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04 Nov 2016, 06:16
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi,
I won't make this post long as I for one would not have read a long debrief. Quick words about me and what helped me get 770.
I am Comp. Science grad from IIT (Good Grad. School in India). Good at Quant, the stereotype. My earlier experience with GMAT was in 2013. I got 690 (Q50, V31) with 1 week OG practice. Had no intention for MBA at that time. Three years down the line (couple of busted startups later), I zeroed in on MBA. 8 weeks preparation.
First 4 weeks was reading Manhattan Prep books, CR Bible, Veritas Prep Books, OG 16 etc. Then I took Manhattan Mock test, I got 680. Was disheartened. I was standing from where I had started. That's when I read the debriefs from other people on GMAT club and followed the below strategy for next 4 weeks.
1. Stayed away from all non-OG questions. We have ample Official questions available now. Bought revised OG 2017 books. Non-OG questions (no disrespect to any coaching company), are just that non-Official. They are okay to reach 690-700 but the flip side is, they don't let you go any higher. (My personal opinion)
2. My weak point was SC. I was taking 2min on avg and getting most wrong. Thus I was getting less time for RC and in turn getting them wrong too. CR was decent. So I targeted 1min avg for SC with high accuracy and got to work.
3. I came to know about Ron's SC videos and finished them all. Gave me a good start.
4. Then came the tough part. I started analysing each Official Question in depth. Specially the wrong answers. I spent around 20-25 min on each SC question. Trying to figure out why the wrong answers are wrong and what rules do they break. Didn't move to the next question without dissecting the answers. Used google a lot. GmatClub question discussions helped me a lot. Also ManhattanPrep forum discussions for GMAT prep questions are good.
5. Most of it was mental. I stopped looking for best of 5 answers. I started believing that there is no best of 5. Only 1 answer is correct. Rest 4 are horribly wrong. This was the turning point. Once you realise that and start believing that, SC becomes very easy. And horribly wrong 4 answers is what separates Official problems from non-Official problems.
6. RC was mostly getting purpose of passage question right (Ron's video helped). Detail questions are easy if you have saved time on SC.
7. I bought GMAT Prep Exam pack 1/2. Got regular scores of 750+ there. For those wanting to crack a good score. Please do buy these tests. You get 4 tests. And these are new questions, so you get a good estimate of your score. GMAT Prep (free tests) gets spoiled as you would have seen many of them already.
In conclusion. Concentrate only on everything official. Believe that 4 answers are horribly wrong. You just have to find why.
I won't make this post long as I for one would not have read a long debrief. Quick words about me and what helped me get 770.
I am Comp. Science grad from IIT (Good Grad. School in India). Good at Quant, the stereotype. My earlier experience with GMAT was in 2013. I got 690 (Q50, V31) with 1 week OG practice. Had no intention for MBA at that time. Three years down the line (couple of busted startups later), I zeroed in on MBA. 8 weeks preparation.
First 4 weeks was reading Manhattan Prep books, CR Bible, Veritas Prep Books, OG 16 etc. Then I took Manhattan Mock test, I got 680. Was disheartened. I was standing from where I had started. That's when I read the debriefs from other people on GMAT club and followed the below strategy for next 4 weeks.
1. Stayed away from all non-OG questions. We have ample Official questions available now. Bought revised OG 2017 books. Non-OG questions (no disrespect to any coaching company), are just that non-Official. They are okay to reach 690-700 but the flip side is, they don't let you go any higher. (My personal opinion)
2. My weak point was SC. I was taking 2min on avg and getting most wrong. Thus I was getting less time for RC and in turn getting them wrong too. CR was decent. So I targeted 1min avg for SC with high accuracy and got to work.
3. I came to know about Ron's SC videos and finished them all. Gave me a good start.
4. Then came the tough part. I started analysing each Official Question in depth. Specially the wrong answers. I spent around 20-25 min on each SC question. Trying to figure out why the wrong answers are wrong and what rules do they break. Didn't move to the next question without dissecting the answers. Used google a lot. GmatClub question discussions helped me a lot. Also ManhattanPrep forum discussions for GMAT prep questions are good.
5. Most of it was mental. I stopped looking for best of 5 answers. I started believing that there is no best of 5. Only 1 answer is correct. Rest 4 are horribly wrong. This was the turning point. Once you realise that and start believing that, SC becomes very easy. And horribly wrong 4 answers is what separates Official problems from non-Official problems.
6. RC was mostly getting purpose of passage question right (Ron's video helped). Detail questions are easy if you have saved time on SC.
7. I bought GMAT Prep Exam pack 1/2. Got regular scores of 750+ there. For those wanting to crack a good score. Please do buy these tests. You get 4 tests. And these are new questions, so you get a good estimate of your score. GMAT Prep (free tests) gets spoiled as you would have seen many of them already.
In conclusion. Concentrate only on everything official. Believe that 4 answers are horribly wrong. You just have to find why.
04 Nov 2016, 09:36
Kudos
Bookmarks
What a brilliant score! Out of 8 weeks of preparation, it seems that you were at 690 after 4 weeks. So, basically the balance 4 weeks of your preparation made you jump from 690 to 770. That's very amazing.
Can you advice what you mean by that horribly wrong 4 answers is what separates Official problems from non-Official problems?
Can you advice what you mean by that horribly wrong 4 answers is what separates Official problems from non-Official problems?
04 Nov 2016, 13:25
Kudos
Bookmarks
PrijitDebnath
What a brilliant score! Out of 8 weeks of preparation, it seems that you were at 690 after 4 weeks. So, basically the balance 4 weeks of your preparation made you jump from 690 to 770. That's very amazing.
Can you advice what you mean by that horribly wrong 4 answers is what separates Official problems from non-Official problems?
Can you advice what you mean by that horribly wrong 4 answers is what separates Official problems from non-Official problems?
Hi Prijit,
Official problems vs unofficial problems: For SC The diff does not lie in the question (which is a simple statement). The diff lies in the 5 answers. For OG problems ( moderate to tough ones), there are more than one starting point. Singular/Plural, Tense, Pronoun, Meaning etc. For un official problems, the answer choices are not of that good quality. Hence most of us develop a notion that we have to find best out of the 5 answers. OG answer choices are better quality. Gives us patterns to eliminate.
So what I suggest is do Official problems And understand why 4 wrong answers are wrong, coz they are not close 2nd, but horribly wrong as per GMAT. When you analyse a question, move on to the next only if you are 100% clear why wrong choice was wrong. Read GMaTClub discussions and google until you are 100% clear what rule was broken in wrong answer. This will help you recognize wrong patterns which you can eliminate in exam. Most of the times more than one rule is broken in given wrong choice. Make it a habit to recognize all the issues not just move on after seeing the first issue.
You can learn a lot from 4 wrong answer choices of 1 official problem than from dozen un-official problems.
