Dear All,
Though I was a little disappointed after seeing my score, as I strongly felt that I deserved more (at least 7**), but to my conviction, if a school likes my profile, they should not consider a delta of 10 or 20 that big, to refuse me (Again I think, I am being a bit optimistic.)
About my study, I have been thinking about GMAT for quite some time but I took the serious decision of writing it in mid of July. As I have mentioned before, I have a huge responsibility from my job front, needing on an average 12 to 14 hours a day (mostly having some work in the weekends also. In fact, just after coming from the test center, I had to leave to make a business presentation, hence this delay in wrting my post.
Seeing the nature of my job involvement, I realised very quickly, that I will never be able to study even a little bit without any thing that can keep me straight on to it, so I decided to take a course and went for
Manhattan GMAT to just keep me on track.
Only thing I made sure that, I am studying regularly (even if it is an hour or so). I am from Engineering background, so, I was never bad in Maths barring a few areas like Cominatorics, where I did not focus much. My main issue was Verbal and that's where I had to ficus more. (In fact in my first practice test, I scored horrible in Verbal : 23
.)
My study materials were :
(1) Manhattan Guides. I liked the SC part. (CR and RC not much.) Yes.. their Maths books are good in my opinion.
(2)
OG.
and that's it.
Yes, I kept taking the practice tests at regular interval. But I think, the way, I should have worked on my weaknesses, I did not do. I could have worked on my weaknesses in a better way, and that is where your score improves, otherwise taking test does not help that much (that is what you can see in my trend.)
Test1 :
MGMAT - Q46, V23 : 580
Test2 :
MGMAT - Q46, V31 : 630
Test3 :
MGMAT - Q44, V30 : 600
Test4 :
MGMAT - Q46, V30 : 620
GMAT Prep 1 : - Q46, V30 : 620
GMAT Prep 2 : - Q47, V32 : 650
Test5 :
MGMAT - Q44, V38 : 680
GMAT Prep 1 (R): - Q48, V34 : 660
GMAT Prep 2 (R): - Q48, V41 : 720
Test6 :
MGMAT - Q49, V36 : 690
GMAT Prep 1 (RR): - Q48, V41 : 720
By looking at it, one thing you can notice that, I was improving in my later part of study duration and I was very confident in the SC and CR part. RC, I improved a lot. If you see RC questions: There are broadly two types of questions ( One, which are factual, you should be able to answer them efficiently without much hurdle.). (Second, inference, tone, implies, etc etc) If you practice enough, you will be able to guess what GMAT wants you to know. Basically, if you can get into their mind, you will be able to crack every thing.) So, Practice
OG and
OG .... That will help u a lot. In fact, go over the entire CR of
OG at least twice, not only solve it but also try to think, what is the main thinking behind these questions... And interestingly, you will see a very definite trend in all these... At least I could see that.
Regarding Quant, seeing the minute details of questions is very critical, DONOT RUSH while solving it I repeat, DONOT RUSH. As rushing will not help in any way, creating unnecessarily panick. For example you calculated the value of x, and the answer is asking for x root 2, and there will be answer matching the value of x also, So, what I used to do, click on x and proceed, I almost always did this kind of mistake. 2 to 3 questions in every test I used to do that. And imagine, if you get these correct, your score will improve drastically, in fact that distinguishes between 48 and 51.
Occasionally, I used to come to GMAT club, and if I answer some thing correctly, used to feel happy, but was never able to participate in it a big way. (That is why you still see me as an intern only).
Appreciate all of you with such a meticulous thought process answering the questions, Hats off to you all.
On the test day, in Quant, I was doing quite okay till 1st 20 questions and was very confident to the extent that I had NOT missed out any single question till that time. Then suddenly, one question came that stumped me and I refused to proceed and got stuck for 5 to 6 minutes and that panicked me. Not sure even now whether I got that right, but I lost my momentm.
Still continued and I had 6 minutes towards the end for 5 questions and I had no option to just go over them hurridly, I am sure I might have missed some of them, which resulted in 48.
After this, I told myself that forget whatever happened, I have to do some thing special in Verbal so that I stand some where with a respectful score. And went for a fag, made a determination. Verbal seemed pretty okay and I was able to do good in all the CRs and SCs that came my way. Got 4 RC passages, two were short and two big ones (one nasty with all Economics jargons), Could manage them. After I was done with my Verbal, I was pretty sure that I have made it (at least > 40). But the score dissapointed me with 36. I must have done some silly thing some where. Not sure where.
I am sorry, for being so long, but I am still confused as to, should I feel happy about my performance overall (??). Not sure.
Thats my story. Now trying to surf the net and checking with you guys about the next course, if you could advise.
Would like to thank Suresh, who suggested me to go for
GMAT club challenge, I did that as It was already late and I took in just 10 days before my actual exam. I could only finish 7 quant of them and 2 from verbal. I scored in 70 percentile and in some of them 85+. In verbal, I scored in 90 percentile in that. These are excellent sources.
Thank You forum. Am sure, this will continue to be an excellent place to be, as Amit also said.
Take Care.
Praveen
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25 Oct 2008, 16:35
