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Hey,Thanks everyone! Just read my debrief again and thought about correcting the errors but there are too many, and as long as you guys understood what I meant, I guess it is fine. Thanks again.

Background: 26, Indian, IT, male. 5 years of experience. I have never been inclined towards pursuing an MBA until 2 months ago, when some serious discussions with a group of friends got me thinking. Well, I am glad we had a discussion that day. The story (How it all started): 5 years ago, I thought I would do my MS in CS. Got a good GRE score 2230 (Q800, V680 - was thrilled to bits then) but ended up not utilizing it. I had applied for a few universities in 2002, got into a few programs but the scenario with respect to financial aid and jobs wasn’t too rosy. I still might have opted for it had I not got a job in a top Indian software services company. I never really thought about any kind of further study again until that crucial conversation turned it around 2 months ago. There was a hint of sadness when that GRE score expired in 2006 Dec. I just hope I don’t end up not utilizing my GMAT score as well because I haven’t yet planned about other parts of my application and the timing as well. Vote of Thanks: Apart from the friends who inspired me to take up the GMAT, there are others on this forum who have been very helpful: lsr, coyote, bmwhype (whose various questions were interesting to solve) ,prreeet, Dwarrior, pandeyrav, eltonr, mathdumber, anilmanu, kann and last but not the least CaliforniaKid (for his very inspiring debrief). I surely must have missed a few other names; especially those who had written invaluable debriefs. Apologies in advance. Preparation: I started my preparation exactly 8 weeks ago. I spent about 3-4 hrs daily on an average. Thankfully, my work during the past 2 months hasn’t been too demanding. First, I bought the OG11 from a nearby store, went through the instructions for all the sections on Day 1 and skimmed through the review of all the sections in the OG. I prepared myself for the OG Diagnostic test under untimed conditions. I was surprised to see that I was in the Below Average category for PS, Average in the DS, RC, CR and SC; surprised because I wasn’t in the Excellent Category in any of the sections and realized that there was some work to be done. Then, I completed the OG11 solving 50 questions in each category every day. I was doing well with the PS (until Q 200) and DS (until Q 100) and about average in the verbal parts. Though I had a 60-70% hit rate with the SC’s, I didn’t understand much of the cryptic explanation that the OG11 used, which made me realize that I had to first brush up the concepts of grammar before solving any more questions. I stopped with the OG11 SC part after 90 Q’s and upon a friend’s advice, I bought the ManhattanSC book. Completed the book in 3 hours and solved the remaining OG11 SC questions. The hit-rate went slightly higher but atleast I was able to understand the explanations clearly. Lesson learnt: Don’t jump on to OG 11 verbal SC part before you are in a position to understand each and every word of the explanations provided. Also, I bought the Kaplan Premier program book because I heard though the practice tests don’t reflect the actual scores, they are good practice material. I knew that from my GRE prep 6 years ago. I found the Kaplan software very useful back then. I was expecting the same for the GMAT software but it paled in comparison. Yes, the short 25 min tests for each section were very good material but the explanations for the answers in verbal part left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, it was good practice. I didn’t spend much time on CR and RC except solving OG11 and the various practice tests. I had no problems with RC but definitely had problems with CR. I still haven’t figured a way to solve them which perhaps explains my lower Verbal score. I did go through a few strategies on the Kaplan 800 book, but I felt they didn’t help me on test day (was out of time to use any strategy actually; I answered on instinct). Perhaps, more analysis needs to be done during preparation about the weak areas in CR which probably I didn’t do. The following are the various practice tests that I took (one every 3 days starting from Oct 1, in the order I took them): GMATPrep1 700 (Q 46 V 39) (Ran out of time on the Q) Kaplan Online 650 MGMAT 1 680 (Q 48 V 34) Kaplan CAT1 600 MGMAT 2 680 (Q 49 V 34) Kaplan CAT2 550 (Yes, 550, I was shocked) MGMAT 3 600 (Q 31 V 41) (Ran out of time, answered only 27 Q) GMATPrep1(re) 740 (very few repeats) Booked my date after this test for Nov 10th (3 weeks earlier) MGMAT 4 700 (Q 48 V 37)(Paused the Q part and solved the last 8 questions) Kaplan CAT3 590 MGMAT 5 690 (Q 49 V 35) Kaplan Paper 670 MGMAT 6 710 (Q 51 V 36)(Took the AWA for the first time – was fatigued by the time I reached Verbal) Kaplan CAT4 610 (Attempted the AWA) MGMAT 7 (re) 750 (Many repeats) Powerprep 1 730 GmatPrep2 700 (Q 47 V 39) (Attempted the AWA as well) PowerPrep 2 730 As you can see, I took a lot of practice tests. I don’t know how much of it helped in the end, but I wanted to work on my timing, as I had lot of issues completing on time (especially the math part). Midway through these tests, I was exhausted and felt that I had 1 week too many, as I didn’t find any method of improving my CR’s which was really hitting me hard. I started solving some questions on TM during the last few weeks of prep. The AWA Devil: I am not very comfortable writing essays especially on abstract topics and I wasn’t too confident of doing it without any help (surprisingly I got a 6.0 on my TOEFL essay 5 yrs ago), though most of the advice I got was to ignore that part of the preparation and leave it till the end. But, knowing that it was the first part of the GMAT (unlike the TOEFL), I had butterflies in my stomach when I read a few topics from the official list. I ran to Barnes & Noble and bought the ARCO essay answers book and skimmed through all the issue essays (took about 3 hrs total). I am not sure if I grasped anything, but it gave me confidence to face the essays, though I still had fears about writing something on art and morals related topics. The argument section in this book really helped me a lot. I must say, the 7 reasons outlined in the book more or less cover every flaw in all the official topics listed. I got the hang of this part of AWA by reading a couple of examples and didn’t spend time on it at all after that 1 hour. Overall, a strongly recommended book to allay your essay fears. (Except the fact that the authors used ‘Ghandi’ to refer to ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ in a couple of examples, the rest was fine). With all the practice tests behind me, I thought I should feel happy if I get anything above 700 on the D-day or the G-day (as pandeyrav rightly puts it). The day before the test day: It was a Friday and it was Diwali (Indian festival of lights in lay man’s terms). I spent time at work reviewing the OG11 answers that I got wrong during my prep and the wrong answers for all my CAT’s (only PS and SC). As my exam was scheduled for the evening next day, the festive atmosphere got to me and I decided to go to the movies to watch a mega-hyped Bollywood movie (OSO) to ease the nerves. Thankfully, the movie wasn’t too bad and I spent the rest of the night thinking about what lies in store. Slept well, woke up the next day and read the Appendix from Kaplan for the Math reference. Read a few essays and a few topics on the ManhattanSC guide. Also, went through some tough Probability and Co-ordinate Geometry questions (my weak areas in Quant). Reached the test center at Lyndhurst, NJ an hour early and went straight in and settled in a cube in the corner and was adjusting the chair. The chair wasn’t too comfortable. For instance, it didn’t have the side rest for the hands. I tend to get finicky about chairs but thought this is not the right time for that and carried on. Just tested the noteboards by writing a few lines (no issues using them), and typed a few words during the tutorial. The actual test: AWA: The actual test started off with an argument that was very easy to critique. Typed in about 5 paragraphs and had about 5 minutes left. Revised a few lines, in the end. Then, came the issue essay that I dreaded. Thankfully, it was about employees and their hand in the work place design enhancing productivity, morale etc. Not too difficult a topic to write about I thought and typed furiously. I wrote so much that I was running out of time and with 2 minutes left, I ignored a few points I had in mind and summed up the essay and left myself 1 minute to correct any grammatical/spelling errors. Took the 10-min break. Drank some water and didn’t do much. Just spoke to the receptionist at the test center about general topics. Quant: The first question I got was a very simple Probability question. Then, I got a few PS questions involving some numbers and exponents simplifications. Fairly simple. 5 questions down in 3 minutes. So far so good. Then, I got a few tricky DS questions but not unsolvable. Just had to re-read the question. I got around 5 probability/permutation questions (all of them simple, one was counting numbers > 1000 with certain conditions). 3 Geometry questions. I got a lot of PS questions which involved the I, II and III options. They were time-consuming but not difficult. I had 6 questions with 8 minutes remaining. I got a DS that was too long and it looked like a probability question. I knew I would have to spend a lot of time in order to understand the question. I could either sit through and solve it or just skim through and make an educated guess. I did the latter, and proceeded to the next 7 questions which were very very simple and had 2 minutes remaining in the end. At that point, I felt guilty of not using that up to solve that DS question that I guessed. Overall, I was surprised with the level of difficulty on the Quant. Even though, a lot of folks mentioned about the level of Quant, I wasn’t expecting something this easy. Ended the Quant on a good note, though I knew it could have been better. Took the 10 min-break, went to the restroom, had some more water and went to the desk and relaxed until the 10-min elapsed. Verbal: Started with a few SC’s which were not straightforward by any means. Then, a few CR’s and around the 6th question an RC. Got 4 RC’s in the usual intervals (6th, 14th 23rd, 33rd). I didn’t get any boldfaced CR’s (which I realized only after stepping out), which perhaps was an indication that I wasn’t doing too well. But I decided not to analyse much after what I read from pandeyrav’s debrief hours before I went to take mine. The surprising thing about the Verbal questions was I wasn’t sure about 60% of the answers. Though, I was able to zero down to 2 options (sometimes 3), I wasn’t confident about my final choices and so I was wasting a lot of time deciding as a result. And to add to that misery, I got a looooong RC around the 14th question about history on literature which I didn’t follow. Those 4 questions took a huge chunk of time and I wasn’t even sure if I was getting them right. I started getting frustrated. The next few CR’s and SC’s, I didn’t spend much time analyzing/deciding. Finally, I ran out of time on the last SC. Chose A. I think the CR’s weren’t too difficult but I always was a person who had to spend more than the average time on every CR to get it right. I couldn’t afford to do that on the exam as I was running behind time after the 2nd RC. As a result, I answered the Critical Reasoning questions without much reasoning and solely based on instinct. CR turned CI. Regarding the SC’s, GMATPrepSC’s are close to the actual exam, but for some strange reason I thought the Verbal section was tougher than what I expected reading the various de-briefs. The SC guide definitely helped but it is not sufficient. I realized that one needs to have some inherent capability to ace the SC’s and RC’s on the Verbal section, else it has to be such that you have to incorporate the learnings in your daily usage (as pandeyrav rightly said). CR is all about managing the time to get it right and concentrating hard. Finally, it was a good 2 months of prep and my score reflects my abilites considering my style of prep (which wasn’t too great in terms of quality). I am happy about it. Now, I need to explore more about the other parts of the applications, the timing of applications, the B-schools and my goals in general. Phew, that was a long post. I hope people are not drained out reading this debrief and will add some value to your preparation.

Double post.

Hey all, Just back from the test center. Overall score : 710 (93%) Quant : 49 (89%) Verbal : 38 (83%) Overall, felt the math was way too easy compared to all the prep software that is floating around. Verbal is definitely tough.Tougher than GMATPrep for sure. Will add to this later.

Hey, Congrats pandeyrav...! That's a cool score.

Between C and D, I am going with D. Use/utilize.. I don't know the difference. I am going with what the original statement uses.

For me it is between A and B. I will go with B. An event happened before the physicians explained. Therefore, had+verb must be used and so would have +verb must be used in the then condition. Prefer "explained that if" to "explained that had".

3x + 5y = 100. Therefore x=5, y=17 or x=10, y=14. All other values will not satisfy x so total = 22 or 24. only 24 is divisible by 3. hence, no of cats = 24/3 = 8.

How can you take |2| as -2? |2| is always 2. |-2| is 2. Either ways, it is a straight line.

Does the first satement indicate a notation meaning Combination? Like, does (x 2) mean xC2?

This is my guess. Not sure about the approach/answer. 1. I get 50 as the area. Taking all 4 combinations (+ve and -ve values for x and y and sketching a graph), we get a sqaure with each side 5sqrt(2) [by starting with x = 0, y =5; y=0, x=5.. and similarly for negative values of x and y. The resultant figure formed is of 4 iscosceles right-triangles with legs 5, one triangle in each quadrant). Therefore, area = 5sqrt(2) * 5sqrt(2) = 50. 2,3) |y| = 5-2 = 3. Therefore, y = +3 or -3. Hence, the area is zero. Minimum and Maximum. I think 2 and 3 answers are wrong (and maybe 1 also). Would like the co-ordinate geometry gurus to take over.

For the first statement to be insufficient, you need not consider only values that are equal or zeroes etc. suppose Set = {31,35}, Range = 35-31 =4. Now if you add 4 to this set {4,31,35}. Range = 35-4 = 31. suppose Set = {2,4}, range = 4-2 = 2, now, if you add 2 to this set, it becomes {2,2,4}. range = 4-2 = 2. so, range stays the same. Hence, INSUFFICIENT.

IMO, that conclusion is wrong. It should be 2 is the only prime divisor of 2N and 3 is the only prime divisor of 3N.

I don't see anything contradictory about the statements. Both of them taken together satisy when N = 1 (which has zero prime divisors). Individually, they satisfy multiple values for N. Can you explain with an example how they are contradictory?

IMO, B. 1) INSUFFICIENT. Doesn't say anything about set T. 2) SUFFICIENT. Mean of S = Sum of S/5 Mean of T = Sum of T/7 Sum of S = Sum of T as per this statement. But, their means are not equal as one is divided by 5 and the other by 7. Since, both are consecutive integer sets, Mean = Median. Hence, respective medians are not the same. Hence, B.