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Hi all,
Feeling excited writing this post. Had always dreamt that one day I’ll be writing it. I was expecting to do well on the GMAT but frankly didn’t expect that I’d hit a high of what I was scoring on the mock tests.
I’ve been preparing for the GMAT for about 3 months. Honestly, I was targeting 750 and was pleasantly surprised by the results- a 770(Q-51,V-44)
Books & Test material used
1.The Official Guide
2. Aristotle SC Grail 3rd edition & Big Idiom Questionbank
3. Aristotle CR Grail & Ace the Bold face
4. Aristotle RC Grail
5. Manhattan GMAT Advanced Quant guide
6. PS and DS Boosters
7. GMAT Quantitative Review 2nd Edition
Test Scores
After every test, I would thoroughly spend 3-4 hours analyzing the test. This incredibly helped me improve my performance
Diagnostic Test-GMATPREP1-Before I started my prep: 620
Manhattan CAT 1 : 680 (Q46, V36)
Manhattan CAT 2 : 690 (Q45, V38)
Manhattan CAT 3 : 710 (Q48, V39)
Manhattan CAT 4 : 680 (Q46, V37)
Manhattan CAT 5 : 720 (Q47, V41)
Manhattan CAT 6 : 730 (Q45, V45)
GMATPrep CAT 1 : 740 (Q50, V40)
GMATPrep CAT 2 : 760 (Q51, V42)
GMAT: 770 (Q51, V44)
General Strategy
The longest time spent-3 weeks on SC
I started with Sentence Correction and focused on it for the first 2 weeks. Worked for around 5-6 hours everyday to complete the SC Grail theory and reference questions in OG. Then took another week to finish the questions at the end of SC Grail. After that I moved on to the OG SC questions. Finished them in another one week.
What I’d say is that doing questions is not important but rather learning from the questions especially in which you make mistake is very important because
a) Unless you don’t know the mistakes you’ve made you won’t be able to correct the mistake
b) Pattern recognition improves
c) Gives you the opportunity to look at questions in new perspectives
When you've got speed on your side and your technique's so good you know what process to apply even when you're reading the question, your accuracy improves as well
Tip #1: Maintain an error log and re-attempt all the questions that you get wrong. I saw my accuracy improving as a result of this
Killing the CR:
I loved CR- I found the CR questions to be intriguing, challenging and immensely satisfying once I got them correct. I’d miss doing these questions the most. I started with CR Grail and finished the different types of CR questions in 4-5 days. I practiced the questions from OG alongwith those at the end of CR Grail topicwise. For example in strengthen/weaken type of questions, I picked strengthen/weaken questions at the end of CR Grail and in OG and worked with them. Overall, I spent around 2 weeks in CR. I found the OG CR questions to be pretty good.
Tip #2: Paraphrasing CR questions before moving to the options is the key to ensure that you nail those difficult ones that leave you confused between the last two options
Playing with RC:
I did a few passages from OG before starting with strategies in RC Grail. I realized that my accuracy wasn’t bad and that concentration is the key to tackle RCs effectively. Also not getting lost in the details and trying to look at the big picture in passages would ensure that I’m not spending way too much time in reading passages.
Tip#3: In RC, after every para, try rephrasing what you just read otherwise sometimes it’s easy to get lost in long passages and spend way too much time on reading parts of passages that may not be relevant to the questions asked.
Building on Quant strength
Frankly speaking, the GMAT OG quant questions(at least the first 80% of the questions) are just crap. Pardon me for using that language but they just are. Any high school student would be able to do most of them-these questions are that easy.
I referred to Manhattan Advanced quant to build on my quant competencies which have been pretty strong thanks to being from an engineering undergrad. I practiced a lot of questions from miscellaneous sources also apart from that I practiced from PS and DS boosters as I didn’t want to practice as many questions as possible.
Tip#4: Don’t ignore what you are strong at. Verbal was my strength so I gave it 2/3rd of my prep time but I ensured that the rest of the 1/3rd time went to Quant as that was my forte.
Actual Test Day Experience
The AWA section helped me calm down myself and focus. The IR section went without much action and were in fact much easier than what I had done on the practice tests.
The Quant section seemed very much in line with the GMATPREP section and I was able to finish the test in 10 minutes before time.
The Verbal questions were slightly tricky, especially the Reading Comprehension and I constantly had to remind myself not to get disheartened and focus on the question at hand.
I was on the edge of my chair while waiting for the score and almost jumped off when I saw it. I was done with the GMAT for good!
My final takeaways:
1. Keep visiting these forums. The wealth of information available here is huge.
2. Maintain an error log. Without an error log, most of your prep will go waste
3. Master your weak areas and try doing most of question types in the recommended time frame. For example,for SC, the recommended time is 1 minute and if you are taking 2 minute/SC, then you are in trouble
Gonna party hard now.
It's my time now. To all those who are finding their GMAT journey difficult, please don't give up. Let me know if I can of any help.
Feeling excited writing this post. Had always dreamt that one day I’ll be writing it. I was expecting to do well on the GMAT but frankly didn’t expect that I’d hit a high of what I was scoring on the mock tests.
I’ve been preparing for the GMAT for about 3 months. Honestly, I was targeting 750 and was pleasantly surprised by the results- a 770(Q-51,V-44)
Books & Test material used
1.The Official Guide
2. Aristotle SC Grail 3rd edition & Big Idiom Questionbank
3. Aristotle CR Grail & Ace the Bold face
4. Aristotle RC Grail
5. Manhattan GMAT Advanced Quant guide
6. PS and DS Boosters
7. GMAT Quantitative Review 2nd Edition
Test Scores
After every test, I would thoroughly spend 3-4 hours analyzing the test. This incredibly helped me improve my performance
Diagnostic Test-GMATPREP1-Before I started my prep: 620
Manhattan CAT 1 : 680 (Q46, V36)
Manhattan CAT 2 : 690 (Q45, V38)
Manhattan CAT 3 : 710 (Q48, V39)
Manhattan CAT 4 : 680 (Q46, V37)
Manhattan CAT 5 : 720 (Q47, V41)
Manhattan CAT 6 : 730 (Q45, V45)
GMATPrep CAT 1 : 740 (Q50, V40)
GMATPrep CAT 2 : 760 (Q51, V42)
GMAT: 770 (Q51, V44)
General Strategy
The longest time spent-3 weeks on SC
I started with Sentence Correction and focused on it for the first 2 weeks. Worked for around 5-6 hours everyday to complete the SC Grail theory and reference questions in OG. Then took another week to finish the questions at the end of SC Grail. After that I moved on to the OG SC questions. Finished them in another one week.
What I’d say is that doing questions is not important but rather learning from the questions especially in which you make mistake is very important because
a) Unless you don’t know the mistakes you’ve made you won’t be able to correct the mistake
b) Pattern recognition improves
c) Gives you the opportunity to look at questions in new perspectives
When you've got speed on your side and your technique's so good you know what process to apply even when you're reading the question, your accuracy improves as well
Tip #1: Maintain an error log and re-attempt all the questions that you get wrong. I saw my accuracy improving as a result of this
Killing the CR:
I loved CR- I found the CR questions to be intriguing, challenging and immensely satisfying once I got them correct. I’d miss doing these questions the most. I started with CR Grail and finished the different types of CR questions in 4-5 days. I practiced the questions from OG alongwith those at the end of CR Grail topicwise. For example in strengthen/weaken type of questions, I picked strengthen/weaken questions at the end of CR Grail and in OG and worked with them. Overall, I spent around 2 weeks in CR. I found the OG CR questions to be pretty good.
Tip #2: Paraphrasing CR questions before moving to the options is the key to ensure that you nail those difficult ones that leave you confused between the last two options
Playing with RC:
I did a few passages from OG before starting with strategies in RC Grail. I realized that my accuracy wasn’t bad and that concentration is the key to tackle RCs effectively. Also not getting lost in the details and trying to look at the big picture in passages would ensure that I’m not spending way too much time in reading passages.
Tip#3: In RC, after every para, try rephrasing what you just read otherwise sometimes it’s easy to get lost in long passages and spend way too much time on reading parts of passages that may not be relevant to the questions asked.
Building on Quant strength
Frankly speaking, the GMAT OG quant questions(at least the first 80% of the questions) are just crap. Pardon me for using that language but they just are. Any high school student would be able to do most of them-these questions are that easy.
I referred to Manhattan Advanced quant to build on my quant competencies which have been pretty strong thanks to being from an engineering undergrad. I practiced a lot of questions from miscellaneous sources also apart from that I practiced from PS and DS boosters as I didn’t want to practice as many questions as possible.
Tip#4: Don’t ignore what you are strong at. Verbal was my strength so I gave it 2/3rd of my prep time but I ensured that the rest of the 1/3rd time went to Quant as that was my forte.
Actual Test Day Experience
The AWA section helped me calm down myself and focus. The IR section went without much action and were in fact much easier than what I had done on the practice tests.
The Quant section seemed very much in line with the GMATPREP section and I was able to finish the test in 10 minutes before time.
The Verbal questions were slightly tricky, especially the Reading Comprehension and I constantly had to remind myself not to get disheartened and focus on the question at hand.
I was on the edge of my chair while waiting for the score and almost jumped off when I saw it. I was done with the GMAT for good!
My final takeaways:
1. Keep visiting these forums. The wealth of information available here is huge.
2. Maintain an error log. Without an error log, most of your prep will go waste
3. Master your weak areas and try doing most of question types in the recommended time frame. For example,for SC, the recommended time is 1 minute and if you are taking 2 minute/SC, then you are in trouble
Gonna party hard now.
It's my time now. To all those who are finding their GMAT journey difficult, please don't give up. Let me know if I can of any help. 
28 May 2015, 10:40
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What do you mean that the quant questions were crap? As in, they were super easy for you?
Not sure how this would make you an "average Joe."
Not sure how this would make you an "average Joe."
