780(q50,v51)

[bronx_marauder]

Hi all,
I took my GMAT (finally!) on 19th Feb and scored 780 (Q50 - 95 Percentile and V51 - 99 percentile)

But I don't get it! With that breakup, shouldn't it be 790? Can someone please explain that?
Also, what does v50 mean? Did I get one wrong or two?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not compaining about the score (infact, it is more than what I expected and exactly what I wanted), but I'm really curious.

I'll post a detailed debriefing in a couple of days. Maybe someone can benefit from my experience as much as I benefited from that of the others here before me.

[johnyindia]

Congrats man!

Yeah! those break ups always make me wonder about GMAC scoring algorithm.

My advise: just dont bother about it. It is just like that.
I have seen scores 730 740 & 750 with same break up as Q50 & V40.

Dont know what it meant
Also you must be knowing that they have loads of unscored (experimental questions) that dont contribute in the score. So we end up confused.
These unscored items make it hard to crack the code nothing else.



waiting for you detailed post.

[asit_bubt]

congrats for the awesome score...
i dont hav the idea..but think like it may be due to percentile...u got 95% in quant...
its a wild guess....
lets c sum expert opinion turns in

[chatru]

congrats for the awesome score...

have fun in your dream school ....

Chatru

[gmatnov12]

awesome score;!! I read all u posts in this forum just to get an idea.Will apreciate u r debreif.

[gmatnov12]

awesome score;!! I read all u posts in this forum just to get an idea.Will apreciate u r debreif.

[charu_mulye]

Congratulations !!!!
Great score...

Best of Luck for future.

[bronx_marauder]

Hi Folks,
Here it is...
First, a bit about myself... I'm 25, Indian, and working in Indonesia.

I had taken CAT (The Indian equivalent of GMAT) a couple of years ago, and that has made my quest for GMAT much, much easier that it would have been otherwise.

MATERIALS:

Recommendation summary:
1. A good prep book other than the OG (Kaplan, Princeton, whatever)
2. OG
3. If you need extra practice get the OG verbal and/or OG Quant.
4. TwinSplitter's debrief.
Anything else ONLY if you have extra time.

Details -

Here are the books that I used:
1. Kaplan 2006(SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED)
2. OG 11 (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
3. Kaplan 800 (NOT RECOMMENDED)

I completed the Kaplan GMAT first. It helped me to get some basics right, and was good practice, even though it didn't really push my score much higher. Kaplan 800 was disappointing! It had a LOT of obvious errors in the verbal section. I do not expect this from a book that is supposed to help you reach 800. One word of caution: Don't believe everything you read in Kaplan. Discuss in testmagic any answers that you doubt.

The Official Guide, however, is the holy grail. I recommend you get comfortable with the question types and get your basics right before you start with the OG to get the max benefit out of it. Finish atleast one other book before you hit the OG.
If you need extra practice, I think the OG verbal and Quant books should be much more beneficial than any other ones.

Apart from these I went through the 1000SC, 1000CR and 3000SC docs.
The excel sheet on this link http://www.urch.com/forums/gmat/1528...tice-grid.html (New GMAT Practice Grid) was an awesome idea. I modifed it to make it more useful, and I would have put up the modified sheet but my laptop crashed

PREP STRATEGY:

Recommendation summary:
1. Be systematic and note down EVERYTHING during your prep.
2. Focus more on timing than seeking out different question types. Aim for 1.5 mins per question rather than 2.
3. Practice just as much as you need. Not too much and not too little. Set a target and stick to it.
4. Take a few full length tests on a PC, but no need to go overboard with practice tests, and don't pay too much attention to your score in them.
5. Use the power of psychology. Understand what kind of tricks you fall for. Understand the standard types of tricks that the GMAT testmakers use.

Details:

My Prep time was around 2 months(including a big break of almost 3 months dues to circumstances beyond my control, which had forced me to reschedule my appointment). The only advice that I would like to give all is to be systematic during their preparation. That is what has helped me a LOT and this is something I recommend to all. The rest of my prep strategy is somthing that might or might not be useful to you so you can choose as per your personal choices.

The main tool to use in GMAT prep is psychology. Get into the minds of the GMAT question makers and identify the techniques that they use to dupe test takers into marking the wrong answer. Better still, identify the specific techniques that succeed in confusing YOU!

1. Be Systematic
I cannot stress this enough. Document and time all your attempts at full length tests, sample exercises in any books that you might be using, and other stuff like 1000CR/SC/reading comprehension docs.
For large question banks, take the questions 20 at a time, time yourself, and document correct/incorrect. If incorrect, document whether it was a silly mistake or a conceptual one. Later when you review, it would prove invaluable.

2. Timing
I didnt have much problem with the timing as I had taken CAT which is much more difficult in terms of time. I prepared all the time with a target of 1.5 mins per question for PS, reading comprehension and critical reasoning, and 1 min per question for DS and SC.
But again, documenting my timing from the beginning helped me to analyse my improvement. With the timing under control, I didn't even need to glance at the clock in GMAT, and that relieved me from one unnecessary source of tension.

3. Amount of practice
There is no answer to this one, you should get as much practice as you need. What I did was take 20 questions at a time for all question types. I started by focusing on SC. I stopped practicing SC after I got 3 straight sessions with 20/20 correct. Same for critical reasoning and DS. For PS and reading comprehension, I stopped after 3 straight sessions with 19/20 correct. And that was the end of my GMAT prep. After that I reviewed all my incorrect answers (which I had documented) and after I got most of them correct in the review round, I knew I was ready.

4. Full length tests
The first test I took (before starting prep) was the free Kaplan test online and scored 700. After a week or so I took GMATPrep and scored 730.
After I finished my preparation towards the middle of February, I did not want to take any full length test because it would do only one of two things: demoralize me or make me overconfident. And I didnt want either. So the very third full length test I actually took was the GMAT itself! I don't recommend this, nor was this planned. But since, towards the end, I was doing the OG problems 20 at a time and in the order PS-DS-critical reasoning-reading comprehension-SC, and since I was well in time as per my targets, I thought I didn't need the extra testing.

5. Section-specific: Quant
For quant, I dont think there is any need to search for inordinate sources of information. The formulae in the Kaplan 2006 and the ones in OG are quite sufficient. Practice as much as you need until you get your concepts right and timing under control. You shouldn't worry about seeking out specific types of questions. Focus more on timing and accuracy, and DO cover all the questions in OG.

PS: I can't really add anything much here, except that the only thing important is time. No need to seek out tougher problems. Just get faster at the problems in OG! You might get one or two REALLY TOUGH problems in the actual GMAT. Dont worry about them.

DS:
When I started off with my prep, my accuracy in DS was appalling. This is probably the question type that I practiced the most. Concentrate closely while reading the question and you might know intuitively what extra info you need to answer it! Practice is the only way to crack this one.
Focus closely on the onesin the OG that you get wrong, and try to recognize the traps in the DS questions that you usually fall for. Try and Identify those traps in the questions you attempt next, and so on. If you practise this well enough, DS is fairly easy to master.

6. Section specific: Verbal
critical reasoning:
Again, use the OG to identify the typical reasoning flaws that you fall for and identify those beforehand when you attempt questions of this type. If you practice enough, you might start getting an idea of what you are looking for in the answer by the time you reach the end of the question.

reading comprehension:
Practice, practice, practice. There is no other way to get around this one. there is no external source that can help you to prepare for this. If you are in a habit of reading (especially newspaper articles that do not interest you), then you have an advantage here.
Also, If you have documented your "wrongs", you'll know what kind of questions you usually fall for and spend more time on questions of those types.

SC:
I don't understand the trend of hanging on to "the rules" for life. Delve too much into the rules and you'll just end up confusing yourself more than necessary. Get a feel of the language instead. Read everything that you can get your hands on. Try to read lots of American newspaper articles, blogs of american journalists, etc. That will give you a sub-conscious idea of the kind og language the GMAT paper-setters themselves use.
Don't get me wrong, knowing the rules is important. But don't focus too much on them. Try speaking the sentence soundlessly and see how the sentence "feels". You'll get more correct that way.


In the end, I would like to mention that I don't believe my post would really benefit everyone, but I'm hoping to help people trying to close the gap to the perfect score by as much as possible, and if I can help even one person, my aim would be fulfilled.

NEXT: The test day

[bronx_marauder]

THE RUN UP
After I reached my accuracy goals which I mentioned in my debriefing post, I took things quite lightly. Screwed up big time there.

My appointment was for 12 Noon on Monday, and in order to relax before the D-Day, I relaxed a bit too much over the weekend. Sunday night I went out, had a couple of drinks, and slept at 4 AM.

The LEAP
When I woke up, my head was spinning and as a result I overdosed on caffeine!!! my hand was literally shaking when I was signing the pad at the center!!!
Anyway, I was confident of doing well, so I didn't really let all that bother me. I wolfed down some dark chocolate and tea and moved on.

The DELIVERY
Sitting there in front of the computer, I realized another major goof up. I had forgotten to decide on five schools to recieve my score!!! Anyway, I didnt fret much about it and selected some schools quickly and moved on.

1. AWA
AWA was something I didn't prepare much for. The Analysis of an Argument section went well because I could relate to the topic. The Analysis of an Issue, howver, was horrible. It was an abstract topic (something to do with art) and so I really struggled with it. I'm not getting anywhere near 6 on that one.

I took the first 10 minute break. Went around the corner, had a glass of water and watched TV for a few minutes in the waiting room.

2. Quant
I had exceeded my break by half a minute but I wasn't bothered. I was all set to take on the GMAT! The questions were of quite an average difficulty. In fact I wondered whether I was screwing up big time! Cause none of them seemed to be too tough. and then came a whammy. I spent close to 5 mins on that question. As I was stuck on this one, I stretched my legs and kicked the network cable by mistake. The application crashed! I was scared I'm gonna lose the entire effort I put in until now, but the admin was able to restore it. (This is a nice way to get some extra time, by the way, in case someone is inclined to go down that road!!!) Finally, I ended the section with almost 20 minutes to spare.

I took the second break, and accomplished a bit more. A coffee, a cigarette and another bite of my chocolate later I was all set to take on the next section

3. Verbal
I was confident about verbal, but the questions were much tougher than I expected. I spent quite some time on the questions I felt were suspicious. I want concerned about this extra time, because my habit of speeding through the more obvious questions had left me with plenty of spare time. The last questions, though, really made me sweat. I ended this section with 15 mins to spare.

The FOLLOWTHROUGH
Moving on, I was a bit apprehensive, I was really under the impression that I screwed up my attempt in quant. But I never even remotely considered cancelling my scores, and moved on quickly, not even reading the instructions in the eagerness to get the score.

I gave out a scream when I finally did see the score. The test administrator told me it was the highest she had ever seen, but I dont believe her.
Immediately I called my dad in India but he didn't answer! I wanted to call my brother but I thought he would be sleeping (he's in the US).

I suddenly had this incredible news but no one to share it with! I told my girfriend, but since she knew nothing about GMAT, she couldn't relate to my achievement at all! Eventually, I spoke to my family and was glad to see them share my excitement.

I was happy that I achieved the goal that I had set for myself. About the next step, there is nothing on the horizon at the moment. I don't plan to do an MBA in the near future. 2009 is the year I'm looking at.

Best of luck to everyone for their prep. I hope I have been of some help to someone. And thanks a lot to everyone for their wishes

[GMATap]

Hey,

Awesome post dude....
Super useful for fellow test takers.....
Thanks a ton.

Also congrats for the great score and goodluck with the apps....

Best,