Well that’s it, I took the GMAT. I scored what I wanted to score and I am very happy with my verbal results (that’s the highest I have ever scored). However, before I start let me express my one single concern. Im freaking out about the AWA… I wrote the first essay using my template and its logically and grammatically correct. But when I finished writing my conclusion (which was short because I was running out of time ) I looked up at the clock and it said 20 seconds left !!!! I didn’t even get a chance to proof read my writing! Im freaking out knowing that my spelling isn’t exactly great (the fact that im not a native speaker wont save me from the graders ) so im not sure how much that will effect my score. Im sure I have several spelling mistakes but I just want to do marginal on the AWA I don’t need a 6 haha I just want to pass. If I have to retake the GMAT because of the AWA il be super pissed lol. I know that the argument analysis is good, I have several points on where I found faults and how it could be improved… however the fact that I didn’t proof read is freaking me out. ( retrospectively I should have spent more time practicing my essays a spent my proofreading time making stupid notes on the notepad )
I guess il need to pray and wait for my official score results to see my AWA score
how long does this take? Is it really 20 days?
The test itself .. play by play.
Il skip the AWA because that just puts me in a bad mood lol.
The Quant section started with a fairly easy exponent question. At about question 4 or 5 I got a tough geometry question and for the life of me couldn’t remember the formula for area of a trapezoid( and you really needed it for this one lol I had to derive it ) . I’ve never seen a trapezoid question before lol. This one took me some time to bruit force but I wasn’t about to give up… I probably used about 4 minutes on this one but im pretty sure I got it right. And then it all went to hell ( at least that’s what I thought) The number theory questions came … and oh boy did they come … all shapes and sizes lol started off with some DS … not too bad used the Kaplan method for choosing small numbers
and got a few of those right … then PS and not easy ones … primes and sequences all over the place .. all together I think I got 3 sequence questions one of which was extra tricky I couldn’t spend anymore time so I made a logical guess after narrowing it down to 2 choices. At about question 20 all hell broke loose they started getting harder and harder … too the point where I had to guess on 3 questions ( by guess I mean I could eliminate 2 choices at least and then guess ) and then woooshhh an easy question ( this is where I almost started crying lol as I though I buried myself with my guessing … but I had no choice I was pressed for time and felt that I should get as many right as I can) I answered the easy question and moved on … another easy one and another and another … I thought Im done for lol. They got slightly trickier towards the end but still nothing like the middle questions. KNOW YOU NUMBERS hah I felt that was the most tested area on the quant. (maybe its because that’s not one of my strongest ) In the middle between the sequence questions I got a probability question… it wasn’t too bad.
Took the break… ate my second banana used the bathroom and decided that I wont give up and do my freaking best on the verbal.
Verbal section started with 3 sentence corrections ( by far my weakest area … I though they are doing this on purpose … animals ) not sure if I got the 2nd and 3rd right but didn’t let it phase me … took Praetorians advice and concentrated on the question in front of me. Then BAM! An RC … a short one followed by three questions ( one with some highlighted text ) im not bad at RC so I felt I got all three right. Question 7 was a CR question which I also got right … then it started alternating between SC and CR … and the SC would come in packs lol ( I guess they never travel alone … or maybe I just kept getting them wrong ) the CR wasn’t too bad I got most of them down to 2 choices and then it was just a matter of finding the supporting evidence for one choice and rebutting the other. About question 20 another RC even shorter than the first !!! but freaking dense … re read it twice and took notes (I usually do … this helps soo much ) answered the 4 questions about it ( couldn’t believe they asked that many about such a short RC ) … moved on to some more CR .. these were a bit tougher .. a few I was rereading 2 or 3 times to get a handle on what they wanted. But not so bad … around question 25 another small RC ( this one was really easy ) .. then a string of 3 SC I guessed at 2( logical guessing not just random picking of the answer lol ) . and then another RC right at the end … this one was long !! but fairly interesting haha so I finished it rather quickly and moved on to the question. The section finished up with 2 SC ( and I was super lucky the last one was short because I had 40 second left ) clicked submit and that was it.
Filled out the survey. Was expecting something like a 660 because I thought the math killed me… but ended up with a 700 … thanks to my verbal score. I was never going to cancel my score no matter how poorly I did … I NEEDED TO KNOW WHERE I STOOD. I usually do better than a 47 on math but I have never broken 50 so I wasn’t too upset.
Now I’m just going to hope they don’t kill me on the AWA.
Ok lets talk about my prep.
Material list:
Kaplan 2006 book ( great intro book … my first intro to the gmat, the problems are easy but it gets your familiar with the test)
Kaplan paper diagnostic test (full length gmat timed with proctor and everything … I scored a 570 after completing the Kaplan 2006 book )
Kaplan course ( the course itself was ok … the class work was marginal and I didn’t find it to be too useful) however my teacher was great and could explain pretty much any math problem within 5 minutes so i constantly stayed after class to as my own questions. Kaplan’s biggest strength is its resources. The online material is excellent and there is plenty of it. I think I solved almost 2000 questions from the quiz bank over my entire study period. Great math prep for the gmat … the verbal I found to be slightly lacking.
OG 11 ( good book, these problems present a good version of how the gmat question is structured … Kaplan has a format which I find a bit easier for both math and verbal questions) the
OG 11 is a must for everyone
Kaplan 800 book (great for the data sufficiency questions, really gets into the fine detail and the dirty tricks of those number properties questions. I saved this book for the last few days before the test)
GMAT Prep Test 1… I scored a 700 Q47 and V 39 (a few questions overlapped but pretty much just like the real thing … less stress maybe
… I took this test 2 weeks before my actual exam)
GMAT Prep Test 2… Scored a 690 last night Q49 Verbal 36 … this one freaked me out a bit because I found the verbal to be slightly harder than the first test.
And Finally gmatclub.com … greatest resource of them all … not only for problems but also for inspiration.
My average study time was about 3 hrs a day with only 2 days off in the 8 week period. At about week 5 I felt myself burning out so I took some time off to collect myself and get back to work. I started with a fairly low diagnostic score so I knew I have to get myself in gear to achieve my goals.
My technique was a very structured approach. Every week I would make plans for the next week… just like I plan my gym workouts I would plan my gmat workouts. Setting aside what areas I would want to focus on this particular week and also collecting my thoughts on what I learned the previous week ( that part is ultra important ). I decided not to focus too much on taking CAT’s because in reality the only useful formula is the Gmat Prep formula and everything else will just make you emotionally unstable lol. I did use the Kaplan timed quizzes which gave you about 2 minutes for every question and then provided a nice breakdown of your score. So I saved my Gmat prep exams for the last 2 weeks knowing that these will let me know how ready I am ( and they did ). Also I solved the
OG second to last … I wanted my math skills and most of my verbal skills to be sharp before I tried the real test questions.
I started a thread in the GMAT part of the forum about the last week of my prep … here is the link If anyone is interested ( this should give you and idea of what I was doing till the end )
https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=27822
Im not sure what else to write .. and this is getting rather long so if anyone has any questions feel free to ask them here and i will answer. Im definetly staying around the board I love this place … il even do the quant problems for fun hahah just not those damn nuber theory questions.
Thank you all for reading and I wish you luck !!!
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12 Apr 2006, 12:33
good luck with your apps . Thanks for your detailed briefing . It helps . 
.. all the best with your applications. 
