JackDaniel19

I made a 700+ and I STILL want to know how the hell you made a 47 on the verbal. Ridiculous!!! Great score. I hope your not applying where I'm applying :D

Real GMAT : 710 (49Q, 38V) PP 1 : 710 (50Q, 36V) PP 2 : 700 (49Q, 37V) Other tests in Chronological order PR 1 online : 610 PR 1 CD: 680 PR 2 online : 620 PR 2 CD: 730 PR 3 CD: 670 PR 3 online : 680 PR 4 CD: 700 Kaplan Diag: 680 Kaplan CD 1: 630 Kaplan CD 2: 570 Both Power Preps were done before [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. Good Luck All.

Have not set anything in stone yet but.... Dream: Kellogg, Dartmouth Target: Cornell, Darden, Duke, LBS Safe: Rice, Georgetown Hopefully I'm not overshooting.

Congratulations: Thats awesome!! I took the test 8 days after you and ended up with the exact same score with the exact same break up!! How weird is that!! Wouldn't it be erie if we end up in the same school? Good luck with applications. -JD

Ursula: I think that was a typo. I was trying to say that I had thought I made a mistake in one of the first few DS questions. However, while I did get a fair share of DS I really don't know if it was 40%, 50%, or 60%. Sorry it got your attention.

Thanks Guys: I think doing the GMAT has provided me with as much solace as winning a gold olympic probably would. Maybe not...but I'm happy none the less. Yes, I really did find the test to be a measure of one's ability to adapt. I found a lot of the strategies I implemented in practice being thrown out of the window for some of them just take too long. You don't need to have a laid out method for every question because some of them are fairly easy and you would waste precious time. Funny thing though, I ALWAYS ran out of time during practice. Infact in PP1 I had to mark 'C' for the last 8 questions in verbal. In PP2 I did the same for the last 5. Yet somehow I managed to finish on time on the real thing. I would also advise doing the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] in a concentrated amount of time. I did 850 questions in 1.5 weeks right before the real thing and well after my power preps. At this point I was so familiar with the material that the real thing did not intimidate me. Had I done the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] over a longer period I think my mind would be less trained. This is ofcourse something that worked for me and might not work for someone else. BTW, couple of questions: 1) How many people thought they did bad on the AWA but then got better scores than what the expected? I am very scared that I screwed that section up to where I will get a 3. Anyone care to share their experiences? 2) Does the official score ever deviate from the Unofficial one you get right after the test? Again, anyone care to shed some light on the topic? Thanks, -JD

Ok, now that the GMAT is over, all I have to do is save the world a few times, win an Olympic gold medal, feed all the inhabitants of Somalia, and I have a 75% shot at Harvard [w00t] My GMAT story is a bit unlike that of many on this board. For one, it was my first try. For another, I did not implement a crazy 4 hour a day schedule. I guess I was lazy in that aspect. Don't get me wrong, my study schedule spanned little over a month, so I did do a lot of practice. About the test, well for one thing, I thought it was going quite horribly. I got a probability question (easy one though) for my 4th question. I also got some easy stat and one easy combination problem. I think these 3 areas take a bit of practice initially but once you get the concepts down, they are MUCH easier than other questions that require computation. Anyway, so my Math went decent but I was scared of the fact that I had made an error in one of the few DS questions. Evidently not! The verbal was very very weird and not much in line with the experience of others on this board. I got about 4 RC's. 1st one 40 lines, second 65 lines, third 45 lines (at this point I thought I was screwing up, this was waaayy to short!) but then I got a fourth RC for questions 34 through 37 that was 105 lines long!!!! I was seriously thinking of just marking 'C' for all of them since I had 10 minutes left at this point. However, I kept calm, steered away from my usual method of taking notes as this would take too long, and answered all the questions. The fact was that while the RC was long it was easy to understand and the questions were quite easy. Lesson learned: Adapt! There is no fixed way! Even though you practice a certain method at home, you never know what's going to happen and you need to be confident enough to take shortcuts that your not used to taking. This can only happen when you are extremely comfortable with the material tested on the GMAT. The SC's were hard initially and then got easy, hence again I though I screwed up. CR's were as difficult as the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. I actually thought the Math was not harder than the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] and I know many will disagree. To sum it up, I swear by the Power Prep. That and the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] are the GMAT bible. Do it till you die. I only managed to do 850 questions from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] but I took both PP's. PP 1: 710 (50Q, 36V) PP 2: 700 (49Q, 37V) How close is that????? I would also recommend practicing tests without omitting the Essays. I only did 1 such test, and it was a Kaplan test on which I made a disastrous 570. Other scores from tests aree: PP CD 1 : 680 PP CD 2: 730 PP CD 3 : 680 PP CD 4 : 670 PP Online 1 : 620 PP online 2 : 680 Kaplan Diag : 680 Kaplan CD 1 : 630 Kaplan CD 2 : 570 Kaplan CD 3 : 570 I don't have any specific tips that have'nt already been mentioned. I found taking notes on RC to be an extremely good method but as you can see, I could not use that method for 1 RC. Hence, as I said before, practice enough to where you don't need a fixed method to succeed. There is no substitute to hard work. If anyone has specific questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Good luck everyone. Regards, Jack

I already did. PP1 : 710 (50Q, 36V) PP2 : 700 (49Q, 37V) This was ofcourse before I did any problems from the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. Maybe I just have last day jitters but I somehow felt that the last 40 questions in the PS part of the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] were much harder than the ones at the beginning. I was doing some SC today (I'm towards the end) and found the same. Is your PP verbal indicative of the real thing? What about quant? Most say that the Quant is a lot harder, yet they claim that PP is a good indicator. How can it be indicative if the Q is harder? I'm scared because as you can tell my Q scores on PP were quite good. Opinions???? P.S: I have used PR and Kaplan. PR ranged from 620(1st test) to 730 with most being between 670 and 710. Kaplan (uggh) has been a steady downfall starting at 680 (Diagnostic) and progressing to 570 (CD test 3).

Ok, I have been getting about 8/10 questions right on the verbal front and more than 9/10 (on average) in quant right. the verbal has seemed to have gotten quite hard towards the end (SC in particular). Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me. Also, what is the approximate score that I could expect given the above.

Aye Aye: Kaplan Diag: 680 Kaplan (Book- Paper test): 650 Kaplan CD 1: 630 kaplan CD 1: 570 Notice a trend?? [:(!] PP1: 710 PP2: 700 In other words: Eat S^&IT Kaplan. Make your tests more realistic so that test takers like us dont freak out and lose all our confidence!! Besides the fact that the software doesn't crash on a regular basis (as is the case with PR) I don't have many nice things to say about Kaplan. After having worked through about 650 questions in [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], I don't feel that Kaplan questions capture the true essence of the test. Opinions welcome.....Kaplan lovers (they do exist) dont bash me!:shy:

Ok, so the low down is that I finally mustered up the courage to register for the GMAT next week. I have been studying sporadically for the last 2 months (probably a total of 6 hrs a week) and have been feeling good about my scores which have ranged as from 570 (Kaplan) to 730 (PR) with most being in the 670 - 710 range. On the PP I scored 710 (50Q, 36V) and 700 (49Q, 37V). Since people have been complaining about how hard the Q has recently become on the GMAT I fret that my Quant my decrease and verbal stay the same in which case I would end up with a lower score. I have also seen that people who score in the mid 700's do very well on Verbal. Do you guys have any test taking strategies for Reading Comp and Critical Reasoning. I perform well on the practice questions in [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] but as you can tell, my PP scores dont reflect it. Any last minute tips that I can use next week? Anything will help at this point. I MUST improve!!!!

I've been having major issues with Kaplan Math. It is just ridiculously hard. I feel like a dumb a$$ when I finish the tests. For example the last 2 tests I took on Kaplan I got 10 wrong in math on the 1st one and 13 wrong in the second one. This was mainly contributed to the fact that in both tests I had 2 minutes to do the last 6 problems. Furthermore, there were some problems that were just so time consuming that I had to guess on them. That being said, when I took PP1 I had no problems finishing the test and actually took my time and finished with just 1 minute remaining. I only got 3 wrong for a Q score of 50. I'm just scared about my Kaplan scores as I feel like I should atleast be able to finish but I find the Math SO much more difficult. Here are my scores Kaplan Diag: 680 Kaplan Book test: 650 (Q-50, V-40) I think this break up is majorly off!! Kaplan CD1: 630 (Q-48, V-33) I got a 48 after missing 10 questions!! Kaplan CD2: 570 (Q-36, V-33) but then I got a 36 after missing 13??? I even found the verbal to be harder as in more time consuming especially RC. Whats the consensus on this? I just hate Kaplan!!!!

this is what im talking about http://www.TestMagic.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10475 this guy scored a 650 with q-49 and v-28. something's fishy. there is no way that a raw score difference of 6 points can yield the same scaled result. or can it???????? in my opinion u should have been in the 670-690 range

im surprised that a q-49 and v-34 makes only 650. I havent taken the test but when I took PP1 I got 710 with q-50 and v-36. as for your score being good enough fo ISB. Tell you the truth, I think not. the reason being that ISB is almost 95% (or more) indian. and indian applicants are probably the highest scoring applicants even to US schools. the range for indian schools (where grades are much more important than they are at schools like harvard and tuck) is usually higher. that being said, if you have excellent experience, stellar recs, and a damn good reason for applying (in other words, fantabulous essays) then a score of even 600 would be enough. just my $0.02

Personally, I think the time is MORE than sufficient. Ofcourse many will disagree with me on that. Obviously you might have to step up your game towards the end. By the way, have you taken any tests? What have your scores been? Are they in a range of 100 points of your target score? Not to burst anyone's bubble but if your scoring 450 right now, there is little chance that you can bring your score up by 250 points by studying for 2 hours a day. Its doable but it would require a LOT of work. So where do you stand as of now?? Either way, I think the time is plenty. As for the test materials, I have'nt yet done [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] though I've been told its fantastic. Kaplan is good. Tough but good. Your score may not be indicative of the real thing (it will be lower on Kaplan) but its challenging and hence great practice. If you can, look at the verbal strategies listed in Princeton Review. I found them to be really helpful. Data sufficiency is kind of an acquired skill. It comes with a LOT of practice and thats exactly what you need to do. maybe someone else can give you a better tip. Mine was kind of lame, but it works for me. Good Luck