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750 (Q51, V39). Debriefing Posted.


neotheone

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Hipppiee.....Yaabaaa daaabaaa doooo ( as they in The flintstones).Really delighted to have a score of 750 (99 Percentile).

Quant - 51 (99 Percentile)

Verbal - 39 (89 Percentile)

 

My verbal was really pathetic when i started preparing for the exam.I used to score anything between 25 to 30 but started getting good scores a few days before the exam.

Being an indian, Quant was never a problem. Consistently scored 50-51.

 

Heres some demographic info

27, Typical indian IT guy. 5.5+ yrs of experience. Currently working with a top 20 fortune company.

 

My preparation

Altough I started preparing for the exam in Jan, the serious prep started only in April. More or less 8 weeks of preparation. I preplanned my leave in march and took 2 weeks off before the exam and it paid me as i was not really studying more than an hour daily.

 

 

Following are the material i referred for each section

 

Math

PS: Kaplan 2003 Higher Score Lessons, PS tests in Kaplan CD, Hard Questions in OG

DS: Kaplan 2003 Higher Score Lessons, DS tests in Kaplan CD, Hard Questions in OG

 

English

SC: Never ever heard or did anything like this before. Luckily i found this site thru google 3-4 months before the exam. Although i didnt participate much in the discussion, I did go through few questions and spidey gmat notes (quite useful, A BIG THANKS TO ROHIT AND ERIN).

 

Material Read ( in the order written)

1. Princeton Verbal

2. Kaplan Workshop (It has got great foundation lessons especially for CR and RC)

3. Kaplan Higher Score 2003

4. Kaplan 800

5. OG (twice for SC)

 

 

CR: Wasnt a problem except while doing kaplan workshop Qs. They are really tough qs.

Material Read

1. Princeton Verbal

2. Kaplan Workshop

3. Kaplan Higher Score 2003

4. Kaplan 800

5. OG

 

 

RC: I always had a tough time doing this section (even in the exam). For the first few days while practising, i couldnt concentrate on the passage at all. I tried reading real slow in order to comprehend better but then couldnt complete the passages within specified time limit. I also tried using the speed reading techniques but that was also of no use because as soon as i am not able to get it i start getting bored. After struggling with almost 30~40 passages and analysing the results, i came to know abt the strategy that really worked for me ie to read each para and stop raeding for 5 secs to gather whatever has been written in that para. Also i found somewhere written that the most important thing to gather from the passage is the tone of the author and i wholeheartedly agree with this opinion. I would recommend each and every person who is struggling with RC to ask just one question while reading the para ie "Why is the author telling me this and why did he include this paragraph ?".

 

Material Read

1. Princeton Verbal

2. Kaplan Workshop

3. Kaplan Higher Score 2003

4. LSAT 20~30 passages

5. Kaplan 800 (toughest passages i came across)

6. OG ( Actual GMAT passages have got tougher language but the questions remain same)

 

Pre-Test Experience:

As my test was on monday, I stopped studying on Friday and gave myself 2 days to chillout and relax. In the last 2 days, i just looked at the notes,cheat sheet(which i got from somewhere on the net), AWA essays and review notes of the mistakes done till the time. Here i cannot stress more on the importance of recording your mistakes and reviewing them from time to time. ITS AN ABSOLUTE MUST otherwise you will make the same mistakes in the test.

On sunday evening, went out to see a movie. Came back, reviewed the mistakes i made in OG. Tried to catch some sleep but couldnt do so till 1 am. Woke up at 5, went out for jogging (i found it making a lot of difference to my concentration). Had some museli in b'fast, picked up 2 bars of twix and a bottle of mixed juice. Reached the centre 15 mins early.

 

Test Experience:

Signed the NDA, went to washroom to get an idea of its location, washed my face, came back and checked in. The administrator told me to verify the name and address info displayed on the computer screen, took my photo from webcam and assigned me a seat. Started my test with quite easy argument and very easy issue. I followed the template i made and which i had in mind. Here i would say that although AWAs are not so important when compared to actual test, but they can easily make or break your mood. My confidence got boosted when i wrote the essays to my satisfaction.

Took my 5 mins break,rushed to locker to get my eatables, took half bar ot twix and some juice. went to washroom, had a splash on my face and went back and signed in to the test room.

Math section started with 2 pretty easy questions, the first being so easy that i checked my answer twice. Difficulty level started going high from 3rd question. 3rd,4th, 5th question were on mixture/ratios, permutation combination and rate/work not necessarily in that order. The toughest question i saw was a DS standard deviation question. It took me almost 6 mins to arrive at the answer and that too using POE. Luckily, i was not bothered at all by the myth which is very common among test takers about the importance of first 10 qs ( refer to dos and donts below for more info on this) so i tried catching up on time from 8th question onwards but even after checking my answer twice i could finish the quant section 20 mins before time. I thought of waiting on the last question for 15 mins but then got bored in 5 mins and clicked the proceed button.

 

Took my 5 mins break, went to washroom again, splashed my face with water, came back, ate the remaining twix bar.

The verbal section started with a simple SC question with questions getting tougher from 2nd question onwards. Got my first boldface question in the first 10 questions itself.

Although i never really legged behind because of any question, i was not sure of my answers and could guess what was happening. The language of RCs were a way tougher that OG RCs. The passages were almost like kaplan passages but the question were very much similar to OG questions. Otherwise SC and CR were an exact replica of OG. The major problem that i faced in verbal was because of computer display.I couldnt concentrate on passages because the screen font size was 800X600 which i am never used to. I always practised my tests in 1600X1200 laptop screen and looking and concentrating at CRT screen was a major problem. I would suggest the future test-takers to practice all kaplan as well as princeton tests in 800X600 display. PP1 and PP2 are very much close to the real GMAT in terms of display but still the passages you get in PP are not 70 line passages.

 

By the time i arrived on the last question i was pretty much sure that i have almost screwed the verbal. I was quite disappointed on seeing a 39 on verbal but the overall score made me forget the verbal disaster.

 

Some advice:

1. Always record all the mistakes that you make and revisit them atleast twice or thrice before the test. Do this atleast for OG questions.

Posting the TestGrid below which i got from testmagic. I have refined the sheet to include the difficulty level,question type and error %age.

 

 

2. Dont get bogged down by any of the practice test scores whether it be kaplan or princeton or any othe xyz test. As Erin has always pointed out, kaplan and princeton questions are not exactly the type of questions you get in real exam(esp SC). However it doesnt mean that they are a waste of money, the two guides are good in terms of learning basics and how to tackle specific type questions.

 

3. ETS paper exams are helpful in terms of their level of difficulty and similarity to actual GMAT questions and should be practiced a few days prior to gmat.

 

4. I got a cheat sheet, which i found very helpful for math . I am attaching it below.

 

 

Thats it from my side. I will be on this site in the coming days for taking help on apps.

 

Any Questions would be more than just welcome.

GMAT-Practice-Grid.zip

Bradford GMAT Notes.pdf

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Hi !!

Congrats !!

Ur score is too good ! ! As my name suggests...an Indian (As u said quant is not a prob. for me too). ...but verbal is still a hitch....though I've done OG twice....

Actually I'm writing gmat on 16th june.....but not very confident abt actual test & its difficulty level.

Pls share ur verbal in detail. What were RC topics, SC diff. level...CR (compared with OG) ...1st few qns whether these were SC or RC etc.

How did u manage time esp. in verbal.

Pls Do reply.

Thanx

Satya

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Hi !!

Congrats !!

Ur score is too good ! ! As my name suggests...an Indian (As u said quant is not a prob. for me too). ...but verbal is still a hitch....though I've done OG twice....

Actually I'm writing gmat on 16th june.....but not very confident abt actual test & its difficulty level.

Pls share ur verbal in detail. What were RC topics, SC diff. level...CR (compared with OG) ...1st few qns whether these were SC or RC etc.

How did u manage time esp. in verbal.

Pls Do reply.

Thanx

Satya

 

This was a problem with me too. Even after doing OG twice, i was not confident enough in verbal but i guess the time strategy i made paid me a lot.I prepared my milestones for verbal before the test so that i dont loose track of time which generally used to happen with me in practice tests(esp because of RC). something like this

 

Question--Time Remaining

10--55

20--37

25--29

30--20

35--11

 

About the difficulty level, SCs and CRs are of same difficulty level as OG, the easier and harder both the replica of easier and harder questions of OG resp. To get an idea, try doing some ETS paper test questions. As far as RC is concerned, the passage has got a tougher language when you compare it with OG passages but the question are very much the same.

 

In my case, the first 2 question were of SC and third was of CR and RC started coming from 8th Q onwards. I have always observed that whenever RCs come late in the test (7th or 8th q +) they would come back to back and thats wat exactly happened with me but as i was prepared for that i didnt exactly bother.

 

HTH.

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