cocoray
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Everything posted by cocoray
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The answer is 5/16 (or 10/32 as some of you have calculated). The simplest way to solve these problems is to use the binomial formula 5C3*[(1/2)^3][(1/2)^2] Btw, I would suggest not to spend too much time on prob and perm/ combns. You don't get really difficult ones on the actual test - prep time is better spent on other things e.g. arithmetic (comprises ~ 50% of problems). (disclaimer: Q score = 51)
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Got a few. Nothing too difficult. Concepts of Pythagoras Theorum + area of polygon etc (one had to convert the polygon into right angled triangles or rectangles/ squares for area calculation.
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Hi was busy for a few days. Planning for an MBA from US because I want to change careers and get into venture capital/ quant fin. Also, have a more international flavour.
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IIM guys are among the most brilliant people you can find anywhere in the world. I am from the IIMC, and we had people who had perfect 10.00 CGPAs from IITs (comp science guys), and who were amazingly sharp. I have worked with Harvard Business School MBAs - and you can't just compare the IQ or the potential of IIM folks with US B.School guys. But a Harvard or a Stanford guy has the ability to open doors at senior levels in most Fortune 500 companies, and also in various givernments. Reason: the respect their brand name gets globally, and their alumni network. Also their system - which is best in the world (by system I mean profs, courses, placements, subsequent career progression, the 'can do attitude. confidence', the people around, the learnings). We were smart, but pretty raw when we (I at least) entered IIM. Having said that, I am applying to the top US B. Schools (scored 770 in GMAT a few days back) after 7 years of work-ex (currently working as VP of Marketing). The reason? The global exposure, the brand name, and jumping 'orbits'. We IIM guys are the kings in India, yet we never had the exposure that those guys would have had at a top 10 US B. School. Also, while IIM is famous in India, in US, it still doesn't have the kind of brand equity that IIT has. and we know that we are as good, if not better. So why suffer global discrimination? Combine the talent/ potential of a person who can crack CAT with the exposure of a top international B. School - and you get a killer combo. And you can always come back to India after a few years abroad - and you get treated like a returning hero (wow! Harvard! Stanford!....) So if you can make it into a top US BSchool, go for it.
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People have been asking me why I sat again, so here goes: 1. I have average-to-bad undergrad and grad school marks - and wanted to compensate for that 2. I wanted to maximize my chances of schols and grants 3. A couple of my bosses have been from Harvard - and in order to impress them, and get their help, it was necessary to do better than them 4. I felt that I could do better the first time I sat - as I had mentioned, I had a bad day, and wanted at least a par score that would reflect my abilities. After all, a GMAT score can be leveraged in multiple ways - beyond the immediate goal of getting an admission into a B. School. 5. I am stubborn and didn't want the test to get the better of me. 6. Last, but not the least, I already have an MBA from one of the IIMs (passed out 7 years back), and know all about opportunity costs, but am at the stage in life where I want to be driven by passion rather than rationality (and btw, B. Schools would teach you all about rational decision models). Besides, intuition told me I should while reason said that I probably should not - and I trust my intuition.
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If you are doing ok/ well in verbal, invariably you start with ~ 3 SCs, and then a RC passage, then again SCs...CRs don't come till about 1/3 of the Qs are over - but then they come one after the other.
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Yes, the top ranked ones - the ones that have excellent brand equity + top notch finance & entrepreneurship programs - but I also need to take into account the funding (schols, grants) aspect. Want to try and avoid starting with a huge debt at the end of two years.
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Naah..:).time to fous on other things now. Anyway, all it took to take it the second time was two weeks part time study.
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Satya, Verbal was OG level. Nothing too difficult, but I would have liked to do better obviously. For timing, practice from OG and time yourself. Also use the grid for POE (process of elimination) Second time, I just did the 40 'hard' CRs from OG, all the SC Qs from OG - reading all the explanations, and 2 'paper' tests from ETS (you can download them from thsi forum). And I also did the section tests from Kaplan CD and Powerprep before the exams.
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David, I recently sat for GMAT and got 770. I am from India, have 7 years work-ex, have done an MBA (they call it PGDM) from IIM Calcutta, a top ranked B. School in India, and am currently working as VP of Marketing for a business services company. I am planning to apply to the top ranked B. Schools, but need financial aid (due to personal reasons I haven't been able to save much), and wanted to know which schools might consider giving me financial aid based on my GMAT score. Would be great if I hear from you.
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I retook the test and got 770 (Q 51, V 44). Was expecting V 45 or more, but am not complaining :) Almost all the people had advised me not to sit for it again - and meant well. But in the end one has to weight the pros and cons, and go with what one believes is the best thing to do - keeping in mind one's goals, unique circumstances, and opportunity costs (that's one of the first things they taught me in B. School some years back). Quant was OG level – except a couple of Qs. The 3rd Q was a combination of Venn diagram, equations using two variables, and probability :( Talk about an auspicious start! I stared at it, trying to figure it out. I usually convert a word problem into an equation immediately, but this time the equation could not be solved, as there was only one value given (e.g. mX + nY = Z; I had to ‘find’ the value of aX + bY, and then calculate X, Y, XY (i.e. both X&Y – remember this was a Venn diag Q), and then find the probability. After trying to solve for 5 min I had to use my common sense after looking at all the answer options. Maybe it was an experimental Q (probably it was). Later I thought about that Q, and realized that instead of jumping into equations, I should have scanned the answer choices and used my common sense – would have saved me 3-4 mins at least. None of the other Qs were this difficult. Verbal – was OG level. For my retake I did all the OG SC Qs again, and that helped me. However, I got stuck with a simple looking but tricky SC some 15 min into the test (after narrowing it down to 2 options, I stared at it for 8 min, without being able to make up my mind). Finally I had to force myself to move ahead. This screwed up my timing so that I had about 1.5 min each for the remaining Qs, and I had to speed read/solve some CRs and long RCs & SCs (and I guess that’s where I got some of the Qs wrong). Got a couple of boldface Qs that were simple – in fact simpler than some of the non-boldfaced CRs on the test. (I think some of the boldface Qs floating around are crap – since some of the answer choices are similar, unlike in the ETS BF CRs. I tried out a few BF CRs from the net, but even after looking at the so called “original answers”, I was not totally convinced with the reasoning – and I used to get about 97-98% of OG CR Qs right) Practicing the essays beforehand helped – last time I had suffered due to this. When I practiced a couple of essays, I thought that I had done OK – but re-reading them, I found that I had made silly errors (e.g. Secondly instead of Second, weak conclusions, spelling errors and typos, not using words and phrases that are picked up by the artificial intelligence engine of the e-Rater, etc). So do practice your essays – at least a couple of AoAs and AoIs each. Want to thank Erin for starting this wonderful forum and some of the posters for their time and tips. When I started my prep, I had thought that IMS (a test prep company in India) material would be good enough – as I had used IMS to crack CAT. But coming to this forum opened my eyes. While IMS is good for Quant mastery (actually one doesn’t need to learn/use 80% of the concepts present in their material), their verbal is crap. I learned a lot of things here – that something like OG exists, and that it is the bible for practice, that people aiming to do well should use Kaplan rather than Princeton or Barrons, that PP tests are realistic, that one should do them before touching OG, …so many things. Thanks guys. A few tips: Figure out what works for you – especially tips like these :) Cut out all the hype and ignore all the esoteric Qs floating round. Focus on getting the basics right. Leverage OG and PowerPrep to the fullest. A combination of Kaplan and OG should be good enough. Go through the explanations – figure out why you made a mistake, how you should ideally have reasoned when looking at the Q, and identify weaknesses/ recurrent errors. For SC, I looked at (skimmed through) all the answers t he second time round – unlike the first time, when I had looked at only the ones that I had got wrong. For CR and RC, I marked the Qs that I had been unsure about, and also looked them up (along with the ones that I had got wrong – but these were very few). I did the same thing for DS, but again only for a few Qs. PS I ignored, because if it was right, it was right because I knew the concept already, and I didn’t need to look at the explanation. I cut down on my careless mistakes – e.g. reading ‘percent’ for ‘cent’, calculating an answer using min instead of hours etc. Use LOTs of scratch paper. While practicing, I used to scribble equations – and realized that sometimes figures/ equations from two different problems would overlap, and create confusion – at the very least, slow me down. Use the grid for verbal and eliminate wrong answers ASAP. Have chocolate between breaks – it gives energy. Get good sleep the night before. Before going to the test, do some light exercise (btw, remember that OG CR that talks about how exercise increases blood flow to the brain and improves concentration?), and maybe practice a couple of Qs from all the 5 sections. Practice with PowerPrep section tests the last 2-3 days. When you see the actual GMAT screen, you won’t have ‘medium dissonance’. If a Q stumps you, do not spend more than 3 min on it. Narrow down, make an intelligent guess, and move on. I could have improved my verbal score if I had not spent 8 min on one stupid SC question. Analyze your performance. After solving all the Qs in OG, I had made a chart, with mistake % for the 5 sections, the expected number of mistakes on a 78 Q test (37+41), and how this number - and my score - would vary on a good, bad, or 'par' day. I had figured that 770 was par - (PP2 was also 770 before OG), and 740-750 would be a 'bad day' score, while 780 or more would be a good day score (Q : 50 or 51, and V - less than 3 errors). My first GMAT score was a 'bad-day' score.
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Do OG RC you should be good. Kap RCs are convoluted, and as another poster said, even after seeing the 'correct' answer one is not always convinced about the explanation.
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PP1 760 PP2 770 (both before OG) Kap: CAT1 620 (right at the beg); CAT 2 650; CAT 3 750 After OG PP retake - high scores, discounted since I remembered the Qs. GMAT (2 weeks back 750) GMAT retake (yesterday) 770
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Twinn, Wanted to thank you for a couple of unusual tips - a. not to relax completely on the day before, and b. warm up on the test day with some easy Qs
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I retook GMAT last Fri, and had a couple of BF CRs. They were straightforward - no way as ambiguous as the BF CRs floating around in this forum. If you know your stuff, you can narrow down on the right answer after some thinking. But these CRs floating around in the forum - they are convoluted, and multiple answers are very close to each other - and on a given day you could argue for any particular so called 'Original Answer' - something you will never find in the actual GMAT exam, where the right answer stands out from the other options.
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I sat for GMAT again on 10th June, and feel Verbal is NOT getting harder - the overall difficulty is similar to that of OG.
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Folks, Thank you all (especially lego) for the advice. I had read somewhere (one of those's 'Get into the top MBA programs' books) that since most schools segment the candidate pool, I will be competing with the Indian segment - with a lot of people having high scores. Also, I am planning to make a switch into finance (probably venture capital) - and I read that some finance companies shortlist candidates for internship based on the GMAT score (unless the candidate has a previous record of having worked in I-banking/ corporate fin etc). But what you have said also makes sense. I had registered for June 10th - will have to rethink.
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Hi Sat for GMAT yesterday - was disappointed because I was aiming for 760+ and had a bad day. Didn't practice any essay before I sat for the exam - I guess writing the essays for the first time, and making one silly mistake in Quant (in the last Q - # 37 - can you believe it?) disturbed my mental equilibrium and screwed up my verbal section. During the break b/w Q and the V section, all I could think of was that silly mistake. Usually I read through the RC and CR passages pretty fast - but this time I had to read multiple times as things were just not registering. I am aiming for the top schools - if I get say 770 or more the second time, will it make a difference during evaluation? I think I can improve my score as I got 760 in PP1 and 770 in PP2 - before touching [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. Am planning to retake the test during the 2nd week of June. Btw, I am from India, have 7 years of work-ex, and already have an MBA from one of the IIMs. Since I do not have good GPAs (undergrad or MBA), and am going to be 31 this year (above the median age of the top 10 schools) I felt that I need a real good score. I prepared using Kaplan 2005 & the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip]. On hindsight, I tried to cram during the last week - I focused more on getting through a certain no. of questions per day rather than doing a careful analysis of the questions I got wrong, or the ones I was unsure about (primarily in the verbal section). Would appreciate feedback - especially regarding whether a high 750+ score makes a significant difference in increasing the chances at a top 10 school. Couple of pointers - do not neglect your essays, and do not try and do too many Qs without devoting sufficient time for analysis. Also, be cool - next time before the test I think I'll have a beer instead of black coffee :-)
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You are right. Alternative way of explaining would be to take the ways of having (2 prime), (3 prime) & (4 prime). Therefore favourable ways = n(2Prime) + n(3 prime) + n(4 prime) = 4C2 4^4 + 4C3 4^4 + 4C4 4^4 = 4^4 (6+4+1) = 11(4^4) Therefore probability = 11(4^4)/(8^4) = 11/16
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What are you taking as the complement of P (the buyer doesn't have both) ? Isn't that P (buyer has both)?
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Greycellz, P (buyer has both) = 8/15 - isn't that on the higher side - given that he/ she is selecting 3 out of 10, and getting both in that set of 3....?
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Shouldn't it be: 1 - (probability of the buyer having chosen both the randomly selected items) i.e. 1 - {(8C1)/(10C3)} = 1 - 1/15 = 14/15 It should not matter how many ways 2 items can be chosen out of 10 - what should matter is for any given two items, what is the probability that the the buyer doesn't have both of them.
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Hi PLanning to sit for GMAT around 20th of May. Right now working on getting my fundamentals right. Using Kap 2005, Kap Verbal Workbook and IMS material. Started my gmat prep blog - visit http://groups-beta.google.com/group/gmatprep to discuss and share tips on cracking GMAT. BTW, am aiming for a high score - so would love to exchange ideas with folks who are aiming for 700+.
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Hi I need to work on my verbal skills - bought the Kaplan Verb Workbook. Can anybody tell me how good it is for improving one's verbal score/ share tips on how to get the best out it? Started my own blog/ group for GMAT prep..do visit http://groups-beta.google.com/group/gmatprep
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I am from India, have 7 years of work-ex. Currently I look after brand management and demand generation for a BPO firm as VP Marketing. I already have an MBA from IIMC (one of the top B. Schools in India), but have been thinking of a career change into venture capital/private equity + spending 5-10 years in the US/ Europe before coming back to India and starting my own company.