Edit : GOT OFFICIAL SCORE REPORT: 710 (Q49, V36, IR 6, AWA 6.0)Wow ! What a great feel this is
!!! I tried my level best to get in the 700 league, and it feels so great that I managed to do so. I read so many debriefs on gmatclub during my preparation. Before going to bed, I always use to browse through ‘Share GMAT Experience’ forum and read debriefs. This somehow acted as a catalyst in my preparation and motivated me i can do well too
.
I couldn’t get a push to study for the GMAT, so I enrolled in a GMAT coaching institute on December 15th last year. But I can say that it only helped me get familiarized with the exam and the pattern otherwise it was not of any use. On the first day I took a diagnostic test of Kaplan Premier in the prep center. Scored 540.
I started with my serious GMAT prep in February. Solved
Official Guide diagnostic, and solved all of the questions in
GMAT Official Guide 2015. Analysis of correct and incorrect answers showed that i was good in quant and average in verbal. So I started putting efforts in Verbal section. Took GmatPrep free test 1 on 20th March . Scored 660 .(Q48, V33) .It was still verbal where i needed to put efforts. I totally dedicated myself to gmatclub forum and GMATprep question bank (which helped a lot)
From my GMAT experience, this is the study material that helped me most.
VERBAL:The most important mention I will make is of
Souvik’s Gmatprep collection. I dedicated all my practice to the official questions collected by Souvik for all verbal sections. I did almost 85-90% of all his collected questions and passages.
Sentence Correction :
MGMAT Sentence Correction Guide : It’s a must to build a strong foundation of recognizing errors in sentences.
ARISTOTLE SC GRAIL : This infact is a summarized
mgmat guide with further error types clearly illustrated. These two books will equip you with almost all the strategies used to tackle SC questions.
GMATPREP OFFICIAL QUESTIONS: Souvik’s collection is the only source of practice. If time permits try to do most of the questions. As souvik says ,it helps you develop an ear to official questions and a time comes when you can make out between an official and a prep company's question. You will begin to see a pattern that the test makers use in making SC questions. There are not much variations in SC questions
Critical Reasoning :
VERITAS PREP GUIDE: This was one of the first guides that i used to prepare for CR. It’s a well written guide and has quite useful strategies.
POWERSCORE CR: I picked up this guide after reading through experiences shared on this forum. It is the only guide that you need to ace CR. All question types are discussed very thorighly with well defined startegies.
GMATPREP OFFICAL QUESTIONS: Again Souvik’s official question collection helped a lot.
READING COMPREHENSIONThis was my weakest section as I never found any of the GMAT passages interesting. Due to this I had a poor accuracy in RC questions. I tried various strategies mentioned on this forum as well as some of my own. But the only one that worked for me was.
Reading the paragraph with full concentration, creating interest in the topic and noting some points in shorthand. Similar strategy for other paragraphs as well.
Did a lot of “Official Passages”. About 100 of the passages that are in Souvik’s Compiled documents. And I can say that so much practice on official passages makes one comfortable on RC. None of the passages seemed boring to me. My mind had adapted to such passages so well that I read and understood the passage with ease. Souvik’s all verbal documents are of great help. Same thing applies to the accompanied questions. After doing so many questions you can easily make out the tricks GMAT test makers use to lure you into picking wrong answers.
QUANTOFFICIAL GUIDE 2015 : It’s a must to familiarize with type of questions that can be expected in quant sections.
GMAT CLUB MATHS BOOK : Go through this book twice, thrice as it covers almost everything that can be used to tackle GMAT questions. Very well compiled book.
MGMAT QUANT GUIDES: Helpful in revising concepts like Number Theory, Fractions, Ratios and Percentages, and Probability and Combinations.
As per my experience, do not waste time in solving complex and advanced problems, specially probability. The actual exam is somewhat similar to GMATPrep level.
Do solve the collection of 700 level questions from GMATPrep. It’s a 198 questions document. Very helpful.
TEST STRATEGYBunuel and Vercules' analysis of GMATPREP was very helpful in deciding strategy to attack GMAT. I hid the timer for first 10 questions and took more than allocated time to arrive at correct answer as first 10 questions are very essential to set the course of the rest of the test.
MOCK TESTS:
GMATPREP 1 (March 20th, 2015) : 660 (Q48, V33)
MGMAT FREE TEST : 650
MGMAT 1A (27th March 2015) : 620 (Q37, V37) (My internet connection went bad in quant section and I couldn't solve last 5 or 6 questions)
MGMAT 2A (4th April 2015) : 650 (Q44. V35)
MGMAT 3A:(12th April 2015) 700 (Q47, V39)
MGMAT 4A: (23rd April 2015) 680 (Q46, V36)
GMATPREP 2 (19th April 2015): 730 (IR 4, Q49, V40)
Although I got 730, I was tensed that it might be a false representation as there were many questions in verbal section and quant section that I had seen before. After doing so many official questions, it is certain to see some repeats in mock tests.
So I decided to invest in GMAT Exam pack 1 as I’ve read the questions were totally new.
This was the last week before the exam and I dedicated this to GMATPrep Tests each day at 1230 HRS (my exam time) solving all sections in a test like environment and having the same drinks/food as i will have on test day.
GMATPREP EXAM PACK 1 (28th April 2015) : 720 (IR 8 , Q49, V40)
Was happy to get this score. Not a single question was repeated in Quant. And maybe one or two questions in verbal were previously seen by me in official questions documents.
This day I booked my exam for 5th May 2015. I was planning for this date but didn't book the exam until I was sure that I can get a decent scoreGMATPREP EXAM PACK 2: 720 (29th April 2015) : 720 (IR 5, Q50, V38)
This gave me the confidence that I can score somwhere around 700, but it could also be 680 or 690.
I used to review my tests and solve more and more GMATPrep questions from Souvik’s documents.
GMATPREP 1(REPEAT)(30th April 2015): 750 (IR4, Q50, V42)
Inflated score as most of the questions were seen before.
GMATPREP EXAM PACK 1 (1st May 2015) : 770 (IR8, Q50, V44)
Inflated Score again as most of the questions were repeat. IR Section was completely repeated.
GMATPREP 2 (REPEAT) (2nd May 2015) : 730 (IR7, Q47, V42)
Inflated score. Most of questions were seen before.
MGMAT 5A (2nd May 2015): 700 (Q47, V39)
(This
MGMAT test I took also on 2nd may at night just to make sure that it is not the repeated questions that are making me cross 700 everytime
)
The next day I didn’t do much practice and focused only on revising quant concepts as well as SCs strategies and CR Strategies.
TEST DAY EXPERIENCE:
The Test Center is 150 KM away from my home (Chandigarh,India) , so I reached there a day before. Went to the test center to relieve the test day anxiety. The Test center was in basement and the washroom was on the ground floor. Luckily i familiarized myself with the location which proved very helpful to relax me on the test day.
Slept early a day before. Had a great sleep. Woke up, got ready. Did some warm up questions from
the official guide. And read some passages to just get in the flow.
Went to test center half an hour early (test was at 1230 Hrs). The test center staff was very helpful. The proctor advised me to keep food stuff and water bottles outside the locker and only keep cellphone or wallet in the locker as it will save time of accessing the locker in each break.
He gave me a scratchpad with 2 marker pens. I was guided to a PC. Idid not feel much nervousness. Maybe because of the fact that I was giving mocks everyday a week before. The GMAT test graphics, fonts, instruction screens are exactly similar to GMATPREP. Except for the fact that the content in the real test is stretched to fit 16:9 monitor while in GMATPREP it is letterboxed. After filling out the colleges, I started with the test. I treated the real test exactly like a practice GMATprep test. I was in a rhythm of typing the Chineseburned Essay template before even reading the argument (I applied the same strategy in my mocks). It took around 3-4 minutes to write the template. I used the rest 20 minutes to fill it with ideas and rest of the time for proof checking. Then came the IR. The questions were similar to the ones in GMATPREP. However i got stuck on one of the questions and spent 4-5 minutes on it and ended up with a wrong answer. Anyway, the IR Section got over and took my break. Rushed to the loo, had some water and some almonds. Returned back to my seat and noticed that the proctor had already replaced my scratchpad and pens.
. Started with quant. Well , Quant is more or less similar to GMATPrep, not complex questions but tricky questions. I thought that i’ve done good in quant. Finished the section with 5 minutes remaining. Took my break, rushed to loo, had some red bull, as it was lunch time , had some of the sandwich I picked from McDonald’s omw :D . Went back to my seat 2 minutes early as I was going to face the section which will decide my score. The verbal questions started with Sentence correction. I hid the timer and went on answering questions until question 10. I checked the timer and as per my strategy I was on par with time. The questions were a notch above the GMATPREP Questions. The critical reasoning questions were comparitively difficult. But Still solving so many official questions from Souvik’s documents helped me a lot. Even I noticed a question Exactly Similar to one of the questions I encountered while solving official questions. For example,
This question was in the exam with exact same options.
Palentologists: About 2,8 m years ago............
paleontologist-about-2-8-million-years-ago-many-species-144882.htmlI read in some of the debriefs that very long and boring passages are encountered in the real test. But practicing a lot of official passages, all passages seem interesting and not very tough. This is from my own experience. I finished verbal section 2 minutes early. I think I did well in RC and SC. However, CR was a bit difficult and i might have messed up in some questions.
I filled up the feedback and clicked on finish exam. I closed my eyes with my palms and peeked slowly. IR 5, Quant 49 , Verbal 36 .. Total 710. WOW
!!! A Score with figure 7 . That was all i aimed for. And it was there. In my first attempt. I was so elated. So happy. (Although expected more in verbal section). Waved at the camera happily and the test center guy came inside and guided me out of the test area to reception. Scanned my palm for one last time and gave me unofficial score printout.
To summarize :
From my own experience I’ve observed:
1.Solve as many official questions as possible from Souvik’s documents for SC and CR.
2.Read as many official passages from Souvik’s documents. And solve accompanied questions. (This is better than reading other stuff like NYT, Magazines etc. )
3.Some might say that quality is better than quantity and solving so many questions won’t help, but from my experience it does. As Souvik says, one develops an ear for official questions. There is a fixed pattern that test makers follow. And you may encounter exactly same questions as well as I did
.
4.Stay away from other prep companies’ questions for verbals at least.
5. Do not book the exam until you're satisfied with Mock Test scores. Just set an imaginary test date to get motivated. This will keep you in safe zone and will avoid rescheduling fee. (Just my opinion).