VikSharma

Let me first say congrats. Would you say that SC questions tested complex grammar concepts? Or were the answer choices relatively easy to identify when taking the overall meaning in perspective? For Quant, how close would you say the tricks mirrored GMATPrep? Great score!

This is a "Must Be True" question, therefore the answer choice must be true based on the stimulus. Since Heavy Rainfall is >2cm, we could have 100cm in one day in 1990 compared to 5 days of 5cm in 1910. Just because the number of days of heavy rainfall in 1990 than in 1910 doesnt mean the corresponding total is also lesser. Tricky question, I was puzzled at first. What is the source?

Hi Guys, In case some of you were wondering, I have been accepted to the 2-Year Full-Time MBA at Cornell's Johnson School of Management (2010). Thanks for all the support throughout my GMAT process. Vik

Hi Kee, thanks. Based on my prep to date, I feel that my intrinsic level is around 700. If I had retained my previous verbal score I would have gotten a 47/39 which is a 700 I believe. Either way, my lack of confidence caught up to me. Thanks. Vik

Guys, I am quite disappointed. Went 3 points up in Quant however 3 points down in Verbal. I saw the Boldface question (q40) and got very excited – however to my dismay I saw 36. 1st GMAT Attempt: Nov 2 680 (q44, v39) 2nd GMAT Attempt: Dec 4 680 (q47, v36) 81% 80% - overall 88% Prep Time: 2. 5 weeks (Nov 16 – Dec 3) Materials: OG Verbal (30 CR, 50 SC) Scoretop Math (125 Nov, 20 Dec Math PQs) GMATPrep 1: 640 GMATPrep 2: 700 (w/ 7 repeat questions) MGMAT 1: 640 This time around I was quite nervous going in. Due to my work obligations, I was able to devote 5 solid days of studying. In general, I felt that I was not ready however decided to take the exam anyway. From my previous result, I knew I had to focus on Quant, for verbal I went through approx. 80 questions in OG Verbal to brush up. Exam Experience: AWA: Nothing specific to note Quant: Was stumped by the first question, guessed and moved on. The rest is a blur, however I felt that I did not encounter overly tough questions – just tricky. This time around I was too distracted by the clock, I checked it every 1 or 2 mins – this sucked. Overall guessed on 6-8 questions throughout, wild guess on last 2. Verbal: Started with 3 SCs followed by 2 CRs and a RC. Overall got 4 RCs. SCs were trickier than in GMATPrep. RCs were easy to read however questions were quite tough often 3 choices very close. I took the exam at the Pickering, Ontario (Canada) testing center. If anybody is considering taking it there, please beware: 1. During the 10 min break after quant, I went to the proctor to ask for the keys to my locker, she couldn’t find them. She searched everywhere, finally she discovered that one of the other students had left them hanging by his locker (in a different room). The entire 8 mins were spent on this debacle. Finally, I decided to go back to my seat since I had no idea how much time had elapsed (was not pleased as I was low on water and energy) 2. In the last 30 mins of verbal, a guy next door started talking on the phone very loudly (in French). He was obnoxious. I tolerated it for about 5 mins (consistently lost train of thought) and finally I had had enough. I stepped outside to tell the guy to shut the f#$k up – the proctor came and closed his door. 3. The test center’s pens sucked! They would stop writing while I was in the middle of a long calculation, had to shake the hell out of the pen a few times during my test. I guess the bottom line is that never assume that the environment at the test center will be perfect. I lost my calm after that annoying French speaking guy episode. With most R2 deadlines around the corner, I think I will apply with the 680 to the two of my remaining target schools. I have applied to Cornell (R2) so far. I plan to take a break from GMAT for at least the next few months. If I get wait-listed I might reconsider re-taking it in the next 3 months. Last but not the least, I would like to thank all the folks at TM for this very special resource. If you guys have any questions please feel free to PM me, I am traveling overseas for work this week, will be back early next week. -Vik

Kee, you have made Ontarians proud!! Awesome story. I am sitting for the exam on Tuesday at the Pickering location. Wish me luck!

Pat, congrats again!! I will let you know how things go this Tuesday.

Guys, I heard somewhere that Erin has personally provided explanations to the first 200 of the 1000SCs. Can someone point me to that link? Thanks lots. Vik

Hi Kee, Mostly applying to US Schools with 2-year MBA programs. I've got a BAScEE from UBC, moved down here to Ontario 3 years ago work at RIM- I'm sure you've noticed it has become quite cold here over the last few days. I'm at vsharma.email@gmail.com if you'd like to connect to discuss gmat strategies etc. I wrote my test on Nov 2, got a 680. I am re-writing Dec 4th targeting for a 720 or higher.

Hi Kee, I live in Waterloo, Ontario. What Canadian schools are you applying to?

awesome work!! please provide a full de-brief.

awesome score!!

Prawler, I am proud of you!!! This score is more in line with your capabilities. Vik

wicked score!! good luck with your apps.

Just wanted to post my percentiles, in case someone is curious: Q44: 72 V39: 88 680: 88

Duplicate...

Hi Guys, Sorry for the delay in writing this de-brief. To be honest, I am hoping this is an interim debrief in that my target is 720 and some day in the near future I will reach that target (keeping fingers crossed!). First off, a quick shout out to the following ppl: LSR: I feel you are an 800’er in the making, thanks for your posts and explanations. Wating for your 800 score debrief. Clintonn: For an inspiring story and your motivation to strive for perfection CalifroniaKid: Dude, you’re the epitemy of GMAT confidence, truly inspiring de-brief Prawler: For your encouragement over the past month Hasnath: For being super helpful in posting and emailing prep material My Background: I have an Electrical Engineering degree from a Canadian University, graduated in 2004. Have worked primarily in the Telecom world, started off at a Canadian Telecom provider; for the past 3 years been working at RIM (maker of BlackBerry). I now Manage our Business Development activities in the Asia-Pacific region. Interestingly enough, I had to take a last minute trip to India for a week. I was left with 5 days of studying once I was back from my trip, and 3 of the 5 days I was primarily focused on catching up with work etc. More on this below… Target schools: Cornell, Yale and Kellogg. NTD: I would like to say that I am no authority on test-prep etc, my views and especially recommendations are solely based on what worked for me. As you can see from my score that I need to improve significantly in Quant and perhaps some in Verbal. Preparation Time: ~ 2 months, avg. 3-4 hrs a week. I studied intensely for 3 week-ends in the last month of prep. If I were to count the number of hrs, I would say I spent about 100 hrs in total. I probably spent 150 hrs crawling various forums and collecting materials that I never got to! Materials Used: OG11, Kaplan 800, GMATPrep Practice Tests: GMATPrep 1: 580 (Q44, V27) – Sep 23 GMATPrep 1 (repeat): 680 (Q48, V36) – mid-Oct GMATPrep 2: 640 (Q47, V30) – Nov 2 [10 hrs before the exam] Preparation Strategy: Quant I was not very coordinated here. I completed the OG11 PS and DS questions, had a hit rate of 80% and 70% respectively. Even with an Engineering background, I struggled with DS, probability and number property questions. I attempted about 100 questions from Aug Practice Questions on Scoretop – these were good practice however I ran out of time leading up to my exam. I also solved random questions on Test Magic whenever I would get the chance. 5 days prior to the exam, I started to make a formula sheet (on paper). I think this was a good idea because it forced me to clarify some concepts and helped me memorize the formulae as I wrote them. I listed all the specific areas covered in the exam, and listed all pertinent formulae in those areas. I wish I had done this early on in my prep. Key learning: Learn all key concepts and memorize formulae early on in your preparation. This helps you retain the tricks that you encounter during practice. This time around, I will focus on just practice questions from Scoretop, GMATPrep questions and also timing. I was out of time on the real exam and had to randomly guess on the last 8 questions. Verbal In addition to the OG11, Kaplan 800 has been a key resource in my verbal preparation. I only started working on Kaplan 800 two weeks prior to my exam, however the content is excellent (especially CR and SC) and I gained much intricate knowledge in a short period of time. Btw, I only attempted 70 questions in total (only CR and SC). RC: I figured out early that practicing 100s of RCs is not going to help me; but rather reading quality materials such as Economist, Wall Street Journal etc would. So for the past 2 months, I have been reading at least 2 articles a day from both Economist and WSJ. I also completed all OG11 RC’s, which is not the best material out there to be honest. CR: This section has given me a lot of trouble right from the start. You will be surprised that I figured out how to crack CR just hours before my exam after I completed my GMATPrep 2. You need to focus all your concentration in these types of questions, and leave no stone unturned. You need to comprehend the entire argument, GMAT exploits the fact that test takers usually try to rush through questions and often miss subtleties in the argument presented. SC: I had a 60% over-all hit-rate the first time I attempted the OG11. I am embarrassed to say that my rate in the last 50 questions of the OG11 was only 50% - this was approx. 2 months ago. I figured that SC cannot be beat just by practice, GMAT tests deep knowledge of sentence construction and it is notorious for putting together very confusing constructions typically you do not encounter in everyday reading. I found some basic grammar websites, went through the very basics as well as some complicated items (gerund use, prepositional phrases etc). Manhattan SC is a good book, however it is inadequate as is OG11 for Quant. Note that in harder bin SC questions, you need to understand the full meaning of the sentence in order to eliminate wrong choices – I recall seeing some questions where the meaning was hard to comprehend. Also, during the exam, due to time pressure my issue identification strategies disappeared (strategies e.g. oh! This is a parallel structure issue, misplaced modifier, subject-verb etc), and I solely relied on my instinct and inherent knowledge of sentence construction. AWA I didn’t prepare for this section at all. I think I handled the essays reasonably well, waiting to hear back on the score. Exam Day: As I mentioned above, I only had 5 days of studying after returning from my trip to India. I made this elaborate schedule where I’d cover 100 questions a day in Quant and Verbal etc etc. Needless to say, I couldn’t execute on the plan due to work commitments. The only time I got to prepare was a day before my exam. I was dying to write GMATPrep 2 to boost my confidence before the exam. My test was scheduled for 1:15PM on Friday, I sat down at my desk at 4PM on Thursday, brushed up some Quant stuff and reviewed the formula sheet, went over Kaplan 800 SC strategies etc one last time. At 11:00PM I started GMATPrep 2. I was very slow in the Quant section and ran out of good juice in the Verbal. My score reflected that, I got Q47 V30. I was shocked to see the low V mark, upon closer inspection I discovered that most of my mistakes were in CR and RC – at this point I was quite frustrated since I had invested quite a bit of time in going over Kaplan 800 CR. During the review, I realized that I missed the subtleties in each of the CR questions I got wrong. This was primarily due to lack of concentration, and I promised myself that I would go into a state of zen while doing CRs on the real exam. I finally went to bed at 4:30AM, woke up at 7:30AM got ready and was out the door by 9:15AM. The test center is a 1.5 hr drive + 1 hr subway ride, got to the testing center at 12:00PM. The Toronto testing center is quite small, the lady signed me in, finger printed etc. I was finally escorted to my seat. Said a little prayer and started the test, AWA was ok – I recall typing a lot (6-7 paragraphs for each essay). The experience was quite calming and got me into the groove of things. Btw, the erasable notepad is not bad and the pen does the job. Took the 10 minute break, drank some OJ and part of a bran cookie that I had bought from Second Cup. Came back and started quant. The first few questions were ok, however I recall getting stuck on the 3rd question – it was a word problem, I couldn’t exactly figure out what exactly the question was asking – took me about 3 mins to understand the question and a further 2 mins to solve it. The difficulty rose from thereon, hence I got behind on time, way way behind!! The sight of the clock is still quite vivid in my mind, I was on q21 when the clock said 11 mins remaining. Panic set it, q22-30 were semi guesses, 31-37 were *blind* guesses. I felt that the difficulty level on the real GMAT was that of in GMATPrep, maybe a little harder than GMATPrep. I feel that GMAT tests your core knowledge of the concepts and how quickly you can bring together 3-4 concepts to solve a problem. My problem was solely timing, perhaps tricks etc to solve questions faster would help immensely. Took the 10 minute break, this time I took a few sips of OJ, quick visit to the washroom and half a ciggie J Sorry I needed nicotine at this point. I knew that I had messed up Quant, however something inside me motivated me to hit Verbal with full force. Before starting verbal, I took the 60 second period you get to calm myself down and pull together to give my 150%. Verbal started with two SCs. As I mentioned above, all of my SC issue identification strategies went down the drain and my brain went into instinct mode. When I say instinct, I mean that all the preparation time you put in creates a virtual filter in your mind, when you see an option that is wrong your mind tells you its wrong. I simply used POE for SC. One thing I noted, there were an unusual number of semi-colons and colons in the questions I encountered. Though no SC was overly complicated, I was not familiar with most of the sentence constructions presented. RC’s were a little easier than RCs in GMATPrep, I took notes furiously and it helped tremendously. Not that I every looked back at my notes, but the roadmap of the argument got etched in my mind. I answered each question in less than 45 seconds. CR was a different story, the questions were very complicated and I knew I had to devote full concentration – in fact I took 3 -4 lines of notes. I drew diagrams, connecting pieces of evidence to conclusion. This helped me quite a bit in assumption questions. I did run out of time at the end and had to randomly guess q38-41. After the verbal portion was over, I clicked through the survey (default values on each page), and finally got to the report score page. I thought for a second whether I should cancel the score, since I had no idea how I had done overall. Said $%#@ it and went ahead, saw 680. I was disappointed on the quant side and pleased with the verbal score. Random Tips – Verbal: CR: Please please ensure that you are fully there when doing CR. Identify conclusion first, then draw small box diagrams to connect premise to conclusion. This helps re-enforce the structure of the argument. Forget everything else you might know about the topic, only focus on what is presented. You will be surprised how quickly you zone onto the right choice. RC: Again, know the structure of the argument presented. Read very carefully, and pay special attention to contrasting ideas, transitions etc. Draw some quick diagrams if required. Also ensure you know what the question is asking. SC: Fundamentals need to be in place prior to attempting practice questions such as OG, 1000SC etc. More practice will not make you perfect, there are enough permutations and combinations in the English language that the GMAT test makers can put together constructions that you have not seen before. Only strong conceptual skills will pull you through in this section. I am planning to re-write first week of December, this time I hope to get over the 700 hurdle. In any case, I will have applied to one of my target schools (Cornell) with the 680, so let’s see what happens. If you math geniuses can lend me your thoughts on preparation material, and also suggestions to improve on speed that would be awesome. I am at your disposal to answer any questions. -Vik

Guys, Got a 680 today (Nov 2), wrote the exam at the Toronto Downtown Center. I am not too pleased with the result, especially the quant score. Will write a debrief tomorrow. Vik

GMAT-Braker, Awesome job! Good luck with the apps. Can you please shed some light on exam day, what types of questions you saw in each of the verbal and quant sections? Any other tips? THanks.

wow!! what a post dude. One of the most unique ones I have read so far on the net. you definitely seem one of those gifted kids. wicked job. btw, what's your plan for MBA apps etc? I assume you're still finishing up college?

hey man, have you already completed SETs?

In my opinion: 7) E 15) E

If we use the denial test, it makes it a bit more clearer Goal: reduce by half the total yearly amount of hazardous waste generated by its passenger-jet division Conclusion: Company met its goals B. At least as many passenger jets were produced by the division last year as had been produced in 1994. Supporting info: In 1994, 90 pounds per production worker and last year 40 pounds per production worker -In order to meet its goal, company may reduce number of planes manufactured to reduce absolute amount, this would still be valid. -So if the company reduces production to reduce the amount of haz material, this reduction still applies to the goal (although unethical). If you deny the fact that production was lower, the argument still holds, that the company was able to reduce from 90lbs/prod. worker down to 40 lbs/prod. worker. E. The number of production workers assigned to the passenger-jet division was not significantly less in 1994 than it was last year. -If you deny this option, basically saying that no. of workers was significantly more last year than it was in 1994 (e.g. 2000 in 1994, 50000 in 2000, then the argument that the company reduced its absolute waste falls apart) ...therefore E. What's the OA?

OA: D I made the same mistake. We have to figure out in the absence of Gators why has the fish pop declined, therefore decrease in alligators is key here. D. During Parland’s dry season, holes dug by alligators remain filled with water long enough to provide a safe place for the eggs of this fish species to hatch. [if no gators, no protective holes for fish, therefore decrease in population] -tricky question, eh?

Hi Eltonr, you are right. can you explain pls? I think I get it now, however, interested in your explanation.