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10 Jan 2006, 19:48
Kudos
Bookmarks
My first post and its quite long.
The score is a rather indifferent one i.e I didn't hit the ball out of the park with a 780/790(One of my wife's friends has a 790 and she thinks I'm useless unless i score in that range
) and I don't even have a pathetic enough score that warrants taking it again. My quant percentile (86) still rankles and since I'm pursuing Financial Engineering programs too, it doesn't look good.
On to the test details.
I took this one at San Francisco. The Pearson Vue Center is at an excellent location opposite Levi's Plaza. My appointment was at 9:45 but i was there a little before 9. I sat on a bench for a while to calm myself from the train ride + walk before going up. They don't seem to have specific timeslots reserved for people and they let me in immediately. The testing center itself was reasonably quiet i.e no constant barrage of people talking or walking in and out and I generally liked it.
I was visibly nervous and while going through the intial instructions, I took an unscheduled break to drink some water which made me lose abt. 20 seconds on my first Anal writing question.
Anal writing.
I doubt anyone is interested in these. I got an argument that was pretty strong. Read it for a while and picked a few holes in it and then essentially corrected my punctuation for the last few mins(I have a habit of ending questions with a stop).
Quant
With anal done I took a break which turned out to be longer than I wanted so I ended up running to my seat with 2 seconds left of the break. There's a 1 min section where they relay instructions and then it starts. The next time I think I'll just stay at my seat instead of going out.
I started quant in a complete melt down. I was taking 10 seconds to find the square of a single number and working out elementary questions rigorously on paper. Must have spent 2.5 mins each on the 1st 2 questions which is too high given how easy they usually area. There's the pull of getting done with them and moving to the harder stuff where time is of essence and also the urge to get them right. In all my practice tests i noticed about 5-6 mistakes each with 3 careless ones and I wanted to avoid those. The 4th question was a DS question on coordinate geometry which I think I missed. It was part of the meltdown phase. I think it was the 5th question that I misread completely and wandered off at a tangent. When I finally realised my mistake, I had the option of trying to solve it or just guess and move on. I guessed and moved on. A bummer coz it was a real sitter.
I went through some DS after that with algebra, number theory and a little geometry thrown in and I was doing fine with most of them however i had to speed up because I had wasted 6 mins on question 5 and was about 4 questions behind pace. The hardest one i felt in the next series was a geometry question which i answered correctly . Towards question 26-27 i got a DS question which i didn't solve completely. I found A was true and got a solution for B but didn't rigorously prove to myself that it was always true and answered E. Thereafter I felt the questions were getting a little easier. Around 33 I got a question I thought was ambiguous; I mean answer B could be interpreted multiple ways. I made a choice and moved on. Got my second statistics question around 33-34 and it seemed awfully easy unless i completely misinterpreted it.
Verbal
-------
The verbal started out with 3 SCs followed by 1-2 CRs followed by a short RC. That was followed by 3 SC's another small RC and then more SCs. I was a little worried that I wasn't getting CRs or they came just 1 or 2 at a time. Towards question 30 i got a long RC with 6 questions on it and the last 5 were all CRs. I was exactly on time at question 30 but the long RC and subsequent questions put me behind. By the time I was at the CRs I was behind. These were the tougher varieties where one has to read each choice and the reasoning is of the 2nd order and not obvious. Ended up having to answer the last question in 30-45 seconds and I'm sure i got it wrong.
-----
Then there's the usual statistics and demography questions that I had already answered when I registered. Given my GMATPrep tests I was expecting a 720 and I got 730. Not bad but not thrilling either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preparation.
My story should probably read as what not to do when taking the GMAT.
I should say i started out in late september when i bought my first book ARCO late September. AS mentioned in numerous other posts, you develop a plan of preparation and then execute on it not buy a book and see how it goes. In my case i was happy scoring full points on the ARCO quant and concentrating only on verbal problems. As posted in these forums, don't buy the ARCO book and depend on the tests. The quant is too easy especially in the paper version. Even the CD version had easier quant than the real test.
I decided late Oct. that I wanted to take the exam in November and looked for a test date and nothing was available. I had to make a trip to my homecountry in Dec. and Dec. was out so i chose a date in jan. Moral of the story:pick a date as early as you can, ideally when you start preparation.
All in all i had exactly 4 days with the OG and 5 with MGMAT's SC guide when I came back from vacation but I did learn a lot from MGMAT's SC guide. I can't say that my scores hit the stratosphere but i was approaching SC with more confidence. I wish i had bought the RC and CR guides too.
Test results
800score.com
Average Quant 48 (high 51, low 46)
Average Verbal 40 (high 53, low 35) - not sure how i got the 53 but i did.
MGMAT
Test 1 - 690
Test 2 - 720
Test 3 - 710
GmatPrep
Test 1 - 750
Test 2 - 730
Ruminations
--------------
Looking back I realised my preparation was extremely choppy and occurred in fits and starts. One should instead plan on a 1.5-2 month study spree. I think 1.5-2 months is essential especially if you are starting from scratch on both quant and verbal. Also I took way too many tests in the last 4 days instead of studying different types of questions. Even if you think you're strong in quant (I think I am, and i love the probability questions), practice the DS. There's plenty of traps in there and spotting them comes with practice and you find out your weaknesses.
The score is a rather indifferent one i.e I didn't hit the ball out of the park with a 780/790(One of my wife's friends has a 790 and she thinks I'm useless unless i score in that range
) and I don't even have a pathetic enough score that warrants taking it again. My quant percentile (86) still rankles and since I'm pursuing Financial Engineering programs too, it doesn't look good.
On to the test details.
I took this one at San Francisco. The Pearson Vue Center is at an excellent location opposite Levi's Plaza. My appointment was at 9:45 but i was there a little before 9. I sat on a bench for a while to calm myself from the train ride + walk before going up. They don't seem to have specific timeslots reserved for people and they let me in immediately. The testing center itself was reasonably quiet i.e no constant barrage of people talking or walking in and out and I generally liked it.
I was visibly nervous and while going through the intial instructions, I took an unscheduled break to drink some water which made me lose abt. 20 seconds on my first Anal writing question.
Anal writing.
I doubt anyone is interested in these. I got an argument that was pretty strong. Read it for a while and picked a few holes in it and then essentially corrected my punctuation for the last few mins(I have a habit of ending questions with a stop).
Quant
With anal done I took a break which turned out to be longer than I wanted so I ended up running to my seat with 2 seconds left of the break. There's a 1 min section where they relay instructions and then it starts. The next time I think I'll just stay at my seat instead of going out.
I started quant in a complete melt down. I was taking 10 seconds to find the square of a single number and working out elementary questions rigorously on paper. Must have spent 2.5 mins each on the 1st 2 questions which is too high given how easy they usually area. There's the pull of getting done with them and moving to the harder stuff where time is of essence and also the urge to get them right. In all my practice tests i noticed about 5-6 mistakes each with 3 careless ones and I wanted to avoid those. The 4th question was a DS question on coordinate geometry which I think I missed. It was part of the meltdown phase. I think it was the 5th question that I misread completely and wandered off at a tangent. When I finally realised my mistake, I had the option of trying to solve it or just guess and move on. I guessed and moved on. A bummer coz it was a real sitter.
I went through some DS after that with algebra, number theory and a little geometry thrown in and I was doing fine with most of them however i had to speed up because I had wasted 6 mins on question 5 and was about 4 questions behind pace. The hardest one i felt in the next series was a geometry question which i answered correctly . Towards question 26-27 i got a DS question which i didn't solve completely. I found A was true and got a solution for B but didn't rigorously prove to myself that it was always true and answered E. Thereafter I felt the questions were getting a little easier. Around 33 I got a question I thought was ambiguous; I mean answer B could be interpreted multiple ways. I made a choice and moved on. Got my second statistics question around 33-34 and it seemed awfully easy unless i completely misinterpreted it.
Verbal
-------
The verbal started out with 3 SCs followed by 1-2 CRs followed by a short RC. That was followed by 3 SC's another small RC and then more SCs. I was a little worried that I wasn't getting CRs or they came just 1 or 2 at a time. Towards question 30 i got a long RC with 6 questions on it and the last 5 were all CRs. I was exactly on time at question 30 but the long RC and subsequent questions put me behind. By the time I was at the CRs I was behind. These were the tougher varieties where one has to read each choice and the reasoning is of the 2nd order and not obvious. Ended up having to answer the last question in 30-45 seconds and I'm sure i got it wrong.
-----
Then there's the usual statistics and demography questions that I had already answered when I registered. Given my GMATPrep tests I was expecting a 720 and I got 730. Not bad but not thrilling either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preparation.
My story should probably read as what not to do when taking the GMAT.
I should say i started out in late september when i bought my first book ARCO late September. AS mentioned in numerous other posts, you develop a plan of preparation and then execute on it not buy a book and see how it goes. In my case i was happy scoring full points on the ARCO quant and concentrating only on verbal problems. As posted in these forums, don't buy the ARCO book and depend on the tests. The quant is too easy especially in the paper version. Even the CD version had easier quant than the real test.
I decided late Oct. that I wanted to take the exam in November and looked for a test date and nothing was available. I had to make a trip to my homecountry in Dec. and Dec. was out so i chose a date in jan. Moral of the story:pick a date as early as you can, ideally when you start preparation.
All in all i had exactly 4 days with the OG and 5 with MGMAT's SC guide when I came back from vacation but I did learn a lot from MGMAT's SC guide. I can't say that my scores hit the stratosphere but i was approaching SC with more confidence. I wish i had bought the RC and CR guides too.
Test results
800score.com
Average Quant 48 (high 51, low 46)
Average Verbal 40 (high 53, low 35) - not sure how i got the 53 but i did.
MGMAT
Test 1 - 690
Test 2 - 720
Test 3 - 710
GmatPrep
Test 1 - 750
Test 2 - 730
Ruminations
--------------
Looking back I realised my preparation was extremely choppy and occurred in fits and starts. One should instead plan on a 1.5-2 month study spree. I think 1.5-2 months is essential especially if you are starting from scratch on both quant and verbal. Also I took way too many tests in the last 4 days instead of studying different types of questions. Even if you think you're strong in quant (I think I am, and i love the probability questions), practice the DS. There's plenty of traps in there and spotting them comes with practice and you find out your weaknesses.
11 Jan 2006, 00:30
Kudos
Bookmarks
Firstly, let me congratulate you on your 730 score. Anytime you score 700+, I think that's an achievement. Your wife's friend who commented that you're useless unless you score 790 range is absurd. GMAT doesn't measure a person's capability. I know of people who are smarter than me crashing with a GMAT score of low 600+ region, but they're very capable with what they're working on. So let that comment bother you too much.
Secondly, you said you took the test at a Pearson Vue center. I am under the impression they give you white-boards but you said you worked the quant section using paper. Is that right??
Secondly, you said you took the test at a Pearson Vue center. I am under the impression they give you white-boards but you said you worked the quant section using paper. Is that right??
11 Jan 2006, 19:57
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thanks for the kind words but like I said its the quant that rankles along with my inability to get careless mistakes out of the way.
I took the test at pearson vue and you're right in that they give you markers with erasable sheets(not paper, i'm not sure i'd call them boards either). I dropped the cover of the marker on the floor and towards the end of the exam it got dry and wasn't writing well so make sure you don't do that.
PS
Its my wife not the friend who i think, thinks(is that gramatically correct ?) i'm useless . well, such is life.. no sweat.
I took the test at pearson vue and you're right in that they give you markers with erasable sheets(not paper, i'm not sure i'd call them boards either). I dropped the cover of the marker on the floor and towards the end of the exam it got dry and wasn't writing well so make sure you don't do that.
PS
Its my wife not the friend who i think, thinks(is that gramatically correct ?) i'm useless
. well, such is life.. no sweat. 
