I have made peace with my score. Until and unless an adcom explicitly states that my GMAT is low, I’m not taking the exam again
PREPARATIONSPreparation time: - I started seriously in the month of February -09. Though I had to take an occasional break of 1 or 2 weeks, I averaged around 2 hrs every day, including weekends
What helped me (study materials): - OG is a very good starting point. But, as most others have said, it will get you to around 650 but not over 700. The PS and SC are especially useless
Math: - The
GMAT Club tests and the 6 Manhattan Tests are more than sufficient to get close to 48 or 49. The difference between 48 or 49 and a 50 or 51 is the state of mind rather than the concepts or tricks identification and of course a dash of luck. I made an
error log of questions I got wrong on
Manhattan GMAT and
GMAT club tests and this came handy in the final days of leading up to my exam. I would randomly work through 10-20 problems whenever I had free time. My scores on GMAT club ranged from 22 to around 32. While
Manhattan GMAT Test quant teaches you concepts,
GMAT club tests are very good at teaching tricks
Verbal: - My verbal score, though good in practice tests, was not good on my actual GMAT. So, take the advice with a pinch or a kg of salt!
SC: - OG and Manhattan SC book are very good to start with but after a certain point they don’t help much. The tougher SCs on the exam go beyond the usual errors described in Manhattan SC and
OG. While I do agree with what most people say – Quality preparation is what matters not quantity - , I am a firm believer of pattern recognition. If you are very good at pattern recognition, you will know what the answer is even if you don’t know the underlying principle. I did all of the 1000SC with a hit rate of over 90% and was still not feeling comfortable with the tough SCs. The GMAT Prep SC document I encountered on GMAT club was god send. After completing that doc a good multiple times, I was confident of nailing any SC. I am confident that on the GMAT I must have missed no more than 1 or 2 SCs
CR: - Again a nightmare. To get good at pattern recognition, I did around 500CRs of the 1000CR document. And even went so far as to solve LSAT CRs. But, believe me on this one - you do not need LSAT CRs to do well in this section. The CRs on LSAT operate on a different level of assumption or logic. ‘My way’ of solving CRs got disrupted when I did around LSAT CRs and moved back to
OG. So, I did
OG-12 second time and compiled all the questions I got wrong on my GMAT Preps. I stuck with these questions throughout my prep
RC: - Reading economist daily helped, especially the science and technology section. I solved LSAT RCs and faced the same problem that I did with CR. So, I stopped answering the questions on LSAT, I would only read the passage and try to do so in 3 to 4 minutes. This helped immensely as you get a feel for how boring the passages on GMAT could get. The passages in
OG-12 are very good. The actual passages on GMAT are pretty similar to the ones in
OG and GMAT Prep
AWA: - Stamina was a big issue for me. So, I made it a point to write AWA for every exam I gave. This sure helped me
Practice scores: - I scored anywhere between 670 and 750 on my prep exams. My math ranged from 47 to 51 and my verbal from 36 to 45.
ACTUAL TESTTest day: - As an athlete, I can draw many parallels between an athlete’s preparation and preparation for GMAT. GMAT is all about conservation of energy. I made it a point to ensure that I was left with enough power during the last half hour of the exam. Pattern recognition, keeping up energy levels, practicing with tough questions is all OK until you get hit. I fully agree with what Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until he or she gets hit”
At 8:40AM, I was the last one amongst the people scheduled to write exam at 9:00AM to reach the exam centre. An additional level of identification (Vein recognition + finger print) was a bit surprising. I was under the impression that finger print recognition is scrapped.
AWA: - AWA started off well and I did well with the argument. I screwed up badly on the issue as the issue was very weird and I couldn’t think of any point. I didn’t let this affect my performance.
Math: - Math started off badly as I spent around 4 mins on 1st question. Though the next few questions were OK, I ran into trouble around 8th question. The difficulty level got down around 22nd Question and stayed the same till 30th Question. I cannot say that the difficulty kept on rising from 8th to 22nd because some of the questions were very easy. Solving the GMAT Preps multiple times had disturbed my internal clock because whenever I saw repeats, I used to select the option immediately but was not deducting this time saved from the overall time. This practice was leaving me with additional time to solve the newer and tougher questions. The result was that I forgot when to let go and when to stick with the problem. I ended up guessing around 5 to 6 questions to keep up with the time. In addition to this there were at least 2 questions on which I found out that I had selected the incorrect answer as soon as I clicked next. I didn’t mean to be a party pooper here but this is what I think – I felt Math to be a bit tougher than GMAT Prep. The timing issue and the increased difficulty cost me 1 or 2 points. I knew I screwed up math because never ever in my preps had I guessed on so many questions
Verbal: - I felt incredibly comfortable with verbal as I was able to solve SCs with ease. I ended up spending way too much time and energy on my 3nd RC and a few of CRs. I think I was on track until question 20. I got 2 bold faces within the first 20 and none after that. As usual, the plan I had in mind went awry and I blindly guessed on my 4th RC (4 god damn questions! Crazy ***t). I cursed myself for this debacle. The sole reason for my timing issue was again solving GMAT preps multiple times without deducting the time saved. I think I guessed 6 questions (4 blind and 2 educated) on verbal. All guessing happened between question 28 and question 38.
There were no second thoughts about cancelling the score because I thought, if anything, the score will teach me to pay more attention to my weak spots. I clicked on report score. 700 Q48 and V36 came up. Lowest verbal score on GMAT Prep was V37( first GMAT prep) So, the actual performance was lower than the lowest.
Few more things:- - The timelines for preparation don’t matter. 2 months or 3 months or 6 months, they mean nothing. It depends on individual. I took the test appoint 4 days before my test. Because that’s when it hit me that I have already reached my peak and the scores might decline if I prolong any further. So, you have to know when you are ready.
- Do what you feel is right. Don’t do something just because a guy with 7XX score did that. Example, most people advocate not to drink alcohol before a few days leading up to exam. But, you know what, I did. On Saturday I had a couple of bottles of beer and this helped me really unwind and relax.
- Most people say, take a break a day before the exam. I didn’t. Instead I took off from my studies on Saturday. I went ahead with my normal routine on Sunday and Monday. I even didn’t take off from my work on Monday. So, the point is do what suits one best
- Most people lose the battle in the last 30 minutes or so. This is the point where people start to lose concentration and pay less attention to the question. Second guessing on the level of difficulty and the thoughts about what score might pop up in the end do you no good.
I'd like to thank every member of this forum and people from
Manhattan GMAT forums have been equally helpful. I'd like to thank them too
My score doesn’t deserve this long debrief. I’d be happy to answer any questions
Adios
Unplugged
close
15 Sep 2009, 02:05
Can explain how you study and for how long 
Thanks. 
