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11 Sep 2011, 08:33
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Hello, all you wonderful people reading this story. A word of caution, this is not a debrief, it’s my past one year’s autobiography. 
I have taken the GMAT thrice in a year and twice in the last 2 months!!Phew. I actually took it so quickly this time as I was confident that I had not done justice to my prep with a 680. Its been a difficult journey but at least I am satisfied that all my attempts gave me some improvements. I took the GMAT for the 3rd time today. I typed the first part of the post below a week back . It contains details of my first 2 attempts.
_______________________________________________________________________________
“Its 10 am 3rd September. I am supposed to give my second last cat now before my 3rd GMAT attempt on the 9th of September. My life has really changed because of this test and the attempts thus far. It’s unusual for me writing this debrief instead of the stupid AWA’s at this time. But I am tired of AWA. So decided to do something different.
I am splitting my three attempts into 3 different debriefs so that people reading would actually know how I have improved over time and what mistakes I have made that they should be aware of.
Attempt 1 : 20th Jan 2011. Study period 37 days.
Quantitative : 47 Verbal 34 - Total - 650.
Yeah u are reading correctly above. I am a very organized person and do keep track of every day I study or do some other project. Actually the research for the GMAT started way back last year but incidentally I got the OG-12 on the 13th Dec and also got the 8 MGMAT guides same day !!! Studied like an ass for the coming days. Was stuck at MGMAT/Princeton- 590 !!just 3 weeks before the test. But finally managed 640 in my 4th MGMAT and 650 in the GMAT preps.
Test day - Had a horrible testing experience, the light went out twice, the proctor gave me wet note boards which someone had just used. Plenty of noise and disturbance. But I got a respectable score of 47/34 - 650. This was at par with my highest mock score. Today I realize how good this performance was.
Attempt 2 : 30th July 2011. Study period 90 days. This attempt is closest to my heart.
Quantitative : 48 Verbal 35 - Total - 680.
All right I had taken 3 months off after my 1st attempt. In may 2011, I started off with a diagnostic of 630(Princeton) without study and quickly reached 680 in Princeton and MGMAT with a month’s hardwork. Studied PERFECTLY in the real sense of the word. Used all hyped material(powerscore/mgmat-more on these later). Took a GMAT prep in the second month of study. Got a 750. Wow !! I was heading to glory at this time. Took some more tests to see whether I can perform well on them, Knewton free - 700. MGMAT-4- 720 {did not take MGMAT-5 and 6 as the scores inflates after MGMAT cat-4.
I Took another unused GMAT prep and got a 720 ,3 weeks before exam. Made horrible silly mistakes in quant for a Q48. Then made some wonderful notes on how to avoid silly mistakes and concentrated only on this agenda for 2 weeks. Improved the silly mistake domain 10 days before test day. Got 760 in all 4 repeat GMAT preps. I was consistently getting all unseen CR/RC correct. Quant and SC were also peaking - No lapse in performance. RC was and is my strongest point.
Material used in three months:
1>MGMAT sc- read 3 times
2>Powerscore- read 3 times
3>MGMAT RC and RC-99. Good books to PERFECT RC’s.
4>Gmat club quant sets- used all 25 !!. {had difficulty initially but peaked to 30+/37 in last 4-5 tests}
5>Logged errors as if I was being paid for it. Have a look at my excelsheets attached at the end !!!
6>Of coarse all OG’s.
7>A cheap timer that I used to time RC’s and sometimes small sets of SC and CR. Be-sure to review OG questions for hours even after your timed sessions end.
Mock scores :
Princeton- (630/680/690)
MGMAT(680/700/710/720)
GMATprep(750/720)
Knewton free-700.
All right there comes test day 2 after 90 days of high performance studying.
1>AWA. Finished in 40 mins. Got a lower score than last time on this (5.0). But the AWA is completely ur own private space. Do what you want in this one hour. Just finish the essays quickly and then prepare mentally for quant. What I used to do in look down straight towards the floor and do some kind of meditation for the final 5 mins before quant.
2>Quant - Got a bad function question 1st up then tons of overlapping sets which were computation intensive, few very hard questions such as factorial expressions involving variables . :/, so I was doing well. Got some tougher Modulus and Number lines towards the end. Finished in 66 minutes. Note that quant was my weaker area. On all 50’s in GMAT preps I had to guess last 1-2 questions. So finishing early was new for me. In hindsight I realize today that going too fast did cost me dear.
3>Verbal- what can I say- I got the usual GMAT prep style RC passages which I gobbled. CR and SC were also good and I was hoping to see the usual verbal 41-42 to pop on screen. Finished this section also in 70 mins.
Final score : 680 (48/35). . 1-1 point improvement in 3 months.
That’s how BADluck plays its part. So this attempt was a definite failure compared to attempt 1 !!!!.
Takeaways from 2nd attempt :
1>Going too fast might screw you. I had perfected my timing in cats but I overcompensated on GMAT day. Do pause for half a second before confirming any answer, especially in quant.
2>The real GMAT is slightly easier than GMAT prep so walk in confident. {except the SC’s}
3>Infact if u study the 198 Gprep SC doc, you will be somewhat familiar with the kinda SC questions u are going to see on test day.
4>The first quant question will be difficult so just keep breathing and look at it conceptually instead of blindly trying to “Quant” your way out of it.
5>Don’t walk in overconfident just because u have mastered all ur practice cats and topics. The GMAT is a difficult test and you have to work hard to beat it. Just walking in with a good prep will not land you a good score.
OK-So I just realized that I hav’nt beaten the GMAT yet and its 11 am. AWA time over and quant time begins for the 3rd last time in my life. I’ll just proofread this type and post the remaining journey on the 9th of September !!!!! “
If you have time take a look at the excelsheet attached {"July the 30th"} covering my journey for attempt 2. This sheet might be useful for newbies as how to study systematically and log errors. Also I logged learning from all 25 GMAT clubs in that sheet and how I progressed from 20-25 percentile to 80-90 percentile after test 19-20.
________________________________________________________________________________
Ok so now I think I am done after 3 bloody battles .
Final attempt :
Quantitative : 48 Verbal 38 - Total - 710
Badly Bruised from the second attempt I took rest for a couple of days and immediately started off for take 3.
With all the weaklinks I have highlighted above I started prepping one last time for gmat. I found a new friend on this journey, knewton. I will just say that the course is worth the money. The recorded video lessons by David, Jess,Jen and Rich are absolutely wonderful. Knewton also plugged in any holes in my SC prep. Overall the SC/RC/Quant were good. CR’s were poor as most of them are just bad bad OG copies. Someone who has been thorough the OG can easily spot the answers because of the similarity.
Rest was routine. I did not study RC/CR’s as I was already very good at it. I also filled up any holes in my SC prep. I took all 6 knewton cats with quant peaking to 36/37 in a couple of cats and verbal score peaking to V49
!!! Knewton sectional scores are somewhat all over the park, however I cannot stress how consistent their overall scores are. Wonder how this happens though. :/. I regret having not studied CR the last one month. I struggled on a couple CR questions badly today. I got a very weird CR question stem which cannot be classified into any type. I can’t disclose it here. But that question was weirdo.
Knewton scores : {750(diagnostic), 740, 750, 740,740, 710}
Test day :
All right, this time I was not in a hurry, I wrote the AWA all 60 mins. Started quant and checked every questions twice till question 20. I have now remarkably improved my quant after a year of studying. . For example today I solved a weighted average question both by linear formula and allegation. to be doubly sure. Checked all DS’s solving for a solution. In sum, I did really really well. I finished with just 13 secs to spare and was hoping for an improved score. I accept that I suck at GMAT quant, I could just improve 1 point after 5 months of hardwork !!
Verbal section. What can I say ? I lost the fire in the second half of the Verbal section. Last month’s performance was kinda playing on my mind. I got a few difficult SC’s with just a single word underlined. I had no clue what concepts were those SC’s testing. I got an evaluate and a flaw question mid way. RC’s were as usual easy. Its amazing how they test the same old concept in RC’s so often. They will just give views of a certain scientist and then say that earlier scientists did not share the same views. And they will throw a couple of questions such as.
1>The scientists of the earlier era were most likely to agree with which of the following - a wrong answer choice will include the views of the other group.
Such questions will become ridiculously easy once you spot that one little twist in the passage.
Ok I am done writing. I just realized that I have still not done justice to my signature below . But I am done with the GMAT forever.
Please find another excelsheet{"september the 9th"} which includes some notes and journey from GMAT-3.
Final words of thanks to Bunuel, Sriharimurthy, Whiplash, Sodenso, Fluke, Srijaidev , bb and all others who make GMAT club superb !!.
And I also wanna thank the awesome bunch of people who made GC tests. They are arguably the best quant material in GMAT land.
Please feel free to ask me about any prep company material. I have probably used them all
.
Thank you all
bblast
I have taken the GMAT thrice in a year and twice in the last 2 months!!Phew. I actually took it so quickly this time as I was confident that I had not done justice to my prep with a 680. Its been a difficult journey but at least I am satisfied that all my attempts gave me some improvements. I took the GMAT for the 3rd time today. I typed the first part of the post below a week back . It contains details of my first 2 attempts.
_______________________________________________________________________________
“Its 10 am 3rd September. I am supposed to give my second last cat now before my 3rd GMAT attempt on the 9th of September. My life has really changed because of this test and the attempts thus far. It’s unusual for me writing this debrief instead of the stupid AWA’s at this time. But I am tired of AWA. So decided to do something different.
I am splitting my three attempts into 3 different debriefs so that people reading would actually know how I have improved over time and what mistakes I have made that they should be aware of.
Attempt 1 : 20th Jan 2011. Study period 37 days.
Quantitative : 47 Verbal 34 - Total - 650.
Yeah u are reading correctly above. I am a very organized person and do keep track of every day I study or do some other project. Actually the research for the GMAT started way back last year but incidentally I got the OG-12 on the 13th Dec and also got the 8 MGMAT guides same day !!! Studied like an ass for the coming days. Was stuck at MGMAT/Princeton- 590 !!just 3 weeks before the test. But finally managed 640 in my 4th MGMAT and 650 in the GMAT preps.
Test day - Had a horrible testing experience, the light went out twice, the proctor gave me wet note boards which someone had just used. Plenty of noise and disturbance. But I got a respectable score of 47/34 - 650. This was at par with my highest mock score. Today I realize how good this performance was.
Attempt 2 : 30th July 2011. Study period 90 days. This attempt is closest to my heart.
Quantitative : 48 Verbal 35 - Total - 680.
All right I had taken 3 months off after my 1st attempt. In may 2011, I started off with a diagnostic of 630(Princeton) without study and quickly reached 680 in Princeton and MGMAT with a month’s hardwork. Studied PERFECTLY in the real sense of the word. Used all hyped material(powerscore/mgmat-more on these later). Took a GMAT prep in the second month of study. Got a 750. Wow !! I was heading to glory at this time. Took some more tests to see whether I can perform well on them, Knewton free - 700. MGMAT-4- 720 {did not take MGMAT-5 and 6 as the scores inflates after MGMAT cat-4.
I Took another unused GMAT prep and got a 720 ,3 weeks before exam. Made horrible silly mistakes in quant for a Q48. Then made some wonderful notes on how to avoid silly mistakes and concentrated only on this agenda for 2 weeks. Improved the silly mistake domain 10 days before test day. Got 760 in all 4 repeat GMAT preps. I was consistently getting all unseen CR/RC correct. Quant and SC were also peaking - No lapse in performance. RC was and is my strongest point.
Material used in three months:
1>MGMAT sc- read 3 times
2>Powerscore- read 3 times
3>MGMAT RC and RC-99. Good books to PERFECT RC’s.
4>Gmat club quant sets- used all 25 !!. {had difficulty initially but peaked to 30+/37 in last 4-5 tests}
5>Logged errors as if I was being paid for it. Have a look at my excelsheets attached at the end !!!
6>Of coarse all OG’s.
7>A cheap timer that I used to time RC’s and sometimes small sets of SC and CR. Be-sure to review OG questions for hours even after your timed sessions end.
Mock scores :
Princeton- (630/680/690)
MGMAT(680/700/710/720)
GMATprep(750/720)
Knewton free-700.
All right there comes test day 2 after 90 days of high performance studying.
1>AWA. Finished in 40 mins. Got a lower score than last time on this (5.0). But the AWA is completely ur own private space. Do what you want in this one hour. Just finish the essays quickly and then prepare mentally for quant. What I used to do in look down straight towards the floor and do some kind of meditation for the final 5 mins before quant.
2>Quant - Got a bad function question 1st up then tons of overlapping sets which were computation intensive, few very hard questions such as factorial expressions involving variables . :/, so I was doing well. Got some tougher Modulus and Number lines towards the end. Finished in 66 minutes. Note that quant was my weaker area. On all 50’s in GMAT preps I had to guess last 1-2 questions. So finishing early was new for me. In hindsight I realize today that going too fast did cost me dear.
3>Verbal- what can I say- I got the usual GMAT prep style RC passages which I gobbled. CR and SC were also good and I was hoping to see the usual verbal 41-42 to pop on screen. Finished this section also in 70 mins.
Final score : 680 (48/35). . 1-1 point improvement in 3 months.
That’s how BADluck plays its part. So this attempt was a definite failure compared to attempt 1 !!!!. Takeaways from 2nd attempt :
1>Going too fast might screw you. I had perfected my timing in cats but I overcompensated on GMAT day. Do pause for half a second before confirming any answer, especially in quant.
2>The real GMAT is slightly easier than GMAT prep so walk in confident. {except the SC’s}
3>Infact if u study the 198 Gprep SC doc, you will be somewhat familiar with the kinda SC questions u are going to see on test day.
4>The first quant question will be difficult so just keep breathing and look at it conceptually instead of blindly trying to “Quant” your way out of it.
5>Don’t walk in overconfident just because u have mastered all ur practice cats and topics. The GMAT is a difficult test and you have to work hard to beat it. Just walking in with a good prep will not land you a good score.
OK-So I just realized that I hav’nt beaten the GMAT yet and its 11 am. AWA time over and quant time begins for the 3rd last time in my life. I’ll just proofread this type and post the remaining journey on the 9th of September !!!!! “
If you have time take a look at the excelsheet attached {"July the 30th"} covering my journey for attempt 2. This sheet might be useful for newbies as how to study systematically and log errors. Also I logged learning from all 25 GMAT clubs in that sheet and how I progressed from 20-25 percentile to 80-90 percentile after test 19-20.
________________________________________________________________________________
Ok so now I think I am done after 3 bloody battles .
Final attempt :
Quantitative : 48 Verbal 38 - Total - 710
Badly Bruised from the second attempt I took rest for a couple of days and immediately started off for take 3.
With all the weaklinks I have highlighted above I started prepping one last time for gmat. I found a new friend on this journey, knewton. I will just say that the course is worth the money. The recorded video lessons by David, Jess,Jen and Rich are absolutely wonderful. Knewton also plugged in any holes in my SC prep. Overall the SC/RC/Quant were good. CR’s were poor as most of them are just bad bad OG copies. Someone who has been thorough the OG can easily spot the answers because of the similarity.
Rest was routine. I did not study RC/CR’s as I was already very good at it. I also filled up any holes in my SC prep. I took all 6 knewton cats with quant peaking to 36/37 in a couple of cats and verbal score peaking to V49
!!! Knewton sectional scores are somewhat all over the park, however I cannot stress how consistent their overall scores are. Wonder how this happens though. :/. I regret having not studied CR the last one month. I struggled on a couple CR questions badly today. I got a very weird CR question stem which cannot be classified into any type. I can’t disclose it here. But that question was weirdo. Knewton scores : {750(diagnostic), 740, 750, 740,740, 710}
Test day :
All right, this time I was not in a hurry, I wrote the AWA all 60 mins. Started quant and checked every questions twice till question 20. I have now remarkably improved my quant after a year of studying. . For example today I solved a weighted average question both by linear formula and allegation. to be doubly sure. Checked all DS’s solving for a solution. In sum, I did really really well. I finished with just 13 secs to spare and was hoping for an improved score. I accept that I suck at GMAT quant, I could just improve 1 point after 5 months of hardwork !!
Verbal section. What can I say ? I lost the fire in the second half of the Verbal section. Last month’s performance was kinda playing on my mind. I got a few difficult SC’s with just a single word underlined. I had no clue what concepts were those SC’s testing. I got an evaluate and a flaw question mid way. RC’s were as usual easy. Its amazing how they test the same old concept in RC’s so often. They will just give views of a certain scientist and then say that earlier scientists did not share the same views. And they will throw a couple of questions such as.
1>The scientists of the earlier era were most likely to agree with which of the following - a wrong answer choice will include the views of the other group.
Such questions will become ridiculously easy once you spot that one little twist in the passage.
Ok I am done writing. I just realized that I have still not done justice to my signature below
. But I am done with the GMAT forever. Please find another excelsheet{"september the 9th"} which includes some notes and journey from GMAT-3.
Final words of thanks to Bunuel, Sriharimurthy, Whiplash, Sodenso, Fluke, Srijaidev , bb and all others who make GMAT club superb !!.
And I also wanna thank the awesome bunch of people who made GC tests. They are arguably the best quant material in GMAT land.
Please feel free to ask me about any prep company material. I have probably used them all
. Thank you all
bblast
Attachments
File comment: GMAT-2
July the 30th.xlsx [234.08 KiB]
Downloaded 78 times
File comment: GMAT-3
September the 9th.xlsx [113.67 KiB]
Downloaded 86 times
hakunamatata3
Joined: 03 Aug 2011
Last visit: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 41
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 17
Concentration: Social Entrepreneurship, General Management
Schools: Stanford '16 (S) HBS '16 (I)
GMAT 1: 770 Q51 V45
GPA: 3.94
WE:Management Consulting (Consulting)
11 Sep 2011, 09:15
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Congratulations! Your perseverance is inspirational.
11 Sep 2011, 09:45
Kudos
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wjdgusqls
Thanks wjdgusqls. Good luck to you for tomorrow. You are gonna rock !!
