Finally opened my eyes : 740 (Q49,V41)AWA(5.5)

got the score for AWA: 5.5
Hey all
hi all

Im extremely happy to share my GMAT score of 740 (Q50,V41) with all of u . Finally i gave my GMAT today and opened my eyes to see a 740 in front of me I cant tel you how contended im and relieved .Its been a journey of around 4 months ,on and off to get to this day.I m extremely thankful to this forum and to the people here who have solved all the questions which i posted (including all the SCs which i never used to underline )and to those who posted with very good questions here ....... GMAT CLUB rocks ... because of this kind of active flow of questions only people like me learn thank u thank u thank u

yes special thanks goes to arj (who helped me through out ...),suresh(for solving all the questions and for ur kudos ),jallen (actually u manage the forums well),leo(ur explanations in verbal are commendable),durgesh(hey i havent seen a quant guru like u),GMAT TIGER (i still remember asking u the strategy to score above 750 .....not 750 but yes 740 thanks and ur explantions about answers rock ),mohindru(very active replier .... good posting ),tarek(where do u get the questions),scthakur (i think u will be next durgesh ),amitdgr(very active posting ,quality questions and too gud maths skills ) oops i hope im not missing anyone and ofcourse thanks all of u


Resources used
OG11-RC,CR and Quant,OG-10, MGMAT SC guide,Powerprep CR Bible ,GMATClub math questions in the forum and also forum quesions,KAPLAN GMAT book,Spidey notes,AWA essays(all official guide essays),Idioms doc.


Practice Tests and preperation stages:
I just started my GMAT preparation with a diag test on internet and got a 645 in that.


Bought a KAPLAN GMAT book and started preparing ,did most of the questions ,read the strategies and solved quant .


Kaplan GMAT1 -> 570 -> Q42 V29 (All silly mistakes in quant,careless ,messing tricky questions and DS majorly)

Then Concentrated on verbal ,nothing happened ,but not to forget KAPLAN tests are a level above .My quant got poorer but being from a technical background i was quite confident about my quant ,this was a major mistake i did ,i took quant very lightly,all the mistakes in quant were careless and due to tricky questions,i used to solve each quant question in less than a 40sec but wrong answer.Learning is that one patiently attemp quant questions especially DS.
Verbal was extremely bad since i used to waste time in RCs while SC and CR were no good.

Kaplan GMAT2 -> 560 -> Q40 V26

Started with OG10,brushed up quant from KAPLAN ,practiced the Forum quant challenges and yes a regular posting in GMAT club at this point ,remarkable improvement.....

But not to forget ,GMATprep1's 645 is not great
GMATprep1->First time->645->Q50,V38


All Bucked up and started with again revising and solving more questions ,not to forget did all the 1000 SC RC CR questions ,one blunder which i did was not referring Manhattan SC and CR bible and OG11 quant But still managed a V31 and yes Quant (i started spending more time and attention to each question)Thanks to forum posts..... for this score... not forgetting 1000SC,CR....and RC which were almost always wrong for me

KAPLAN GMAT3 -> 620 (Q50,V31) yippyyy good score

Next week bucked up to take the date ,just one more test i wanted to give and i lost verbal was pathetic ,all my hard work became meaningless... did not take date
Kaplan GMAT4 -> 550 -> Q39 V26

Got to know from few verbal gurus about the Manhattan SC,CR powerprep bible and then started again .

Stopped taking kaplan since i did not find kaplan of the level of GMAT prep and OEs were not good at all.My confidence was actually
getting low due to diffiult problems of kaplan.Hence started with manhattan and Powerprep.

Manhattan SC is awesome ,nothing like this one ,u can solve questions in less than one 1min if u go thro this book.Even powerprep CR bible is actually bible,this has helped me in understanding CR to a much greater extent than before.

Powerprep CR Bible helped me understand boldfaced , evaluate CR questions which earlier used to haunt me.I could do CR questions in less than a 1min and 30sec.Today this helped me in verbal .
Also forum questions and discussions were very useful .

RETAKE :confidence increased,the quant questions were new though verbal was same.Still seeing this kind of a score feels good....
GMATprep1 -> retake -> 720 ->Q50,V38

Took 2 week off from office,took a date 12 days hence .
Last few days ....12 days infact played the most important role in my prep.Not to forget i did all the OG11 -SC,RC,CR,quant .Commendable improvement in RC ,i did all the RCs of OG11 with proper time limit on my timer.Unlike Kaplan RCs which are a bit tough and lengthy passages ,these RCs are small but mostly inference types ,Only such questions come in Actual GMAT and hence doing this benefitted me a lots.Rest OG11CR and Sc are quality questions.

2 days before actual GMAt took this test and was actually happy

GMATprep2-> First time -> 770 -> Q50,V44 wohoooo

Yes not to forget i got stuck in 3rd question of quant for around 10min and got panic but at 25th question when 26 min were left i told myself to just its now or never ,i could have scored better in quant but yes found quant quite tough and tricky esp DS ,remainder ,inequalities were bad today

Finally real GMAT :740 Q49,V41

Suggestion :
SC- MANHATTAN SC GUIDE -> its the best
OG11 SC
OG10 SC
1000SC
Forum questions
Kaplan SCs

CR -> Powerprep CR BIBLE -> the best nothing like it ,once u read this u will actually find CR the easiest and this even helps in RCs .
1000CRs
OG11CR
OG10CR
Kaplan CR
Forum questions

RC -> OG11 RCs are enough -> i personally feel one needs to concentrate while reading and get the meaning of the passage first before answering.
To practice go for 1000RCs

Quant -> OG11 quant basic concepts -> basics should be clear most importantly.Toughies can be solved with basic knowledge
Most important is GMAT club challenges !! (https://gmatclub.com/wiki/tests) do all the questions here in the forum and actually practice even if u are a techy (unlike me )

GMAT Vs MOCK GMATs :
This is one thing i would like to share .To be frank KAPLAN is not the actual representation of the actual GMAT.Its far tougher infact in a different sense,like say RCs in KAPLAN are too long and in GMAT they are quite short.KAPLAN CRs are tough like mostly inference but in GMAT CRs are like evaluation and boldfaced etc.And SC did not help much since OEs were not useful.
Also GMATpreps are exact copy of OGs but original GMAT in my test hardly had any known question or of similar types .The questions are far more trickier in actual GMAT.kindly pay attention while reading each and every question.READ BETWEEN THE LINES.But yes GMATpreps do help in practicing and simulating GMAt test scenario.

MY DATE with GMAT :
Ahaa i hope this is not too lengthy post ....
I woke up and felt very happy since today i had a date fior which i waited so long..... A normal morning .. same breakfast ....same TV channels ....but no PC today i wanted to enjoy before the exam...read news paper......started for my center at around 3.15 pm and got there at around 4.00pm.I was there and two more guys were there .... and then arrived another girl...
My test was scheduled at 5.30 in the evening... the lady there asked me whether i will be comfortable giving a test at 4.30 itself ,i said yes..... i was actually willing to crack GMAT ,its been long preparing ...wanted to crack it with good performance.

then all the procedures like signature,fingerprinting and stuff ....it 4.50 my test began .....AWA .... an argument on retail pricing ....could write couple of good points ...anyways i love writing hence not a big deal did this with full interest.Then issue ... not an issue at all....

Took a break .Thought about all the quant questions that we did in forum and other sources.It actually works if u visualise that u ca crack it u ll.Went to my seat started the test.First one was very tricky ,based on algebra ...i struggled hard for 3 min ,i felt first 10 questions mean a lot hence wanted to spend lot of time ,moreover this was the first question hence could not give up..but alass got an answer after 3 min.second was fine but third one was bad .this was on same old remainders ...DS ...i just spet 10min on this ,i thought i cant give up tried all the number combinations and still could not arrive at a conclusion.But when looked at the clock i felt lost.the next few quetions really were toughies and had to struggle ,sets were tough and tricky(language is very tricky),word problems of work was very tricky.Overall first 15 questions i got was quite tough
... but then i had least time with me i decided to move on hence had to rush with answering ,when we mentally think we need to rush we surely do welll...but in the end i felt quant was a mess and another bad day.....date infact.....
one person in break had brought chocolates .... we had some chatted and had water but i did not think about quant neither verbal.i was laughing and ready for the next

sat on my seat ,got a SC ,OMG thts my favourite and very easy one (comparison eg:like unlike type) another SC one more ,is god liking me.Felt happy which was short lived ,there comes RC.this was good .very short and smart.i could actually understand ity in 4 min.got 3 questions i could answr in 3 min.CRs easy ones SCs CRs RCs none was much difficult excpt one RC where i got stuck again.but move on was the formula today.Finally Last CR i cracked it ,was left with 2 more min but said yes to answer !!!hence finshes ...next->next->next .....instructor comes and says maam click next to see the scores -> nopes i had the least expectations today since it was my bad day and date !!! But surprises are galore !!! hence i had closed my eyes but he asked me to open my eyes to look at the gift of my date got a 740.One special date of my life:)

I hope this is quite a long post .apologies ....for any further queries let me know cya tc all the best to all of u

I want to know about application procedures and related info ..will keep posting
BBYE HAVE A GOOD DATE