750 (q51, V38)

[ig23]

Hi,
I finished my GMAT less than 5 hours ago and am more than happy with the results

My Bio:
I am mechanical engineer from a reputed college in India with sub-average GPA (Hope this score will compensate for that now). 1 year experience in Auto-manufacturing company and 2 years in a software industry. This includes 1 year of International exposure on client side (will continue for another 6 months).

My Preps:
Started preparing almost 3 months ago. Didn't study much for 1st month. In early May, took a general stock of situation and realized that if I studied seriously from then on, I would have my peak performance around June-end and took date accordingly.
Since May, did almost 3-4 hours of study per day. This included both books and forums. Gave 6 Mock GMats, 2 from GMATPrep and 4 from Kaplan, all on week-ends, following time-limits regarding breaks rigorously and writing both essays also.
D-Day -4 Week: GMAT Prep 1: 730
D-Day -3 Week: Kaplan 1: 640
D-Day -3 Week: Kaplan 2: 630
D-Day -2 Week: Kaplan 3: 560
D-Day -2 Week: Kaplan 2: 630
D-Day -1 Week: GMAT Prep 2: 710

Study Materials:
Books:

Manhatten SC
OG 11
Kaplan Premier

Forums:

The GMAT (Thanks Everyone)
PaGaLGuY.com - The Everything of MBA, CAT 2008, GMAT, XAT, IIM

Study Plan:
I realized that I didn't need to study for Quant:
PS: All from Kaplan + the mocks
DS: All from Kaplan + the mocks + Some from forums

Verbal was my weak area, So concentrated heavily on this, especially sentence correction.
SC: Did the Manhattan initially,but without much understanding
Then started following daily posts on the forums. When I started with Kaplan, had fair bit of idea about the errors, but catching them was still a problem. Finally when I did OG (Yeah in the end), I followed a rather different approach. I directly turned over to the answers page for SC, solving one question at a time and then checking the explanations. My accuracy shot up to 90% and this was a major boost to my confidence.

CR: OG 10 + Kaplan + OG 11 + forums
This section was OK for me.

RC: Kaplan + OG 11 + Mocks
My RC is not that great. However I figured that if could concentrate on the other 2 sections, I could take a little hit in this. So it was OK for me.

The D-Day - 1:
Didn't study much. Some 30 mins of forum browsing only. Watched a movie. Some episodes of lost pending serials and dozed off fully relaxed.

The D-Day:
Well the day didn't start too good for me. But weather was quite nice though. Reached test center some 45 mins before the scheduled time (10:30 AM) and lady told me that I could start only at 10:30. At 10:30, I was told that there is some technical problem and it will start at 11 . At 11 was told that it is still not solved and either I could wait for 1 more hour or get it re-scheduled . So i went home and came back after 1 hour but problem was still not solved. Finally called Pearson VUE to open a incident and was almost about to re-schedule (Technically,it was not possible to reschedule today itself), when the system started working . So started my GMAT at 1:00 PM (150 minutes behind schedule, and hungry).
Essays were OK. Finished Quant with 20 mins to spare, Verbal with 15. (I cannot really sit for long in any paper; I feel tensed )
The time when the result was getting generated, those 15 seconds were the longest 15 seconds of my life.

Final scores:
Quant: 51 : 99 Percentile
Verbal: 39 : 88 Percentile [Its 39. .sorry for the mistake in subject]
Total : 750: 98 Percentile


So now, the easiest step of B-school admission, GMAT, completed. Will start applying for school from middle of next month.

Before I finish, a sincere thanks to all the regulars on this forum.

Thanks and best wishes to all those who are preparing for GMAT.

IG

[krovvidy]

Great score IG. Good luck for the rest of the journey.

[saege]

Can you share your timing strategies?

[ig23]

Thanks krovvidy.

Originally Posted by saege

Can you share your timing strategies?

Unfortunately I didn't have any particular time strategy.

As I mentioned, quant was OK for me. So I had enough time to solve a question, and then match the answer. I didn't even have to guess any question in Quant, though had to solve a couple of them from the answers.

In Verbal, for SC, while reading the question only, I would try to find the errors and figure out alternate correct answers, While matching those with the the given option, normally 3, sometimes 4 option could be easily eliminated. And choosing between 2 option is rather fast. For CR and RC, if I was able to narrow down to 2 options, I would go with my 1st hunch. Can say I was lucky to score that much in Quant

IG

[getneonow]

Hey IG,

First of all ,Congratulations to you ..

My only query is regarding your splits in sections.

Did you get 39 or 38 in verbal? You mentioned it as 38 in the topic header and 39 in your debrief post.

As i too feel comfortable with quant and i face a little trouble in VA, i just want to make sure if i can touch 750 once i get cracking in QA and doing pretty decent in VA .

Neo

[ig23]

Originally Posted by getneonow

Hey IG,

First of all ,Congratulations to you ..

My only query is regarding your splits in sections.

Did you get 39 or 38 in verbal? You mentioned it as 38 in the topic header and 39 in your debrief post.

As i too feel comfortable with quant and i face a little trouble in VA, i just want to make sure if i can touch 750 once i get cracking in QA and doing pretty decent in VA .

Neo

Thanks Neo.

Its 39. .sorry for the mistake in subject

IG

[sgmat]

Congratulations for the awesome score....please discuss more about the verbal part of the exam in more details....

Thanks!
sgmat

[texas2904]

Excellent job. You should be very proud of yourself!

[ig23]

Originally Posted by texas2904

Excellent job. You should be very proud of yourself!

Thanks.. yeah it feels good.. but going through the application process of various schools is taking a toll

Just an update. Got 4 in AWA .. kinda could have managed with 4.5 but won't really think about that now. Over to school hunting now.

IG

[ameetsingh]

CONGRATS... !!!