Hi Guys. I have been a silent follower of this wonderful site. I am finally done with GMAT.
My journey with GMAT has been of around 8 months. I started preparing in January and started with
OG-12. I had joined a coaching institute in Delhi and I am heavily indebted to the faculty there. But still for people who are preparing themselves I would recommend the following material.
For Quant I would say get
Manhattan books and solve all the VIPS. I am an Indian Engineer and Quant was never a problem for me.
For Verbal I would say that Manhattan SC is an excellent resource. I practiced RC99 , LSAT CR and 1000SC.
As far as tests are concerned Manhattan tests are way good than rest of the available in market.
Attempt 1
My mock scores :
MGMAT 1-720
MGMAT-2-730
MGMAT 3-700
MGMAT 4- 720
MGMAT 5-740
Gmat prep 1- 720
Gmat prep 2 -710
I was quite hopeful of scoring 720.
My first attempt was on 15 June. Gmat is all about presence of mind I guess. AWA went pretty well. I was relying heavily on Quant since I was not that good in verbal. But the first Question in quant was way tough then my expectations and it took me 5 min to get it done. It was a 5 liner percentages question. The second question was on fractions and I had to find the approximate value of a figure. I was stuck between 1/21 and 1/22 and had to guess on one of the options. 9 min were gone and I had done only 2 questions. And I lost my cool and had to rush thru the exam. Finally when I was done with Quant I knew it did not go all that well. So I prayed to God to help me in verbal. For verbal I used to follow the strategy of solving approx. 20 Questions in 37-38 min. I was in cruise control till the 14th Question. Then I came across a large RC which was very confusing and it took a lot of time. And to add to my misery it had 6 questions , and this was quite unexpected. That RC took me a lot of time and I was well short of time. So I had to rush along to finish on time and scored 680 on the test.
I was very disappointed with the results and decided to give it another shot . I booked an appointment for 12 August.
But life had other plans. I went to meet my parents for 3 days after the test. My dad was not keeping well from around 5 days. But thorough investigations revealed that he was suffering from stomach cancer and he eventually passed away on 15th of July. We never saw it coming and had no clue that he was suffering from cancer. This personal loss completely shattered my family and was a huge setback for me. I had completely lost it and didn’t know what life had in store for me. I had almost decided to not give GMAT again.
I resumed my office on 5th August. Meanwhile I had rescheduled GMAT for 27 Sep just for the sake of it.
I was highly de motivated and had lost all hopes of ever getting into a good school. But a friend of mine had scored a 720 last month he pushed me to give some tests again. I attempted Kaplan test and scored 620. I knew it was a good score because Kaplan tests are way tough.
I started listening to Tony Robbins a lot. His speeches and his outlook for life helped me to start walking again. 2 Weeks were left for my exam. I started studying again. My scores this time around were:
Manhattan 6-750
Knewton Free test-760
Gmat Prep 1-740
Gmat prep 2- 740
Gmat Prep 1 repeat- 750
Gmat Prep 2 repeat -750
I also practiced a lot of LSAT material. Because I wanted to be ready for any challenge that GMAT may thow in my path this time. I changed my strategy for English. Rather than breaking verbal section in 2 halves I decided to go with 15min/8ques strategy . And my mock scores reflected that this strategy was working fine.
Test Day-
AWA went fine. I had scored 5.5 in previous attempt so was quite comfortable. I was very aggressive in Quant section this time. It was all about presence of mind and Data sufficiency questions are very tricky. I guessed on 3 questions as they were taking a lot of time. As soon as the quant section ended I was quite sure it is 50/51. Now it all depended on verbal score. During the break I ate snickers and stretched my body a bit.
Verbal section was quite easy initially. I was done with around 8 ques in 10 min. But I grew a bit skeptical about this that I may be a bit casual. So I slowed down. But as everyone says ,its not good to judge during exam time. As time passed the questions started getting tougher and I came across a bold faced question at Q.22. Then I got a long RC of 5 paragraphs. It was a cake walk though as it was about some space expedition , my area of interest. The 3rd RC was even bigger and was quite tough. But the Brad Pitt inside me said “I wont let an RC steal my glory” . But I was again around 5 min behind my strategy and had to guess on 2 CR questions in the end.
And as soon as I checked the box” report score” , 740 flashed in front of me. I punched the air and was so elated. Tempest Bebendi!!
My take on the exam:
Never give up. Always believe that something inside you is superior to your circumstances.
Don’t take maths lightly. Its not calculation intensive but logic intensive. DS can be very deceptive.
SC questions are not as straight forward as you find on 1000SC. There were hardly any questions based on idioms.
Practice RC and CR from LSAT. GMAT-1 surprised me with one RC of 6 ques and this RC changed the game. Be ready to face surprises. Even if you face a tough first question, don’t lose heart.
Believe in your abilities. Work hard. Go destroy the enemy. Veni, Vici, Vedi!!!!!
My profile:
Nationality-Indian
WE- 1year family business/ 3 year Sap technology consultant till matriculation.
EC- Was a very active member of student community in college. Organised college level fests for 2 years.
State level Table tennis player/Play guitar as a hobby.
Personal achievement- I have lost 40 kgs of weight and transformed myself from a heavily obese person to fitness enthusiast. I am very passionate about spreading awareness to peers regarding weight loss and staying fit. I am also a member of wellness organization in my company.
Target Schools:- Your inputs please????
PS- any questions are welcome.
close
29 Sep 2011, 07:02
