Hi All,
Took my GMAT on 08.May.2013, scored 720 (q49, v39) awaiting the awa and ir scores!!
I don't know what to make out of my scores right now.. I know its not bad.. but I'm not sure if its enough.. considering that I already hold a postgraduate diploma in HR and am working with a company as an Asst Manager(HR and Public Relations) .. okay let me go straight to my story
Resource:
FOR SC , I prepared using
MGMAT SC, Aristotle SC grail, GMAT Club SC book, Rons videos
CR- CR Bible
RC - RC 99 from aristotle
Qunat -
MGMAT Quant advanced and Bunel Signature problems
Preparation time : close to 1.5 years I would say.. but real productive time I worked- close to 14 days!
One thing you can learn from my exp is that - do not procrastinate.. I planned to take my test in Jan '13.. postponed it to Feb.. then postponed it to march.. and finally my friend had to really force me to register for GMAT and pick a date and hence I took up May 8th..
I am an Engineer so I assumed Quant would not be a dealbreaker for me and hence I was focussed on verbal, SC to be precise, for a very very long time...
Another BIG mistake I made was trying to cram in a lot of theory before I actually started doing problems.. In Fact looking back I feel I was plain scared of SC that I chose to escape from practice questions whenever
MGMAT or other texts asked me to.. I was like "ÖK I will complete the complete SC portion and then take a test and only then will the result actually capture what I really learned" - BIG MISTAKE... Finally a 2 week subscription to Master GMAT (ECONOMIST) did help me quite a bit as it actually forced me to practice questions and hence gave me confidence and familiarized me with SC questions! Big thanks to them..
My preparation was so bad that with 10 days to go I had not finished the whole SC theory and had not touched
OG 12,13 or any mock tests!!! It was really scary and I decided to take a break from work for the next 10 days.. I charted a plan and gave myself 2 more days to finish off SC once and for all and then start of with my practice.. The next 7-8 days was eventful and the most productive time in my entire life..
8.30 AM - Wake Up
9.30 AM - 12.30 PM -Verbal Practice (
OG 12,13,
Verbal OG)
12.35 PM - 1.35 PM - Quant - Bunel Signature problems
Lunch
2.00 PM - 6.00 PM - MOCK TEST (Gmat prepp,
MGMAT tests)
6.30 PM - 7.30 PM - TEST REVIEW
8.00 PM - 10.00 PM - Quant - Bunel Signature problems
DINNER
11.00 PM -2.00 AM - Verbal Practice (
OG 12,13,
Verbal OG)
My scores are as below:
01.05.2013 - Gmat Prep 1 - 690 (Q50, V35)
02.05.2013-
MGMAT 1 - 690 (Q48, V37)
03.05.2013-
MGMAT 2- 700 (Q48, V39)
04.05.2013-
MGMAT 3 - 670 (Q45, ?)
05.05.2013 -
MGMAT 4 - 710 (Q49, V38)
06.05.2013-
MGMAT 5 - 700 (Q49,V38)
07.05.2013-GMAT Prep 2- 740 (Q50,V40)
It was hectic and it was absolutely packed.. But thankfully It worked for me.. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else because you can't or rather you shouldn't really cram for GMAT .. Ideally your last 10 days should be spent refreshing and revising.. I just got plain lucky!
On the day of GMAT I woke up after a good 9 hours sleep, went through my quick notes and reached the exam centre an hour in advance (scheduled time was 01.00 PM)... I got my formalities done quickly and started the exam on time.. I picked 5 schools (Booth, Kellog, Ross, Tepper, UNCN) and went on to AWA... That section was okay and I used the template shared by
chinese - democracy in gmatclub.. It really helped.. Then went to IR, thankfully IR was not as tough as some of the practice tests I did.. my advice is - Try to practice at least 5-10 sets of 12 IR questions from Veritas free QB.. make yourself familiarize with various types of IR questions.. You should not ignore this section.. Even Though schools are currently not giving much importance to this section, its importance would gradually increase..
I took a break for a few mins.. went to restroom.. washed my face.. drank some water and I was back to face quant.. I found the quant section pretty easy and I was ahead of the question by a comfortable margin of 10 min by the 30th question(assuming roughly 2 min/q). Encountered some really tough questions on 3 dimensional geometry and probability so I was confident that I was doing well.. There were plenty of inequality questions in DS as well.. I finished the section with a few secs to spare and then took a break again.. I came back confident for Verbal, I knew this was the section that would make or break my score!! I got a few easy SC questions to start off with.. and then few easy CR questions... thankfully all the passages I got was pretty straight forward.. (not the kind of questions you find in the Aristotile RC 99 - Very hard section!!!).. The CR questions got tougher and tougher and then I started seeing the boldface questions.. This gave me confidence that I was going alright.. Finally I got a few sc questions and I managed to keep my concentration intact!! I was relieved to see a 720 and a pretty even quant and verbal breakup, though I was a bit upset with my Qunat score.. anyways I'm glad with all the time I wasted, I ended up with a decent score!!
A few quick tips:
1. when you start preparation, use Rons Vids (
MGMAT).. This will make your concepts clear!
2. Practice questions regularly. Don't cheat yourself!
3. Do verbal part of
OG thoroughly... especially the last 30-40 questions and see what are the reasons for rejection of the 4 incorrect choices.. try to understand the logic
4. Fix a date.. and register a date.. If you don't fix a date you may procrastinate to eternity!
5. Make a plan.. stick to it
6. Take a few days off from work and dedicate completely to GMAT for the last 1 week atleast
7. Peak at the right time
8. Use free resources (GMAT CLUB QB, VERITAS QB, FREE GMAT TESTS ETC) to the fullest
9. Don't ignore IR and AWA..
All the best!!
Now off to essay season!!