530(Q44,V23) to 700(Q49,V36)! My take

[R1P]

Guys,

Took my 1st attempt on 1stAug-08. Got a pathetic score of 530, probably lowest here.
Since then, I have been following TestMagic forum like mad. Nowhere you will find such a nice post-mortem of each and every GMAT level question. Erin's and Bob's comments are so very insightful and worth following.

Took GMAT again yesterday(13th-Sept-09).Though 700 is not such a great score to discuss, jumping from 530 to 700 is still a great achievement for me. I would like to thank TM for this.

Low scorers(Including me),

I have seen people telling that a GMAT retake can at max improve your score to 10-15%. Please ignore them and come back with full force.

R1P

[samarpan_bschool]

Hi R1P

Congratulations and ATB for your apps. Can you tell me which book did you refer for critical reasoning ? Will OG12 suffice or do we need to buy powerscore critical reasoning bible?

Thanks

[R1P]

Samarpan,
I would not be the better person to answer this as critical reasoning was something I practiced the least.

I followed the following seriously,
Kaplan GMAT800
OG 11 CRs
Most importantly, Analyzing the CRs(which I answered incorrectly) from my practice CAT tests.

Hope it helps..

[CrazyGmatter]

congrats buddy....

[samarpan_bschool]

thanks R1P. YOu sure are inspiration to me. I scored just 600 in my first attempt with a pathetic 25 in verbal.. It will be great if you can share with us your 'verbal specific' prep strategy.

[gmatissimple]

R1P,

Congratulation for your nice score.

Would you please answer the following questions?

1. What have you done to improve your verbal?
2. Which materials have you followed?
3. Which tests have you attempted?
4. Is there any specific suggestion for reading comprehension and SC?

Thanks again and hope for the best in your next phase.

[R1P]

From my experience, I believe Verbal is a game of both endurance and knowledge. I was felling apart in both the areas. I used to feel exhausted just in the mid of my Verbal set. Tackled this through practicing more and more tests.
I took Gmatprep 4 X 2 times (4 installations)
800Score sets - 6 tests
Kaplan tests.. - 4 tests

My weakest area was reading comprehension and SC . For reading comprehension, I picked up many GMAT level RCs on the internet and solved almost 8-10 RCs almost everyday for atleast 20 days. I must say this boosted my confidence and I started comprehending more.
Meanwhile I followed testmagic's "GMAT Sentence Correction" thread religiously. Some of the people here like GMATisSimple and Abhishek Mumbai are so very good in SC concepts!!Gosh!!

Though my own verbal score is not that good, I feel, we easily get carried away with what we have already solved in that particular verbal section. Please try solving each verbal Question seperately and with a fresh approach.(Hope this is making sense !! )

[abhishek_750]

Great Show Dude..!!!

A great motivation for all those low scorers, including me !!


Awesome show!!

It would be great if you could share you verbal strategy in detail..

[nishi730]

Hey RIP!Great Show..!!Any tips to improve quant??

[R1P]

Sorry for the late reply..

abhishek_750,

For verbal, as I said earlier, its very necessary to practice more and more.
Discover weak areas - reading comprehension/SC/critical reasoning and work on that.
For me, it was reading comprehension and SC. I used to end up answering all questions incorrectly in reading comprehension . And for SC it was 50-50 .
I felt "I can do better in SC and can raise my overall score" (its better to pick up thy relatively stronger areas and perform well in those.)
For about a month, I concentrated on Verbal. Started with SCs on 1000 sets, but just after 200 or so, got exhausted and left it. Tried picking up random SCs on threads, solving it and reading explanations. Meanwhile, I used to solve about 10 RCs daily. Planned two GMAT full practice set per week. For first three weeks, the Verbal score hovered between 26 to 30.
Discovered another weak point "I used to get lost in the plethora of Data, specially RCs"
My next action was to beat the time and read quickly. I tried solving RCs by fast reading. Divided time for eah Q (say 2 mins - reading comprehension Question, 1 min - SC like that..)This worked for me. Now I started getting extra time for SCs and CRs, in which I was now lil confident atleast. Fifth week started showing results and I began scoring 710 - 740(prev 590 to 640) in mocks.

nishi730,

I consistently scored 49-50 in Quant (mocks) so never really worked on that but now I feel I should have done that to score 700+. Well, I would say most of the mistakes used to be in DS - that's a problematic area for all Quant fearing Earthlings. Just two weeks of rigorous Quant practice should do the trick.

Guys,
I just got my AWA score and it is pathetic 4.0 . I do not want to go a step back and prepare for GMAT again. But as they say "A venture begun, should be a venture established", I am ready to do that if its needed. Please suggest. Any means to offset low AWA score other that "GMAT retake"??? I am not a native English speaker and have 3 yres of Wrk experience in IT (yess its IT!! )..Please guide!!

R1P