Fran Zgz

Geeky, 720 is good news. Congrats!

Yes that is true. At the end of the day verbal drives the total score. It is better to have good luck in verbal question-mix and bad in the math one than the other way round. I dont have much more time before 1st round, so most likely I will leave it as it is, and reconsider for the second round. By the way, let me congratulate you again. It is nice to see people from the forum getting such a success!

From the first day I visited this community, I felt inspired by wonderful test-taking experiences, those descriptions helped me a lot in figuring out how the real Gmat would be. So, to pay off, here it comes my debrief A little bit of background Studied Computer Science in a top Spanish Engineering school. After that, I went to Scandinavia and spent one year as a granted researcher in robotics. After having 10 months of snow, I switched to a widely known management consulting firm. Since then, 30 months of business plans and powerpoints. Objectives for preparation As you can imagine, my background sounded very much as a calculus guy. So, I had quite comfort with the numbers arena and put especial emphasis on the the verbal. In addition, I thought the verbal for an international student might differentiate a little bit more since mastering English would denote a good command of English and, at the end of the day, Verbal section ultimately drives the final score. Target was 700+. Schedule and time I started at the end of May. I wanted to have the shot at the end of July, but working 12 hours a day made me to delay it 1 month. I dedicated 5-6 hours a day on weekends and nothing during the weekday. After cheking out TM (around June), I went through the most recent posts of verbal and math section every two days. Took 1 week of vacation at the begining of August and intensified my study. Preparation material Material I used and opinion I have, in the order I followed during my prep - OG11: Good stuff in terms of concepts. Math is very much different from real thing, yet verbal being more similar. I recommend to have a view, keeping in mind that the real thing is going to be harder, and put more focus on learning concepts than on making excercises in a non-stop mood. - Kaplan higher Score (or something similar): Absolutely useless. - Kapan800: Not bad, but you probably can find better and cheaper resources (adding shipping fees in less than two months) - Disclosed papar based tests: OG11 is fed with them, so very similar. Again, verbal is fine but math is much different from the real thing. - GMATSets: Very helpful in verbal. As far as I saw in the show, math is easier than the real thing. They are definitely very helpful - JJ's: I found those out very late in my prep. Most of them are similar to GMATSets, so same comments apply. Very helpful as well. I got a couple of qCR and one SC at the end of the verbal section. Finally to say, I got access to some Kaplan CAT exams in two forms: The ones in the CD are ridicously harder in the verbal and good practice in the math. However, the real GMAT is very different, neither easier nor harder. The ones in the web-site are more reasonable. Practice scores I did a lot. Mainly I wanted to keep the habit of making 37+41 excercises in a row and develop a pace. I got, since in the math part I looked at the clock three times and ended the test 30 seconds to go. During the preparation tests, In the verbal side I always ended with 10-15 minutes to go, and in the real Gmat I clicked my 41st Next with 8-9 minutes to go. Here it goes: Kaplan CAT8 = 44q,38v = 660 (First week of june) PowerPrep (ETS) 2: 48q,39v = 710 PowerPrep (ETS) 2: 49q,41v = 730 GMAT Test 14 (paper based) = 48q,42v = 720 GMAT Test 25 (paper based) = 48q,46v = 740 GMAT Test 28 (paper based) = 47q,39v = 670 GMAT Test 55 (paper based) = 49q,42v = 730 Kaplan CAT5 = 45q,45v = 700 Kaplan CAT7 = 50q,42v = 720 GMAT Prep = 50q,44v = 770 - many excercises done in the forums already - GMAT Prep = 50q,46v = 770 - many excercises done in the forums already - Last two weeks before the exam: GMAT Test 31 (paper based) = 49q,47v = ??? (didnt jot down) GMAT Prep = 51q,50v = 790 (after re-installing) GMAT Prep = 50q,49v = 780 (after re-installing) Real Gmat = 44q, 44v = 710 What I did right 1.- Learn the pace of the exam for each exercise. Hardly had a look at the clock during the exam and I had no timing problems 2.- 100% analytical approach to Sentence Corection. Try to be systematic on that. Always check every single point. Always have a good reason to discard an alternative. Always understand the meaning of the sentence 2.1.- Verbs (plural-singular agreement, tense, etc..) 2.2.- Postition of modifiers, adverbs and adjective 2.3.- Meaning differences (usally related with aforementioned problems) 2.4.- Idioms 3.- RC, practice with the Kaplan800 gave the extra-mile to build confidence in those exercises. 4.- Take something to eat in the breaks. What I did wrong 1.- Strategy in math. I dedicated same time for question 3 and question 25. I didnt put especial attention to first 15 questions since my systematic timing approach worked in prep tests. However, the real Gmat was quite different. For any unknown reason I failed question 3 and some other, which really spoilt my Math score at the begining. Ending of the game was 44q, the rest of questions I think I did reasonably well to get a 47-49 ranged score. 2.- Probably something more I dont even know, since I still cannot believe my quant score. Concerning AWA No more than 30 minutes in the two months of preparation. Final doubts I am concern with the fact that I didnt get to the 80-80 rule. I have 73% quant and 97% verbal percentiles which doesnt seem to be neither equilibrated nor usual for an international student. I feel pretty confident that I could improve my quant but dont have time to do so since I prefer to focus on essays and rest of stuff. And yes, I could explain that in the application, but if there is a cut off, there is no valid argument in the application because Adcom will not even reach to read it. What do you think guys, should I re-take (probably after the 1st round)? In addition, I dont know whether to repeat the GMAT is worthy from Adcom's perspective given I am already in the median of their school's (top US). It is a long debrief actually. Many thanks to all of you. Good luck.

Just drove back from the test center. First, I'd like to thank this great community all the support it gave me during my preparation. I think it has been an essential tool. A debrief will follow in the coming days, however I just want to share some initial thoughts concerning the real thing and GMATPrep. Math Section I'm really shocked. I consistently got above 48 in all preparation exams I took, mainly GmatPrep and Kaplan. I dont have the feeling that I did wrong and I didnt run out of time. I have been mostly active in the verbal since it was my weaked area and I was not confident at all. I got between 1 and 5 errors in 10 GMATSets I did. Verbal Section Resembles the level of difficiulty in GMAT Sets and slightly harder than GMATPrep. I got a boldface CR about the 15 question and 1 hard RC. SC was fine. A more detailed debrief will follow in the coming days. Just wanted to share with you guys

Great news mate! Congratulations, 730 is outstanding!

(Let's call n=num_elem num_elem = 80 or num_elem = -79, Hence num_elem=80 Since we have num_elem-1 even numbers : N = (num_elem-1)*2 = 158 As N is odd, actually is 159

Actually tough. My pick is D (A) the usage of including is wrong, it would be much simpler to say "with" or "that" (B) The usage of "to include" in the second part of the sentence makes it to look for another "to include" in the first part, and we dont have any. In addition, the usage of "that included" makes it weird that "to include" affects both sorts of houses © Misplaced included (D) fine (E) The usage of "to include" in the first part obligues parallelism in the second part, and again, that doesnt happen Hence, D because uses simpler construction "noun + that and noun + with". This construction doesnt break grammatical parallelism.

I had a lot of doubt between C and D. I saw the weird meaning in D with "in a vase" at the end, however it resembles that of option A (I know it is not neccessarily the right one) I still have doubts between D and C. What makes me feel some umcomfort in C is the potentially different usages of "as". Regarding B, I still think it is wordy and that the use of past tense complicates the sentence that can be directly expressed with a participle such as "picked" My second option is C. Any one could put some light regarding the usage of "as" and "during" in this sentence?

The answer should be C. The last bold-face portion is the conclusion/position of the historian and that alternative is only offered in C

Clear A. The article "a" before life-style does not make a difference, it is only a matter that happens as a consequence of having a compounded subject with a plural and singular noun.

It narrows to C,D and E (E) Wrong usage of that at the end of the sentence. In addition the usage of "may" after liklyhood makes it to sound unprecise (you never say "probability that may happen"). I prefer "will" (D) for rating is less preferred than to rate. In addition, likelyhood that is not idiomatic (is likelyhood of) C is fine

E cannot be right. It it were the sound that prevents the dissipation, then preventing is correct (is the sound that makes that action), since it is not the sound but the ocean layers, it cannot be an active participle. However, C lacks a "with" or something before "its acoustic ..." so, wouldnt know what to choose actually...

Q2 - E?? It is C. A typo since the reasing is what leads to C and there is no E alternative!

B is a clear winner here

I eliminate all answers with "they" since it does not make a clear reference to anything, and GMAT doesnt like that. We are left with B,C,D (B) wrong use of past perfect which results in a wordy sentence © Usage of being and ambiguous usage of "as" that could mean during or becasue (D) I dont think "during" is the right prep there -- G-Day I would ended up by choosing D since it has an active tone and no usage of unnecessesary gerunds like "being"