720 (Q49, V39) - 96 percentile

[bala977]

Ok, just got back from 4 hours of torture. But in the end, I was happy to see the result

• Q - 49 - 90 percentile
• V - 39 - 89 percentile
• Overall - 720 - 96 percentile

I will debrief later today

[chix475ntu]

Congratulations on your awesome score.

[kindergartenkid]

awesome. let me be the first to congratulate you. best of luk for next leg. (..oops chix did it before me...talk abt concurrency eh!)

[sidnim]

congrats for that fab score! awaiting yr debrief

WELL DONE BALA.CONGRATS .ENJOY thy SELF.WAITING FOR THE DEBRIEF.
ALL THE BEST FOR APP.

[bala977]

My Background:

I am 30 years old, Indian, California resident, a software developer by profession, working in a top 3 movie production studio.

Scheduling of test:

I decided to take GMAT in July and fixed the date - July 30th to be exact. Let me quote TicTakToe here - "While a very late test date would rob you off the HEAT of the moment and one starts feeling kind of saturated during the long wait to the test date, a test date too early would leave less time for you to work on your potential weaknesses". In my world, work tends to expand with time, so I decided to give about 2.5 months prep time and fixed October 17th as the G-day.

Days leading to the test:

I have taken many competitive tests before - from TOEFL, GRE to MCSD etc. So I was not nervous. Although I am not a morning person, I scheduled my exam for 8am because the mind'd be fresh in the morning. I am a firm believer in giving as many tests as possible - therefore I took the Friday off, used Friday, Saturday and Sunday to acclimatise myself by giving complete practice tests (starting at 8am). I also went for a long walk yesterday evening. So although I was anxious, the early morning routine + walk gave me a good night's sleep.


G-DAY:

I had taken everyone's advise and scoped the place out on Saturday. So reached the center without any worries by 7:15. They let everyone in by 7:30. Competed the formalities and was ready to take the test by 7:45.

AWA (dedicated to TicTakToe and his wonderful template)

Analysis of issue came first. It was about razing old buildings to facilitate new development. I was fully prepared with a customized version of TTT's template, so it was a breeze. I was able to write around 6 good sized paragraphs.

Analysis of Argument came next. It was about relationship between extra hours and productivity. Again, used the template to get in 5 good sized paragraphs.

I then took the break. I was feeling good because the day had started off on a decent note. I think I will definitely get 5 or more in AWA. Went to loo - drank a red bull - came back to my computer right on time.

QUANT

Then came the Quant. In practice tests, I usually aim to complete 6 questions in 15 minutes, 13 in 30 minutes, 21 in 45 minutes, 26 in 55 minutes, 31 in 65 minutes and the rest.

• First 6-8 questions were a breeze. I was in Q9 after 11 minutes - I then slowed down to make sure I dont commit any mistakes.
• But questions 10-12 took me close to 20 minutes. Realized i was wasting time trying to solve the DS questions to get the value of "x". So after 30 minutes, I had completed only 13 questions.
• The "toughness factor" of questions seemed to increase from 8-9 on and stayed pretty much there until 21-22.
• It then got down to medium questions. I was surprised to see really easy ones like "|-a| * (-b) + |-c|". This led me to believe that my scoring was going south
• The "toughness factor" remained in "easy to medium" range from 25 on. Completed quant with 1 minute to spare

Other tidbits - I got just one very very simple combination question (the notes in TM are much much more than enough). No probability whatsover. Also got a very very basic Standard Deviation question. I thought the "tough ones" I got were mostly geometry. If you are prepping, make sure you understand how to calculate the distance from one corner of a room to another corner to determine shortest, longest distances etc. (There is an OG problem and I have seen it in TM too)

Difficulty level - Somewhere between PowerPrep and GMATPrep


VERBAL

The following are my observations about the verbal section. In the days leading to the practice test, I found that I usually commit 60% of my mistakes in SC, around 30% in reading comprehension and 10% in critical reasoning. I have the following to say about the actual test

• Started of with 4-5 SCs. Then got couple of CRs. On the 9th, I got a medium reading comprehension
• Sentence Correction was a "B that ends in H". For some reason, I thought I received tons and tons of them. I received more SCs than one usually gets in practice tests
• Critical reasoning, which I hoped would save me in verbal, was tough too. I was demoralized by the time I got to first reading comprehension (q9). Only one assumption question in critical reasoning though. Quite a few inferences
• reading comprehension's were a breeze. I found all 4 of them interesting. No biology nonsense - but pretty interesting ones about sand dunes etc. I am confident that I got almost all of them right.
• 75% into the section, I still hadnt seen any bold face variety, so I thought I was doing really really bad in verbal. The constant flow of SCs didnt boost my confidence either. I imagined that the examination engine had somehow realized that I was a sitting duck in SCs, so kept throwing more at me!
• Finally bumped into one of them (bold face) at the very end.
• Finished with 1 minute to spare in the end

Difficulty level - reading comprehension = medium, critical reasoning = Powerprep/Gmatprep, SC = Kaplan/1000 SC.

================================================== =======
Let me quote TTT again - "The most important things during the test is NOT TO PANIC. Stay calm n cool even if you are stuck somewhere. If you can manage that , its not very difficult to crack". This is true 100%. I honestly didnt think I would score 650 when verbal was in progress!

[SubZero]

Excellent debrief Bala.

Which were the toughest questions in Quant ? You mentioned that you had got stuck somewhere from Q10 to Q12.

[Amavisca]

Hi bala,

Very nice score. can you tell us what is the topic of the reading comprehension ?

[bala977]

Preparation

• Princeton Review Verbal workout
• Kaplan GRE/GMAT Math workout
• Princeton Review GMAT 2006 edition
  
• Kaplan GMAT 2006 edition
• Finally, OG
• Started in the first week of August

Practice test scores

• Power Prep1 (two weeks after starting prep, before OG) - 650
• GMAT Prep1 (midway during OG) - 710
• Kap 1 - 640
• Princeton Review 1 - 640
• Kap 2 - 570
• Kap 3 - 620
• Kap 4 - 560
• Princeton Review 2 - 640
• Princeton Review 3 - 630
• Kaplan Online - 720
• Princeton Review 4 - 610
• GMAT Prep 2 - 720: Q49, V40 (after OG) - 2 days before
• Power Prep 2 - 760: Q51, V41 (after OG) - The day before
• ACTUAL TEST - 720: Q49, V39

[bala977]

SC

I also prepared GRE style flash cards with all the idioms & formulas to remember. It was an exhaustive list, taken from Spidey's notes + Princeton review etc. But I just got ONE idiom SC though - a "just as .... so too"! So I am disappointed. But this list of idioms gave me confidence - so you may want to do it.