Thanks for good wishes Paul. You were really a big help on verbal questions.
Now reagrading my preparation.
I started my preparation very long back actually. And these was my third attempt. However, I would not say that I improved dramatically from my very first attempt. I always thought that I am 720-750 range candidate. Here is why..
Before June 1st 2003, I finished working on kaplan material. This includes math work book and verbal work book.
On all the kaplan CD tests I scored 600.
I also took one test from PR and scored 690.
June 1, 2003 - Took 1st PP (Without going through
OG) - Scored 580. (M - 49, V- I do not remember now) A disaster!!!!. I panicked. Did not do anything on that day. But one point that came to my notice was that I got many questions wrong in the first 10 questions.
June 2, 2003 - took 2nd PP (without going throgh
OG) - Scored 730. (M-49, V-40). This relived me to a great extent.
Next 15 days went through all the questions in
OG. I divided the
OG in sections and created full length tests.
June 19, 2003 - My first attempt. On the night of June 18 I could not sleep for the entire noght. This has nothing to do with the tension or anything like that. I just could not sleep. In the morning I felt very heavy headed. But decided to give my best shot. In the test, I finished the esay sections and math sections very well. But by the time I finished the math section, My brain was almost fried. But during the break I told myself that I will give my best shot for verbal also. I tried to relax and everything. I started verbal section and started answering questions. But by the time I reached 20th or 21st question, it was almost impossible for me to even read the questions from the screen. (let alone comprehend the questions) I tried very hard to concentrate but the lack of sleep finally overcame my resolve and I lost the battle at around 24-25th questions. I just blindly guessed the last 10-12 questions.
Scored 640 (m-49, v-29). This was very painful but I knew that this was just not my day.
I did not do anything for couple of months as I was veryt busy at work place. Since I already worked through
OG, I started working on LSAT questions. I did not do LSAT questions posted on this forum. Instead I did LAST tests in full sections. (50 minutes for CR section and 60 minutes for RC sections) This improved my RC and CR skills to a greate extent.
But there was another disaster was in the waiting for me.
Come March 20, 2004. Again on the night of March 19, I could sleep for only 2 hours. I was peeved with this lack of sleep phenomenon. But I decided to give my best shot again. Did well on essay sections but during the break I decided to give myself a boost by drinking coffee. (I do not usually dring coffee .) And that was the mistake I made. For some reason the coffee was so strong in the test center that it made me hyperactive and I started sweating. I could not think properly during the math section and I thought I did very poorly on math section (even though math is my strength). By the time I finished the math section I decided to cancel the result of this test and take the verbal section just for practice. And I think I did ok on the verbal during that test but then I calcelled the score.
After this test, I again did not do anythin for couple of months but I found this BigB's attachment for SC questions. I went through most of them. I must sayt that it improved my confidence level for SC to a great extent.
Yesterday I was sitting the office and I did not have much to do. I had a very good sleep the day before yesterday night. So I suddently decided to take the test. I just grabbed some bananas and apples and went to the test center and asked them if they have any test spot availble. Fortunatley there was one. And I took the test yesterday.
My yesterday's test experience was similar to the experiences of SigEpUCI and vamsi. There is nothing much to add there.
My lessons:
(1) Take as many full length tests as possible. Since I hated writing essays for my practice tests, I did an LSAT test section (either CR or RC) in place of essay sections, and then did math and verbal sections of GMAT. Try to create as many full length tests as possible from GMAT+ material (icluding the SC attachment) and
OG. After each test spend enough time on learnig about the mistakes you have made during the test. In my opininon if you are doing a proper learning, you should end up spending approximately 6-8 hours just for the analysis. Also your learning should not be just limited to the questions you got wrong, but also the questions which you got right but had some difficulty in choosing the right answer.
(2) Develop an attacking attitude. This is possible only if you take full length tests. You (I am not addressing this to Paul only) may be answering every question on this forum correctly, but it can never give you the confidence to attack GMAT. Because even if you answer a particular questions correctly within 1-2 minutes on this forum, it does not gaurantee that you will answer the same question correctly on actual GMAT. During the actual GMAT your mindset will be different because of the time pressure and because of the rigor your brain would have gone through in answering previous questions.
(3) If you have taken plenty of full length tests, then during the last week just refer to your
error log.
Hope this helps to some.
close
15 Sep 2004, 05:08
Most people only dream of scores this high. I love the fact that you took the test almost on a whim. Very inspriring! Again, congrats! 
