I'm really finished this time 780 (Q50, V51) AWA 6.0 UPDATED

:) hey, I was kidding - but you know that! anyway, but your verbal score is unreal..seriously.

pelihu,
Amazing score. You really rock! 51 in V is very very impressive. You could have ended up with a 790 i guess.. I am sure the 51 V ,at almost the 100th Percentile, will go very well with the adcomm for most schools!
Congratulations!


Would you recommend CR and RC from LSAT preptests for preparing for GMAT.. I had finished 50% of CR and RC from OG and then( to improve my accuracy and bcoz i could not find more official questions) also took up the LSAT preptests from the book sold by LSAC..(book has 10 previous tests)
My success rate in GMAT CR's does seem to be better now.. atleast i have become quicker..
Do you think this approach helps. Is there any underlying similarity b/w CR and RC questions of LSAT and GMAT. I don't know if it's just me but i find the LSAT questions to be a lot tougher than GMAT questions.

I am just thinking of how much more time i shd spend on the LSAT material. I have done 4-5 tests from the LSAT book; my accuracy although better is still dismal i.e i miss about 8-10 questions in the 2 CR tests of 25 questions each and RC misses range b/w 3-7 questions..
Also the timelines in LSAT tests are monstrous. I usually take 5 minutes more than the alloted time on each section..

I have some time for the GMAT(more than a month)..and not a lot of official questions for verbal, since i have already done the last half of the OG for RC and CR. Guess i could finish the rest in one 1-1.5 weekend days.

Sorry for the long post: In conclusion would you advise more CR,RC practise from LSAT or would you say just to look at OG questions..

Necromonger, yes I knew you were kidding

I must give credit to Futuristic for his encouragement in several private messages. He wrote me when I was considering whether to retake, and when I decided to go for it again, he encouraged me to try to get an extra point or two in Q when I was simply planning to work on V to achieve my practice results on the real thing. I was inspired to put in extra time on both Q & V and it really paid off.

imjimmy, I believe that the official LSAT prep materials are good resources for CR & RC. I haven't look at LSAT materials in some time (I didn't use them to prepare for the GMAT), but if I recall correctly both CR & RC are generally more difficult on the LSAT. The RC passages can be quite a bit longer, and somtimes contain more technical terms than the average GMAT RC passage. The LSAT CR questions contain some different question types that do not appear in the GMAT, but you can polish your skills by working on the problems. Overall, if you have exhausted the availble GMAT materials, then I think that the LSAT resources can be useful, especially if you are working on timing. Don't forget to look at the CR1000, which I found to be very useful as well.

I also found that going through OG and GMATprep materials a second time was useful - it really clarifies whether you learned what you needed to the first time around. If you did learn the first time around, the answer will be obvious the second time around; if the answer isn't obvious then you didn't really learn initially.

Simply awesome Pelihu !!!
Can I borrow your brain for my next shot at GMAT ?

Good luck with your apps.

Congrats buddy !!!

I actually thought that you could do 760+
What really amazed me was your LSAT score. If I can remember correctly, with 174 anyone can get into Yale/Harvard law with a decent GPA.
So you do deserve 780 on the GMAT.
With Q 51, you could get 800. 1 point in Q worths 20 points for 49 and above.

CONGRAT!!!

Was out of words dude...Awesome...Just awesome

Thanks guys.

Actually, law school admissions are somewhat different that business school admissions. Test scores and grades are far more important for law school admissions.

For example, the 25%-75% (middle 50%) GPA range for Yale last year was 3.79-3.95, for Stanford 3.80-3.96. That means, 25% of the students at each school had GPAs higher than 3.95, and GPAs below 3.8 would be in the bottom 25% of the class. Yeowie! Given that the the admissions rate at Yale was about 6%, many many applicants probably weeded themselves out before even applying.

As we know, business schools are not quite as focused on grades and GMAT scores; but this actually causes me a little more anxiety because it's much harder to predict how your qualifications stack up to what schools are looking for. I think it will be an interesting application season.

Pelihu,

Thanks for answering my last question.IT did help.
One more thing..(if you still browse this forum)

Wanted to know the level of SC's in the real GMAT test. Have heard from people that for those who do well in the verbal portion of the exam the SC's become very hard. As said by some people the SC's in actual test are purportedly very different from those in the OG and 1000 SC and that these SC's are something like 4-5 sentences long with the entire portion underlined and testing very subtle grammar points. Also i read that the actual SC's do not have discernible grammatical errors(incorrect modifiers, lack of parallelism etc) and that the answer choices are very close.

Is this correct? Did you feel this way. DO you think there is any better source to practise SC's than the OG.

BTW good luck with your apps!

Hi, I'm still browsing the forum because I'm waiting to read the reports from some of my forum friends that have tests coming up.

To answer your question, an SC question is by definition 1 sentence long, so you probably mean 4-5 lines long, as opposed to 4-5 sentences. I did encounter some SC questions that were very long, with all or nearly all of the sentence underlined. I actually disagree somewhat that the most difficult questions had barely discernable grammatical errors. I actually found that the most difficult questions involved several potentially correct answers each with a series of potential errors.

For example, on some simpler SC questions, it will be very clear what the key elements in the sentence are, and you can look among the choices to find the one that works. Often on the easier questions there are two 'main' answer choices, a singular and a plural for example, so you can eliminate some, and then just focus in on a few words for the final answer.

On the most complex questions, you'll need to work through a series of errors. For example, a sentence may start with an initial clause, and each of the 5 answers might have proper structure. The sentence might ten be set off with a comma and a second clause, there may be several different structures that are also correct. There might then be some modifier issues that relate back to the first clause, and finally you may need to choose among a couple of gramatically correct choices to eliminate silly results and answers that change the meaning.

I guess the easier questions, wether they are long or short, generally have a single issue. Once you identify the issue, eliminating choices and finding the answer is straightforward. With the hardest questions, you sometimes need to keep 2 or 3 or 4 answers in play as you work through each of the issues. You'll probably need to read the answers again and again as you work out the different elements of each possibility. It's a little hard to describe, but I found that you start to get the hang of it as you work through a lot of questions.

The primary difference for me was that between my first and second exams I did about 5-600 questions from the SC1000 and CR1000 sets. That really helped me get a feel for breaking down the longer sentences. The OG is the best source, but there really aren't enough questions. I did go back an re-do many of the OG questions after working through the SC1000 to make sure I was grounded in the real thing. I would agree with those that say the SC1000 isn't exactly like the real GMAT - I believe those questions are drawn for many different sources and the real benefit is that you can plow through a lot of questions quickly. I do think the questions in the OG do accurately represent those on the real thing. The problem is that there aren't really enough questions, especailly high level questions.

I am working on the 1000CR set (after going through all the basic material on the OG, Nova, Acro ) and I am still not hitting all correct answers . I feel I am stuck with that level of mistakes as there are no other books to refer to, and increase my level of reasoning.
I am making at least 4-9 mistakes in each CR section (20 Qs).
What do I do. Please help and advice.

Same with Quants (although the number of mistakes I make are less in Quants)

Thanks!!!

Hi mbaaspirant. I would suggest checking out the verbal section here at GMATclub. The CR1000 is great if you want to plow through a whole bunch of questions, but if you continue to get mistakes and you don't really know why, you probably need to focus a lot more on explanations. The verbal forum here is great because for each question you often get to see many different explanations from several different people and one or more could click with you so you can actually learn (as opposed to just getting an answer). Once you have the concepts down, you can use the CR1000 to polish up your skills.

With the quantitative, you might want to check out the forum here as well. Personally, I found it a little difficult to use because I couldn't get comfortable with the way numbers and symbols are displayed in some of the questions. But I did find it a great source to help with solutions. For example, if you are working on a question and you can't seem to find the easy way to do the problem, you can post it in the forum there. Generally, within a very short time one (or more) of the math gurus here will post a solution with an explanation. Sometimes it still won't make sense and you can continue to ask questions, and sometimes the solutions make the problem look simple.

The only guide I really used was the OG11. I did purchase the Kaplan premier prgram, which includes a bunch of stuff on CD and online, but after going through the first diagnostic, I knew that the material bore little resemblance to the real thing and I stopped using it. If you are running out of material, I would suggest the paper tests (which can be found at the official mba.com website). The questions are from retired tests, so you know you are practicing with the real thing.

Will follow your advice and start posting qs right away.Thanks and all the best!!!

Hey pelihu,

Congraaatz on ur score dude.. , u really nailed the moster GMAT down..

didnt have the motivation to study during the weeknd. Jus now woke up, and saw ur post.... hahaa jus wanna get out and nail the thing like U. Very motivational dude... I guess many of us here in the club are indebted to you in some or other way..as ur indirectly motivating so many ppl like me...

Will post some prepn doubts soon..(hey some say that the answers in sc-1000 n CR-1000 r wrong. any such experience..???)

anway....Congraats dude..

That's great that you are motivated by my story. I certainly encourage everyone to put in as much work and do the best that they can on the GMAT. It's pretty much too late to do anything about other parts of your business school application like GPA, work experience and extracurriculars. It's also a bit nebulous to when people say they will concentrate on producing great essays. That's certainly important, but it's not tangible in the same way a 3 digit score is.

I will agree that SC1000 and CR1000 contain some errors. It's really not that many, but I wouldn't get caught up in trying to explain each answer from those question sets. You should work hard on understanding the basic concepts before using these questions. The SC1000 and CR1000 are great for plowing through a lot of questions after you have done your real preparation with the OG and other sources. If you come across a question that you believe has a wrong answer, just move on; if you are using these resources your main objective should just be to do as many questions as you can.

pelihu, is that really true that employers ask about GMAT scores during job interviews? I am also an attorney but nobody ever asked me about by LSAT score during an interview.

Hi, yes it is true. Actually I don't know about interviews, but I do know that the top consulting firms and banks do in fact ask for GMAT scores in their applications. You can check out the Mckinsey online application and you will find a section that asks not only for your GMAT score but scores of all standardized tests you have taken. The section is not optional, and if you choose not to report a score for a test you have taken you must explain why (an acceptable answer is it was a long time ago and you don't have access for example).

It's my belief that you will not even get an interview if you do not provide your score (unless you have some other really compelling factors). Firms like to use the GMAT have a quick reference regarding the intellectual horsepower of the applicant. I think they can afford to weed people out like this because their jobs are extremely challenging and because their positions are in demand. Certainly there are many companies that do not require GMAT scores.

I can also offer a quote from a Chicago GSB admissions officer, responding to an applicant with a stellar application but a somewhat lower GMAT score. To paraphrase the admissions officer "you qualifications look impressive and you have a good chance of being admitted with your current GMAT score, but you should still consider taking it again because employers will ask for it and your score will continue to follow you throughout your job search". I saw this in the offical U Chicago forum; I can't find the exact message, but that's not important. The idea is pretty clear.