Guys,
here is the debreif that I promised. First, my background, I am a 32 yr old male with a MS degree. I have been working as a scientist in a pharmaceutical company and planning a career switch. Setting up my own little business is on cards too.....lets see. Overall, i am satisfied with my 710 score but feel that, I could have scored 730-750 at my best. I think, my quant performance was less than usual but my verbal was on-the-dot accurate.
ok, now with intro out of the way - my GMAT day started very well. I felt confident and relaxed. slept great for 7 hrs. my exam was at 8am, 15 min drive from home. reached there in time and was happy to see that all seats were taken.......why is that good u ask???? there are two little rooms in both ends of the exam room that have doors and u are the only human inside. I got one of those rooms.....sweet.....first AWA went very well. I feel good about them. used some catchy phrases, some quotes, some sayings....overall, I think, i should score 5.5-6 (I might be proven wrong, of course). next I took the break. when I went back in the room for quant, I sensed some trepidation in me. I told myself that I prepared well and prepared hard, so, I need not worry. but given how high stake this GMAT turns out to be for someone who wants an MBA, I couldn't help but get a little jittery, something that I regret even now. But, i don't think, I could have prepared more than I did and it would have prevented that. I think, it came from realizing in the subconcious, this exam is high stake.
anyway, my quant started out pretty easy. but after that, the difficulty level rapidly ramped up. actually i got stuck in the 3rd question itself for sometime (4-5 min) and that contributed to weaking my nerves a bit more. eventually, it was a stupid little thing that I failed to see in the question that threw me off. once i figured that out, i was on my way again. but now in addition to nerve pressures, I had time pressure too. But I knew, i had lot of way to go and will make up. the difficulty kept ramping up. my overall impression is - quant was pretty difficult compared to what you see in
OG. gmatprep is a good practise but don't be surprised if you are challenged more in quant in the real thing. I got way too many DS questions, I felt. they just kept comming. most of them were number properties and inequality stuff. I think, I had prepared quite a bit for that. lots of exponent questions too. there was a statistics questions which I have never even heard of....called it something like lef and stem data presented in a wierd table format. I tell you, I was completely foxed and decided to not spend another second on it, guessed and moved on. at the end, i had to guess last two questions without reading them because I had 30 secs left. I was very sad. i told myself that I had screwed the quant royally by getting nervous. My heart sank somewhat. I took my 10 min break and went out. outside, I had some water and a dark chocolate. told myself, no use mourning over something which i can't go back and change. I mentally let some battle cry(s) out to get my sagging spirits up and cooled my nerves down. i told myself, if I crack the verbal to my best of abilities, I might be able to balance my not-so-shiny performance in quant.
by the time I went back, I had spent 1.5 mins more than alloted for my break and the computer told me that this 1.5 minutes will be deducted from my verbal section. I did not care because, I have never had time issues in verbal. most often, I finished 10-12 minutes early in my practise sessions.
verbal started out pretty good, lots of long long RC passages with 4-5 questions each. sentence correction did not pose much of a problem. RC was good. To make sure that i REALLY did my best in verbal, I spent much more time on each question than i usually do. but all this while, i kept an eye on the clock. It would be pathetic if i had to guess some questions in this section where I am pretty strong. Time was not much an issue throughout. i remember that a RC about literature gave me sort of a headache. some CRs were tough but I moved on once I thought over very carefully and had selected an answer. I was very cool throughout the verbal. I feel, I spent a lot more focussed mental power on verbal. My mind was like a beam of laser in this section. i did not think about the previous question, trying to second guess my selection once I had moved on. This was good because there is not point in doing so and it just wreaks your confidence. I just wish, i had been more gathered and had similar laser-focus in quant. if i had done that, i would be sitting with a 730-750 score. anyway, I finished the section with 30 secs to spare. moved through the biographical info crap and then selcted to see the score. while the hourglass turned while the system calculated my score, I closed my eyes for those few seconds and prayed. when I openeed my eyes, I saw 710. i literally jumped from my chair. after my subpar quant performane, I was expecting to dip below 700 which to me, would have been a disaster, specially after all the prep work I had done. I could jump from my chair beacuse I was in that little closed room alone. the attendent came and knocked my door. I pulled the door open so hard that I slightly banged it against the wall. i made a apologietic gesture to the rest of the candidates for my outburst. I did not mean to disturb them. i certainly did not.... anyway, i was ecstatic at the moment, went to my wife's work to show her the score personally. I have to thank her for standing by my side and continiously prodding me and encouraging me. This is as much her success as is mine. She was very happy too. Bought a bottle of the most expensive french champagne available at the store, a bottle of single malt scotch and headed home........DONE, finally!!!!
I will post my prep methods and recommendations seperately. ask any questions that you may have. Thank you guys and thanks a lot to this entire forum and its members.
edited by praetorian: congratulations, but please avoid unnecessary use of language. 
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16 Aug 2006, 14:48
. I think I should have been able to do 730+ but I am not complaining. I think I had a subpar showing at quant. i was somewhat jittery. But i think, I did my best in verbal.
..I wanted to ask one thing regarding ur prep...if u rate ur prep months wise - i mean 1st month 2nd month ...4th month - which month do u consider the most fruitful..
.My boss doesn't allow even a half day leave.
