it aint gonna happen.

My two cents - understand the basics - not a single, I repeat not a single question was of a type I had done before (in quant, verbal was similar in the SC part). And I thought quant was much tougher /trickier than og. But if you practice and know your basics - it should be ok
I thought I was getting screwed in the test - I had bad timing and had to rush through both quant and verbal in the end. But the questions got really tough in the begining and I was trying to get them right. Quant got a lot easier towards the end but tricky all along - so make sure you READ THE QUESTION AGAIN. It worked for me.

In verbal, I kept getting SC and reading comprehension (2) in the first 15 questions and then from 20th onwards, it was all critical reasoning and SC. Personally, I think stamina is extremely important. I was beat in Verbal and had to reread again and again and my timing was way off( normally I find critical reasoning to be easy but I seemed to be totaly lost in my critical reasoning in the GMAT cause I was just tired). As luck would have it, I got a big reading comprehension on the 33rd question (60 lines) with 10 mins left. I read it in one (swear jsut skimmed and got the basic idea) and then attacked the three questions.
I got a boldface critical reasoning on the 40th question - man, the last five questions - I just ticked what came to my mind - I was dead tired. Wish I had practiced my stamina more. I could have done better in verbal.

In the test, things wont go the way you planned. So learn to guess and move on especially in the later questions. I wasted too much time on many questions and was still not sure if I got them right in the end. So unless you want to be rushed in the end, make sure you time yourself ( I wont give any advice on this as my timing was off). But also make sure you get the initial ques right (cant say for sure but I did do them a lot more carefully than the later ones

I think Official Guide is the best prep and SC is where you can score the max (followed by critical reasoning). I always did better in verbal in Official Guide than I thought I did in the exam. But in the end, verbal was not as bad as I thought it was.

Here are my practice scores (in chronological order)
1 Kap diag - 690
2 Kap T1- 590 ( yeah - I thought I was going crazy- I made the mistake of giving Kap as my first computerized test. I suggest leave them for later
3 Kap T2- 650
4 PR1- 680
5 PR2- crashed
6 PR3- 710
7 Kap T3- 640
8 PR4 - 720
5 Kap T4 - 630 ( it told me before the test than not enough questions were left and the score would be incorrect)
6 PP1 - 800 ( I think this is invalid as I remembered a lot of the answers, especially in verbal from OG)
7 PP2 - 790 (invalid for the smae reason)

Kap is too tough but brings you back to reallity. Ignore their scores ( I got a 100 more than the Kap tests). Its great for Quant but forget the scores
PR - these guys are so unprofessional, they repeat questions from their exercises and have the same 3 passages in all the tests- but I think their questions are indicative of your actual abilities more than Kap
PP- I think its great to give these tests if you havent done Official Guide- if you have (and I had) , I think its second hand testing. To me , princeton scores seemed the closest (slight underestimation)

Bottomline - I am done with the exam and it feels great not to have to give it again - feel free to write to me and I can answer specifics.

[ursula]

Let me be the first to congratulate you - great job!!!

Now go out and celebrate - you certainly deserve it!

[luve]

Awesome score, guy!
Good luck with your application.

[VTIITK]

Hi Thankful !!

Congrats ..thts one hellova score

I certainly think that I can gain some useful info from your advice.

Well my scores so far have been:

Kap - I : 610 (Q:50 , V: 30)
Kap - II : 610 (Q:50, V:30)
Kap - III : 630 (Q:50, V32)

PR-I : 710
PR-II: 690

PP-I: 770 (after OG)

I wanted to know more regarding the Kaplan tests, though its been written all over this forum not to be much bothered by the Kaplan scores but I feel they are very important for Quants. I have been getting a decent 50 on quants on all the tests I have taken (getting usually around 3-6 questions wrong). I would like to know how close is the Kap quants as compared to quant in the GMAT you took. And also please let me know what you think of Kap - Verbal, I think its sucks badly, they really have some of the worst questions in critical reasoning and reading comprehension, not to mention sentence correction is also not of any class.

Secondly, I would also like to know that do you think that PR scores a somewhat more representative than Kaplan's. I have been getting 700+ in PRs and hope to get around 730+ in the 2 tests left.

Meanwhile, I have been doing Official Guide again (for the second time). I would like to know from you how did you practice? i.e. completed Official Guide,did Kap part tests as well.. or whatelse? My exam is on 26-May and I want to nail it big time.

Thanks in advance for your help.
VT