Hey guys, took the GMAT today and am absolutely ecstatic on getting a 750(Q-50,V-44). The success is all the more sweet because this was my first attempt and I am relieved that I wouldn't have to pick up the books again. I have almost got fed up of studying. I joined this forum in August, started my preparation in the week of October with full gusto. It all went pretty good for the initial two weeks when I started losing motivation to study. Finally started the preparation seriously in December first week by booking the GMAT appointment. So in all studied for around 3.5 months. Here's a brief lowdown of how I studied: Quant : I didn't have much trouble with Maths. Got the complete set of MGMAT Math strategy Guides .I especially loved MGMAT Number properties book . I had heard great reviews about Veritas Combinatorics and Probability book,so ordered that also which was pretty good. Did the official Guide Maths questions ,but found most of them to be too easy. Only the last 50-60 questions were good. Used gmatclub Maths tests for practising maths questions. Sentence Correction : I started Sentence correction with Aristotle SC Grail and then moved on MGMAT SC Guide. The SC Grail really helped me understand the SC in an easy way. I finished it within a week and then moved on to Manhattan SC Guide. After having practised the questions in the SC Grail questionbank, I moved on to OG12 and as suggested by the members here. I ensured that I was focusing on reading the explanations instead of plainly practising questions. I probably read all the explanations to questions and since I already had a good grasp of the grammatical concepts and the error types tested, I could understand the explanations(which otherwise sounded cryptic) easily.By reading the explanations, I think I think that I could train myself how to recognize errors easily. Critical Reasnoning : Initially, I'd attempt all the CR question with no particular strategy as I thought that CR is all about logic. Although the accuracy rate was not bad,but then also I knew that there would definitely be some concrete strategies for tackling CR. Did some research on the internet and came across a couple of videos by Ron Purewal and then used MGMAT CR Guide. What I learnt was that each question type in CR has to be tackled in a particular way and using a generalized approach for all types of questions though may work in lower difficulty level questions, but it will not be effective in higher difficulty ones. I learnt these strategies inside out, and was confident. Reading Comprehension : I have been quite a voracious reader so I thought that I do not need to prepare for RCs which to some extent was true. However, as I practised RCs ,I realized that a lot of times I was not able to comprehend passages properly because I had big time problem maintaining my concentration while reading the passages . Secondly, in difficult passages ,I couldn't remember what I had read in the previous paragraphs. So as the experts suggest here, I started taking notes and contrary to what I had thought, the method worked. I started with the passages in the official guide and then moved on to RC99 . I did almost all the passages in OG12 . I skipped all the low difficulty passages in RC99 and straightway jumped to the 33 medium difficulty level passages. Finished around 15 high difficulty level passages when I realized that I am stressing myself more than I should and I should take a break for some days and then start taking practice tests. Practice Tests MGMAT CAT 1 # 680, CAT 2 # 700 , CAT 3# 720 , CAT 4# 680 ,CAT 5 # 690 , CAT 6 #700 GMAT PREP 1 # 710 , GMAT PREP 2 # 720 Actual GMAT # 750 (50,44) As you can see ,my scores hovered between 680-720 in most of the CATs ,and I was expecting something in a similar range but it was a surprise how I landed up with a 750. I am seriously clueless as to how I scored a 750 and can't think of explanations except for the fact that luck was on side. Though I had prepared well for Verbal, but a score of 44 is ridiculously high for me(not that I am complaining now! :D) Here are my thoughts on the GMAT 1. It's a lot about the D-day : After seeing my score,I think that the GMAT is a lot about your performance on the actual exam. I was basically not aiming for a very high score and would have been happy even with a 700 but seems like the Gods were smiling on me during the test and fortunately I landed up with a much score higher than I would have anticipated. 2. Remaining motivated : I guess this was the biggest problem I had faced in the initial stage of my preparation. Although I had time but I had difficulty remaining motivated as studying at the age of 28 would be the last thing you would like to do. So I booked my date in November itself and as the countdown began, I could feel that the GMAT was slowly moving from the periphery to the center of my life. 3. Do not study extremely difficult material : I know we all have the urge to study the most difficult of the material simply because we feel that that would give us a reassurance of the fact that we are tackling the hardest material out there. I believe that that is an illusion. There's no point in wasting time doing unreasonably difficult questions as doing that is ,firstly, not helpful and secondly, it will give you a false estimate about the kind of questions you're likely to see on the GMAT . I had done a couple of questions from the "Brutal SC document" and i had gotten almost all questions wrong. Even after going through the explanations, I knew that I'm not learning anything from these questions and even on the worse day, the GMAT is not gonna throw that brutal questions-in fact, the questions in the brutal SC document are not even GMAT type in the way they test the errors. 4. You can get a good score even without getting all questions correct t: I had gotten a couple of question in Quant on the GMAT which looked difficult to me. I admit that I did plain(or maybe educated) guesswork on 4-5 questions on Quant . Though I panicked for sometime thinking that I am doomed ,but in the end a score of 49 on the Quant indicates that I did not do badly on Quant. I think the biggest lesson I learnt from this is that managing time-not wasting an inordinate amount of time-is as important as getting a question correct. Am ecstatic about getting a 750 and I think this was the greatest surprise I have been given in life so far. Now with this score, I think I'll look at better schools. Thanks for reading this post and thanks to all the members here. The moral of the story is "EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY"

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Clueless how I got a 750(Q-50,V-42)

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hustler22

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29 Oct 2011, 20:47

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Great score Paul richards. Which schools are you planning to apply to ?

kostyan5

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Concentration: General Management, Technology

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GMAT 1: 760 Q49 V44 Verified score

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Schools: Sloan '16 (D)

GMAT 1: 760 Q49 V44 Verified score

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01 Nov 2011, 14:49

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Well done. I got 710 on first 2 GMAT Prep tests. Today retook one of them and got 750. Hoping to match you on actual.

Paulrichards

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04 Nov 2011, 06:03

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hustler22

Great score Paul richards. Which schools are you planning to apply to ?

I'm targetting the European schools. One year MBA is what I want to do , so they seem to be good fit for me.
@kostyan
All the best.

gmatgaga

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22 Nov 2011, 05:23

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Paulrichards

hustler22

Great score Paul richards. Which schools are you planning to apply to ?

I'm targetting the European schools. One year MBA is what I want to do , so they seem to be good fit for me.
@kostyan
All the best.

Are you applying to SDA Bocconi also ? I was thinking of applying to that school but given the current scenario of the Italian economy, I am really scared of applying there.

Paulrichards

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28 Nov 2011, 06:06

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gmatgaga

Are you applying to SDA Bocconi also ? I was thinking of applying to that school but given the current scenario of the Italian economy, I am really scared of applying there.

Haha. Same here. It's better to stay away from Italy at the moment.

ashiima

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04 Dec 2011, 23:45

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Verbal 44 is phenomenal- I am stuck at 38 right now

great job

meisam63

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15 Dec 2011, 08:28

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Congratulations on your score!

foofighter5

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29 Dec 2011, 11:38

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@Paul
Got any admission decision so far ? Since you're one of the very few candidates here targetting european schools only,I'd be really interested in discussing with you about European schools once you're done with your applications.

surya02

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07 Jan 2012, 10:51

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Congratulations Paul. You're a rockstar. Any idea about Emylon ? I recently met one of its representatives in one admission fair in India and he was all praises for the school.

Paulrichards

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12 Jan 2012, 06:29

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surya02

Congratulations Paul. You're a rockstar. Any idea about Emylon ? I recently met one of its representatives in one admission fair in India and he was all praises for the school.

Remember, that any business school representative will be all praises for his school. Even if Hult representatives come, they'll praise the school because at the end of the day, the gotta sell their schools because if they don't , how will they make money. So one needs to be judicious
Regarding Emlyon, it's not very well known outside France. I'm not even sure about the average GMAT and other stats for the school because they don't publish them. Basically, it's not a tier 1 or tier 2 schools, it's one of those safety schools which you would want to look at if you're unable to make it anywhere.

invincibleforce

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13 Feb 2012, 00:19

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Paulrichards

Good advice. One needs to be wise enough to distinguish the good from the bad ones lest you want to regret your decision later . MBA is a huge investment in terms of time, money and efforts and a bad decision can put you back on all these three areas.

jazzman

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13 Feb 2012, 01:08

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Awesome job and great debrief!

gmatgaga

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24 Feb 2012, 23:01

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Paulrichards

surya02

Congratulations Paul. You're a rockstar. Any idea about Emylon ? I recently met one of its representatives in one admission fair in India and he was all praises for the school.

Very good advice. I recently met a representative of University of Texas,Dallas at an MBA fair. The way she talked about the school made it appear as though it is the best school out there. Came back home and checked the rankings and it did not even figure even in the top 50 schools . So one has to do a thorough search before making any decision.

gmatgunner

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15 Mar 2012, 10:55

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So where are you finally heading to Paul ? Which continent, which country or rather which business school ? :-D

gauravdangi

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09 Apr 2012, 04:18

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Great debrief. Where are you finally headed to ?

hustler22

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27 Apr 2012, 04:38

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Nice job. Seems like Paul has already headed to a nice place, where there is no access to gmatclub to satiate the curiosity of the members here as to where he currently is! :D

Paulrichards

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04 May 2012, 02:17

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Am sorry guys. Haven't been able to respond here for quite sometime. I got admits from IE Spain and HEC Paris. I am headed to HEC as the brand value of the school is great and I always wanted to understand the french culture, not to mention learning French. I think the school is great and some of the fellow applicants whom I have met seem to be really great. I am really excited about joining the school. I thank you all folks here for the great amount of support this forum provided me . Thanks a lot to all you great people out here.

shovitdhar

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07 May 2012, 01:59

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Whoa! HEC Paris is a great school. I'm sure that you are going to have a great time at the school . Did you also,by the way, apply to INSEAD ?

gmatgaga

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13 May 2012, 01:40

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I'm so happy to hear this great news.

Many many congratulations. Have sent you a PM . Would be glad if you can reply to it.

Paulrichards

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09 Jun 2012, 03:55

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shovitdhar

Whoa! HEC Paris is a great school. I'm sure that you are going to have a great time at the school . Did you also,by the way, apply to INSEAD ?

Yes, had applied to INSEAD as well but couldn't convert it into an admit. But I'm equally happy with HEC also. The schools are almost in the same league though INSEAD is almost always at the top in Europe followed by LBS and then HEC. So all in all, I think I'm glad to have gotten through HEC.

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