Phew! (Q:50, V:38, 720)

**homer_74** · 10-23-2006, 07:14 PM

I took on the beast today and what a relief now that it is over

This forum has been an invaluable resource and I would like to thank you all, especially Erin for having started it.

Will post a debrief later about my preparation, experience etc

**GREMAT** · 10-23-2006, 08:23 PM

Congratulations, homer, a great score!!
Please share your test experience.
Good luck with the rest of process !

**RockVthGmat** · 10-23-2006, 09:17 PM

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**homer_74** · 10-23-2006, 10:47 PM

Thanks GREMAT. Before I even begin my post, I should let you know that you are going to do extremely well in your second attempt. I have greatly benefited from your posts during the last month of my preparation and can tell that you are well prepared to conquer the beast.

My background
Indian, Male 32 (made me feel like an antique at times when compared to some of you young guys out there) with an MS in Mech. engineering . & over 8 years of experience in the US auto industry. Not very ambitious and my only target was to get into the part-time program at U of M, Ann Arbor. However, since my last similar test was the GRE (that I took almost 10 years ago & did quite well), I felt compelled to break the 700 barrier in GMAT.

After some initial cursory preparation, I registered for the test on July 17th, giving myself about 3 months of serious prep. time. Guys, I would strongly recommend registering for the test if you haven't done so already. That is the only way to get serious about the prep if you are hard pressed for time, as I was. However, working full-time, I soon found out that week days were pretty much a wash. I realized that I had to give up playing cricket this season if I was to put my weekends to any
good use

By this time I'd stumbled upon test magic and I began to leech off it like a bloodthirsty vampire. The amount of information available was invaluable and a million thanks to all those out there. If anyone needs any of the following, please let me know and I'll be glad to email them to you(although there are links to download all of these in the forums)

GMAT_Verbal_Notes_By_Sumit
Spidey's Notes
1000 SC's
TestGridforGMAT.xls...An awesome job by Hoc Phan with some superbly executed macros to help you with timing
GMAT Sets (SC, CR & DS)
Official Guide's
Powerprep (the old one)

In addition I purchased the Princeton Review & Kaplan 2006 Premier Program Book to add to my arsenal. After understanding the basics from Princeton & Kaplan I started writing practice tests and my scores were

Kaplan CAT1 610
Kaplan CAT2 630
Kaplan CAT3 620
Kaplan CAT4 610

Princeton 1 720
Princeton 2 710
Princeton 3 730
Princeton 4 720

I knew better than to let the Kaplan scores bother me as everyone thought Kaplan lowballed people on purpose (their RC passages are ghastly

) with the hopes that they would jump and sign up for their expensive courses. And then I took Gprep I & II and was devastated with the 650 & 670 that I got on those. I wasn't even able to finish the tests & this is when I understood how the real GMAT would be.

I realized that I sucked at verbal (esp.SC) and started to attack it with gusto. For me it was just plain brute force to start understanding the SC concepts that GMAT tested. I watched with awe as the gurus talked about the subjunctive, modifiers, this and that clause etc and even today I cannot explain why I picked what I picked

Nevertheless, I started
improving and could see my hit rates getting better and better. I never bothered preparing exclusively for CR & RC and looking back it looks like had I done so, my verbal score could have been better.

Meanwhile, I was hooked to Testmagic and used to solve problems there whenever I could, from work and from home. Subsequently when I retook the tests my scores were

Powerprep I 710
Powerprep II 730

Gmat Prep I 730 (some repeats which certainly skewed my score)
Gmat Prep II 740 (the day before the test. Again repeats which probably skewed my score)

Regardless of some questions which might repeat, the GMAT Prep is the best simulation thre is out there. It wouldn't hurt to uninstall and reinstall it several times coz you will get some new questions every time. Just be sure to completely wipe all traces by physically deleting all related folders after each uninstall.

Gday.......I was nervous to say the least. Had the first available 9:00 AM appointment. I was skeptical about the scratch pad (afraid it was gonna be one of those Magna Doodle type thingi's that kids use :-) and fortunately it wasn't. There are several long pages (like 10 of them) that should get you through the quant.

AWA

Didn't quite like the topics but mechanically hammered away my templates and tried to fill some crap in between. I'm certainly not expecting any high scores there. I had told myself that I wouldn't let this section drain me and just took it easy.

The one thing that might help is trying to do the AWA sections every time you take a practice test. I did not and the extra hour sure can play on your mental strength.

Quant

This was very much similar to the GPrep and the one thing that I did not do was kill myself in getting the first 15 questions or so right, as advised by many. On my Gprep practice tests, I'd found out that being stubborn with any questions for over 4-5 minutes killed me in the end. So when I got stumped on a couple in the actual test, I just guessed and moved on. In the end I finished this section with about 5 minutes to spare. Be prepared for a lot of number property DS questions. Clintonn, in his debrief, has put together some great documents that will help.

Verbal

Again, very similar to the Gprep. Passages were maybe slightly more diffcult.

Last, but not the least I would also like to personally thank CTG1983 (he inspired me a lot with his posts), GREMAT, GMAT-Help, myDreamGMAT, skarya, charu-mulye, chatru, gmatlove et al whose posts I followed during my home stretch. Good luck to all of you! You guys are going to do great!

Yeesh! Looks like I've rambled on long enough....

**skarya** · 10-24-2006, 12:41 AM

congratulations!!

GMATPrep 650-670 to Actual GMAT 720 i.e. 50+ points increase!...shows how much hard work you have put in.

Best of luck for phase 2.

Regards,
skarya

**mydreamGMAT** · 10-24-2006, 02:32 AM

Bahut Shandar Homer....I knew u had it in you.....thy Qunat is really Good...WIS U LOADS OF LUCK FOR thy APPS....happy apping.....Be good...God Bless

**charu_mulye** · 10-24-2006, 06:11 AM

homer,

CONGRATULATIONS !!

Your score is pretty decent for a part time program at U of MI, Ann Arbor also considering that you have 8 years of work ex.

Best of Luck for future !!