Hello Everyone,
I just took my GMAT yesterday. Here's is my score break up:
Total 720 (Q 50, V 38)
IR : 8
AWA : 6
This debrief is just a small effort from my side to share my experience, strategies & tips regarding the GMAT exam.
First of all, a little on my background. I am an Electronics & Communications Engineer from a very reputed Indian College (Rated consistently among the top ten). I have been working with a Central Govt Telecom R & D firm for the past 6 years.
It was in mid December last year that i decided to go for the GMAT. I had no prior information regarding this exam (Just that it is a prerequisite for Good Management Programmes all over the world). So, a couple of weeks were spent browsing the official web site, GMAT forums (especially gmatclub.com) and blogs of many high scorers. The common thread that came out of all this was to start with the best resource -
The Official Guide. For the Verbal section , which is no doubt the tougher section for someone with an engineering background, Manhattan SC was the way ahead.
I bought these two books in the first week of January and started going through them. As known, the questions in
the Official Guide become tougher as one moves ahead. Admittedly, my confidence in quantitative section was a bit shaken. Not that the questions were tough, but they required deeper conceptual understanding. I found the DS questions to be my nemesis! In verbal, accuracy in SC improved as i kept reading the concepts in Manhattan SC along with. I found CR to be a bit on the tougher side. I was quite comfortable with the RC. This phase went on for about 1.5 months. As i had not taken my GMAT appointment and not given any mocks by then (Just the diagnostic in
the Official Guide), I felt i was not being able to give my full and raise my bar.
Finally on 21st Feb 2014, I took the appointment - 8th April 2014 was going to the D-DAY. Some might feel this was a bit early considering that i have not given any mocks & just gone through these two books. But i wanted to be fully committed towards my prep for the next 1.5 months. I knew that delaying won't affect my prep positively.
Took my first mock (GMAT prep Official Test 1) the next day. The experience was pretty average. I had scored a 700 (49/35). After Few Days, Took the Manhattan Mock1 - scored a 680 (47/36). This was sufficient to shake me out of complacency. After much evaluation and discussion with a friend, I bought the
Kaplan Premier & Kaplan 800 Books. I found these books to be extremely helpful - in fact some sort of the missing link in my preparation.
Kaplan Premier has excellent strategies. Kalpan 800 compels one to raise his or her bar by presenting the toughest questions. This phase helped me raise my confidence.
My performances in the subsequent mocks which i gave:
MGMAT 2: 660 (46/34)
MGMAT 3: 710 (48/38)
MGMAT 4: 700 (45/40)
Kapkan Mock 1(It's sort of a diagnostic test)
Kaplan Mock 2: 740 (51/32)
Kaplan Mock 3: 710 (51/28)
Kaplan Mock 4: 730 (51/36)
GMAT Prep Official (test 2):
760 (50/42)Undoubtedly, I was fully confident after my preparation and was aiming for a 750 at least.
Well, it didn't come out that way. Definitely i was a bit disappointed.But as it is known, score is only one of the criteria. So I need to move on
The Key Points:
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1) Start with
the Official Guide.
2) Do Plan to give a mock early in your preparation phase. The experience of just solving questions in a book is totally different from solving timed,adaptive questions
3) For Quantitative Section, people with engineering background won't have much trouble. Just try to master the DS questions.
4) For Verbal, Manhattan SC is a must. Learn it by heart
5)
Official Guide is more a question bank. So if you are not able to raise your prep level, go for the
Kaplan Premier & Kaplan 800.
6) Give Sufficient number of mocks. But don't get bogged down or overconfident about your result. Manhattan mocks have a much tougher quant section as compared to the Official Level. Kaplan on the other hand, matches the quant level in terms of toughness. Manhattan's Verbal is good but I feel Kaplan's Verbal is more closely aligned with the official level in terms of toughness. However, in terms of scoring & the accuracy of the adaptive alogorithm, one has to blindly follow the GMATPrep Official Mocks (Mock 2 is quite close to the final exam - though i found the verbal to be a bit tougher on the D-DAY)
7) For the IR section, the mocks are sufficient. Just need to know the various question types thoroughly. The IR on the final day was quite similar to the Kaplan Mocks.
8) AWA: I just wrote a couple of essays in the GMAT prep 2 official mocks. Important is to understand how to organize the essay.
9) Last but not the least, be positive and mentally strong.