Cracked GMAT - 780! Yahoooo!!

awsome score!! Congratulations mckenna..

Visit us with ur test experience..

Best of luck for ur Apps..

wow ! Awesome score ! Congrats ! Always knew u will nail it good !
After u r rested come back and tell us abt ur prep strategy, practice scores, OG hit rate in different sections. Congrats again !

Wonderful...Boy 3 people stuck at 780 from this forum since early March this year...

Thats a wonderful score... Congrats !!!! Keep it up

WOW... amazing congrats and good luck.

Another gr8 job by another GMAT Club member.
Congratulations Mckenna. goodluck....

Congratulations!!!
If possible please continue to hang out here...like HongHu does...

Thanks.

Thanks everyone for the wishes. Here are the details.

Exam details
---------------
I hadn't prepared well for the essays. So I was a bit worried about the AWA section. Luckily the issue essay on the exam was one of the 20 or so essays topics that I had analyzed during my preparation. That got me started on a good note. At the end of the AWA section I was relaxed and begining to have a good feeling.

I took a 10-minute-long 5 minute break. Before I started math, I moved the keyboard to one corner and created a big workspace for myself. I just used the mouse for the rest of the test.

Math questions were very similar to the ones in OG. About 1/3rd questions were of the same difficulty as that of the last 100 OG questions. The rest were of moderate difficulty. A couple of DS questions involving number theory and statistics were tricky. I almost fell for one or two of those. But a recheck, which I do invariably for DS questions, helped me catch the error/s. There was only 1 probability/combinatorics question, a rather straight forward one. I was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of number theory questions. All in all, the math section was at the same level of difficulty as the math on PP tests.

By now I was feeling very good. I knew I had over-prepared and was happy to see it paying off. I took one more those 10-minute-long 5min breaks. Before going back in, I stuffed myself with lots of high sugar food. I believe that it gives me the edge! I swear I get an instant rush of energy in the brain Guess its all in the head

Verbal started off with 3 SCs. Not surprisingly, they were not very straight forward. Each question involved multiple concepts. Its very important that one practise SC questions involving multiple concepts. The SCs were followed by a difficult passage on women's rights. Luckily the questions were not as difficult. Then it was an SC, one more multi-concept question, followed by the first CR. CR question was an easy one. However, a momentary lapse of concentration meant I had to read the question and the options twice! Its so important to not let the guard down through out. Then came the second passage - another passage on women's education and this time it was long. I knew I was doing good. Questions were difficult this time. I believe I nailed it. Then came a series of 3-4 CRs(causation, survey, percentages etc) - none too difficult, none too different from OG. Then came the third RC. Gosh I dont remember the topic. But I was glad that I was getting done with RCs sooner than later. By this time I was on question 21 with 40 minutes at hand. It was a perfect pace, as I wanted to keep some extra time for deadly questions in the end. After successfully finishing the third RC, I came across a number of CRs and SCs - with varying difficulty. There were some easy ones here. At 32, I came across a bold face question; it was an easy one to my luck. Then, at #33, when I was cruising comfortably with 15 minutes left, came the deadly passage. But I was prepared for this one, as I made an extra effort to save clocktime for the last 8, usually difficult questions. It was a very long and difficult science passage on venus' craters - the language, the length and questions made it a difficult passage. Being mentally prepared really helped me on this one. I nailed it and moved on. I was still doing ok on the clock - 5 more to go with 8 mins on the clock.
Nailed 2 CRs and 1 SC that followed. I was now left with 2 questions and 3 minutes on the clock. Well, then came the killer question - a very long CR; it had so much information that by the time I had organized the data I was left with just 1 min on the clock. I panicked a little and rushed through the last two questions. I did the best I could in that little remaining time. I am very sure I missed the last CR, #40. Not sure about #41, an SC.

My strategy
-------------
1. I just love RCs - each RC provides me with a new piece of information. Once I put this idea, and the idea that RC is all about comprehension, to practice RC section was a breeze.

2. For SCs, I made notes of all the rules/tricks/quirks that I learnt over the past 2 months. I regularly revised and updated my notes. Also, I practised with a number of questions taken from OG, this forum, ETS Tests, GMAT+, Kaplan, Barrons and PR. I did all the SC questions twice, to reinforce my understanding of the rules.

3. CR was never an issue for me; I spent relatively very little time on CR.

My scores on practice tests
-------------------------------
PR1 - 720 51q 39v
PR2 - 720 51q 39v

PP1 - 740 51q 39v

OG SCs - 88%
OG CRs - 96%
OG RCs - 90%

ACE-the-GMAT1 - 765
ACE-the-GMAT2 - 740
ACE-the-GMAT3 - 770

Crack-the-GMAT1 - 650
Crack-the-GMAT2 - 710
Crack-the-GMAT3 - 750
Crack-the-GMAT4 - 640

ETS #14 - 760
ETS #31 - 800
ETS #55 - 800
ETS #25 - 800

Kaplan 1 - 670
Kaplan 2 - 700
Kaplan 3 - 780

PR3 - 740 51q 42v
PR4 - 760 51q 45v

ETS #37 - 790
ETS #48 - 780
ETS #28 - 790
ETS #42 - 770
ETS #52 - 800

PP2 - 780 50q 47v

I can't believe I took so many tests
I badly wanted a good score!

My background
-----------------
BSEE from IIT Madras, India
MSEE from Purdue, USA
5 years of experience in high tech.

I would like to thank you all; I owe a big part of my success on the verbal to this forum. Paul, Banerjee, Nocilis, Honghu, gmat2me2, praveen, jpv, MA, chunjuwu, wilfred, antmavel, dlmd, folaa, swath - you guys rock!! Sorry if I have missed anyone else who taught me some tip or the other

Thank you.

It is commendable that even with a job u were able to invest so much time in ur preparation and that too did it in 2 mos. Bravo ! Must feel good scoring so high !

McKenna, Other than OG, Kap and this forum, where else did u study for SC ? Also were the OG SC questions different than the ones in real test ? How was ur overall feel abt the verbal section w.r.t verbal in OG ? Also from where did u prepare for AWA ?

Mckenna, your story is definitely impresive and detail.
Could you pls post your SC notes?
Thanks.

I think that is excellent way of viewing CR.You are correct,each CR is nothing but comprehension of some info.I will try apply... For CR preperation,did you also happen to read any of the articles on the websites like National Geographic,A&D etc.,

I see that you are also from San Jose area, I can buy any books or CD's that you may not need...Please PM me.

Thanks.

Banerjee,
Yes it certainly feels good after the hard work. It took me about 10weeks. I used to take a test every other day.

For SCs, I practised from OG, this forum, GMAT+, Kap800, Kap, PR, CrackGMAT. I didn't have time, though I did try to locate, albeit unsuccessfully, VStudy material.

MA,
I will post the notes after a few days.

Thanks

Well done Mckenna! You deserve the score. Your Kaplan score is just amazing.
From the confidence in your voice when you talked to me a few days earlier, I knew you will do it.

Best wishes. Call me sometime we can talk about 'app'ing

cool..

any tips related to Pacing...

also, how will you rate the (SC and CR) questions in exam with the questions posted here..

jpv,
1. Pacing: I followed the following strategy for verbal. I believe its a good pacing strategy if you are aiming for a 750+ score.

First 10 questions - 18 mins
Next 10 questions - 18 mins
Next 10 - 18 mins
Last 11 - 21 mins

May be you can add a minute or two more to the first 10 questions. My feeling is that the last 8 questions are going to be tough nuts, especially if you do well on the first 2/3rd of the test. In my experience, the last passage was always the longest!

2. CRs on the actual test were much easier than the ones we discuss here. CRs on the actual test closely mimic the ones in OG.

3. Many SCs that we discuss on the forum are poorly constructed. I felt that the SCs on the acutal test were difficult, but unambiguous. As I said before, many SCs on the exam were testing more than one concept at a time.

I get frightened whenever anyone says this.
Tell me about these:
Do SC questions test anything more than those 6 basic errors?
Do they only combine these basic errors or do they test something more convoluted or another concept?
What will you suggest us to improve our SC scores particularly?