wonderwall

Book vendors are saying that the latest OG (11th Edition) is due out by end-July. I'm facing an interesting situation, and here's a quick summary: I need to retake my GMAT after a disappointing first try (680 - Q49, V34). Verbal let me down, and after scouring the forums I have decided to concentrate on the following resources to improve: 1) Manhattan books / guides 2) Princeton Review 3) 1000 SC + 1000 CR Documents 4) OG (nope, I didn't consult this the first time round!) Obviously OG will be a huge part of my strategy to do better in Verbal. In Erin's post here, he mentions that having an up-to-date OG is vital. Now, I have just started studying from the 10th edition. Currently I'm looking at taking my GMAT again in 30-40 days (i.e. 10-15 days after the new OG releases). Should I give myself a chance to study the new OG carefully or just go ahead and take the test as per original schedule? There's no pressing reason to take the test ASAP aside from not wanting to get out of the GMAT study groove.

Hiya folks! First of all, I want to say that this forum is incredible. This is not a "you rock" comment, motivated by politeness, but 100% true! This place is a treasure of excellent people and resources. I only "discovered" you guys about a week before my GMAT, and truly regret that I didnt find you earlier. Anyways, I've enjoyed reading your posts and experiences, and would like to share mine with you. Background: I'm a 25 y.o. male from India. I did my undergrad in the US (good ol' New York state) and shifted back to India to pursue a career in management. The MBA is the next step for me, and hence the GMAT. Test Preparations: I didn't do my research here. I went by "word-of-mouth," which in my circles translates to Kaplan, Kaplan, Kaplan! A lot of my friends had taken GMAT classes and studied for it. Due to one excuse or the other, all of them performed miserably in their actual exams (550-650). However these guys are pretty intelligent people, so their scores did not seem indicative of their abilities. So, I took their advice.... They suggested that I study from: a) Kaplan 2005 (with or without CD - doesnt matter) b) Kaplan 800 Their reasoning? Kaplan is much harder than the actual GMAT. If I could ace that, then I'd be set for the regular exam. This seemed logical, and since Kaplan had helped me secure a good SAT score eons ago, I thought I'd go with it. Study Plan: I'm a native English speaker, and did Engineering in Undergrad. My study plan consisted of preparing about 2 months in advance of my test date (4th July), and squeezing in about 2-3 hrs every day, after work. I did all the problems in Kaplan 2005, and Kaplan 800. Read the explanations carefully and made notes. Quant was more straightforward for me, given my math background. Verbal turned out to be a real horror-show. My "native" english-speaking abilities helped somewhat in RC & SC. Not much in CR. The end result was about 75%-85% success in this section. Confidence was shaky at best. Another key point - I didn't take any practice CATs till about 2 weeks prior to the exam - a big mistake. Here's a score summary of how I did in them: a) Kaplan Paper Exam: Q49, V41, Total = 680 b) Kaplan CAT 3: Q42, V35, Total = 640 c) PP1: Q45, V35, Total = 650 d) PP2: Q47, V40, Total = 710 The PP1 and PP2 were taken 4 days and 2 days prior to the test, respectively. The score in PP1 shook me up big time. I'd read some threads here that Kaplan is a LOT harder than PP, and one should expect approx. 50-100 pt. increases over the Kaplan score, in PP. This didn't happen in my case, and my confidence was shaken.... In retrospect I think I was complacent. I expected PP1 to be a roll-over and took it easy. I wired myself up for PP2, and did a little better as a result. However this was still far off my aim of a 740. The Test: Confidence wasn't great for the day of the test. After discovering Testmagic, I learnt about the OG, how far behind I was in SC, etc. etc. Took the test hoping to pull a 720 if I "lucked out." This didn't happen. I ran low on time, and mental fatigue got the better of me about 60% through Verbal. My scores reflected that - I ended up with a personal best in Quant, and my worst in Verbal. What I did right: Well the quant went quite well! :p I studied permutations and combinations thoroghly (had 2 straightforward questions turn up on that). Kaplan is harder than OG/GMAT for Quant and the preparations were solid as a result. Plus my engineering background meant I was accustomed to seeing newish / tricky spins on math problems. The AWA also went smoothly. There are some FANTASTIC templates on this forum. As many posters have said before, sorting out your intro and conclusion helps immeasurably. What I (horribly) wrong: My verbal preparations were not up to the mark. RC was always decent. CR got better (but not great), with practice - about 80% success rate by the end. SC just sucked! I read and re-read Kaplan, but that wasn't terribly detailed and not of much help. On discovering Testmagic I skimmed the SC section, and downloaded Spidey's notes. Those helped a LOT, but it was too little too late. You're only going to gain so much in cramming 72 hrs before the test.... Another mistake that I made was NOT taking enough CATs. The ones that I did take, always saw me running behind schedule in the last few questions. In Quant I'd always have - say 5Q's with 5 mins remaining. Ditto for Verbal. Obviously test-day wasn't much better. Though I made a categorical effort to speed up, Quant saw me guessing the last question (10 seconds left on the clock!), and Verbal had me blazing through the last 6. I'm sure I messed up in these, and it definately affected my score. Moving Forward: I know that a 680 is a "decent" score, but its not anywhere close to my potential. I feel that a 740 would accurately reflect my abilities. And this is my aim. I plan to retake the test in about 30 days, because I don't want to "cool off" now that I'm in the study groove. Here's where I would DEFINATELY appreciate the advice of Erin, Arjmen, and all you other regular members. I have some key questions: a) My Verbal scores fluctuate wildly. From a 32-40. This means I dont have a thorogh understanding of the material as yet. Kaplan did not give me the confidence I need in attacking Verbal. I would like to be in a position where I'm able to look at a question, and decipher it - not pick a choice because it "seems" or "sounds" right. I need to recognize the concepts and learn them thoroghly. Would appreciate your thoughts on good books for achieving this aim: -OG I will buy for sure -How're Princeton, Manhattan, etc. -As mentioned, I'll need books with concepts explained + practice questions b) Any other resources you'd recommend for Verbal? I've already got Spidey's notes and will continue to scour testmagic's current & old threads. c) CATS ARE IMPORTANT! I've learnt this now. What CATS would you recommend I do, aside from Kaplan and PP? d) When you're doing your CATs, do you write your AWA's or skip to the Quant+Verbal (800) part? I skipped the AWA's, but in retrospect it seems important that you do the test in its entirety. This is a large time commitment, but it builds up your endurance for the big day. Finally: Thank you so much everyone, for making this forum what it is. Aside from the resources, the comfort factor of sharing / being involved in a community that's facing a common challenge is invaluable.

Hello folks! Adding my 2 cents to this great thread: a) Kaplan Paper Exam: Q49, V41, Total = 680 b) Kaplan CAT 3: Q42, V35, Total = 640 c) PP1: Q45, V35, Total = 650 d) PP2: Q47, V40, Total = 710 e) Real GMAT: Q49, V34, Total = 680 Will retake the exam. I made the mistake of only consulting Kaplan 2005 + Kaplan 800 in my preparations.

The OA is 1440. arjmen: you're correct! The logic here is that a combination needs to be followed by a permutation. Thanks!

Greetings folks! Here's a question that I've been wracking my brains over recently: How many words (arrangements of letters) containing 3 consonants and 2 vowels can be formed from the letters of the word promise? This shoudl be straightforward, but I'm getting an answer thats different from the OA. Would appreciate your calculations. Will then post the OA. Thanks!