Debrief - 720 (Q48 V41).

Question

Date: 4-May-2013
Result: 720 (Q48 V41)

UPDATE: AWA 5.0, IR 4.0

I’ll keep my debrief very short and precise.

• Started my preparation in January.
• Spent around 50 days to build concepts: almost 15 days each for RC, CR, and SC.
• Focused on accuracy and PoE in verbal. Analysis of why an answer choice is incorrect helped build concepts and another benefit was that I started to notice patterns in the answer choices after some time.
• Did not focus much on Quant.
• After going through the concepts, I started to give MGMAT mock exam once every week and spent couple of hours analyzing the incorrect answer choices in each mock and slowly reduced the number of silly errors and tweaked the timing.
• Studied for around 90 minutes everyday and took long breaks. Gave enough time for concepts to sink in.
• Once I started to give mocks, did not study any new concepts except for in those areas where I was making mistakes.
• Did not participate much in the forums because a lot of those questions tend to show up later in mock exams and inflate the score.
• Did not study anything for a week prior to actual GMAT.
• Did not study IR at all (I hope I get at least a 4 or 5).
• Quant on real GMAT was much harder than that in GMATPrep and OG12.
• SC on real GMAT was much more meaning based. Almost half of the SC questions I faced had at least 2 grammatically correct answer choices.
• RC and CR were of difficulty level in GMATPrep Question Pack1 and MGMAT hard questions.

Materials used:
• e-GMAT Online RC, SC, CR – These audio visual presentations gave me strong foundation in CR and SC.
• OG12 (did this book once)
• OG VR2 (did all questions except RC)
• GMATPrep Question Pack1 (most helpful resource)
• Did not use any unofficial material. Did not use even Manhattan SC book.

Mock exam results:
17-Mar-2013 - MGMAT1 - 650 (Q43 V36)
31-Mar-2013 - MGMAT2 - 660 (Q44 V36)
06-Apr-2013 - MGMAT3 - 700 (Q45 V40)
17-Apr-2013 - GMATPrep1 - 730 (Q49 V41)
22-Apr-2013 - MGMAT4 - 680 (Q42 V40)
27-Apr-2013 - GMATPrep2 - 750 (Q49 V42)

Archit143 · Answer

I want to ask question ..after seeing ur CAT scores....I feel that u did something to improve on ur V 36 frm first 2 CAT's to V 41.. Can u shed some light on that fact.

Archit

sumeetkarora · Answer

After first two CATs, I made sure that:

• I get at least 8-9 questions correct out of first 10.
• I do not panic or run out of time during last 8-9 questions; tried to reduce the need to guess for those questions.
• Started to make some calculated guesses for 2-3 questions during 20-30.
• If I felt RC was taking too much time, blindly guessed the second RC question but tried to get first and third/fourth RC question correct (I actually did this on actual GMAT too).

And, difference between V36 and V41 level questions is that you don’t know whether the answer you are marking for a V41 question is correct or not, that answer is more of a gut feeling.

Aristocrat · Answer

Hey Congrats for your score :lol:

How did you prepared for RC? and which source would be better for solving RC passages?

sumeetkarora · Answer

Following is what I did for RC:
• Understood the type of RC questions (inference, detail, main point, role play)
• Researched the type of incorrect answer choices (there are four at a broad level and at least 2-3 are always present in each question options)
• Strategy was to read the passage for 2-3 minutes (watch Thursdays with Ron - RC Main Point to learn how to read the passage without reading too much detail) and grasp the main idea of the passage and then go with solving the questions
• After that I practiced few passages from OG12. Focused on elimination by categorizing each answer option against the possible incorrect answer types. No time constraint while solving the questions.
• After doing around 10-11 passages of medium difficulty, my accuracy level was at around 80-85% with 2.5 minutes for each question.
• After that I solved some questions from un official sources (MGMAT difficult questions) but felt that some inferences were too far fetched in the answer choices and I then decided to use only official material for practice.
• Overall practice I did for RC was: OG12, VR2 (medium and difficult passages only), GMATPrep Question Pack1; I felt these were sufficient.
• Even after many CATs and practice questions, the average time to answer difficult RC questions was above 2 minute per question; this is when I decided to start guessing one RC question for each passage if I was running out of time given I solve the remaining two/three RC questions for that passage correctly.
• The above strategy helped me spend adequate time on CR and SC questions too in which my accuracy rate was almost 90%.

up4gmat · Answer

Hi sumeet,
great score,congrats..Liked the debrief..especially the RC tips...
need some input from you...

I have my GMAT scheduled almost a month from now and i am stuck @ 620-640 ON Manhattan Prac tests/Other prep tests even after much preparation..

Have done manhattan guide books (SC Mainly ),OG 13, and OG Verbal/Quant review.Also,tried some Bunuel sets .

My verbal score is 35-37 and Quant is 38-45 (varies)... I am looking forward to a 700 +.
Pls suggest what should i do in order to get fast improvement...Mainly am unable to complete the quant section of Manhattan Pracs which leads to low score in my quant...
tried a GMAT prep test too and got a score of 640..was v disappointed....

Pls advice as to how to uplift my score in 30 days.. 
I worked @ my weaknesses too but somewhere or the other i make mistakes..which lead to a similar score all the time...
Have analyzed the mocks and found improvement after working on weaknesses..but i keep making mistakes smwhere else.. dnt know !!:-|

can i still hope for a 700 +???

sumeetkarora · Answer

You have one full month and you can definitely score above 700. You just need to ensure that your performance in verbal (at V36, V37) is repeatable and you can get at least a Q48/Q49 in real GMAT. Go through number properties and inequalities questions and ensure that you know these concepts inside out.

I too faced the problem of running out of time with MGMAT Quant. MGMAT Quant is sometimes too calculation intensive. After first two mocks, I went through GMATClub Math book and then spent almost 60 minutes everyday going through GMATClub Math Tests (I studied them in quiz mode, 10 questions at a time, starting with 600 level questions and then moving on to 700 level questions); Going through these tricky questions improved my timing on MGMAT Quant, that did not, however, improve my score in MGMAT CATs. I did not use MGMAT CATs to assess my Quant performance but I used MGMAT CATs to ensure that my performance in verbal is repeatable.

I think your weakness is timing. You start to run out of time and leave the questions unanswered or make multiple guesses for consecutive questions which takes a toll on total score. In 30-40 seconds, If you do not know how to solve a question, make a calculated/wild guess and move on. On my GMATPrep CATs, I got Q49 both the times and I had around 13 incorrect answers each time. In real GMAT, I guessed on at least 5-6 questions which I had no idea about and my last two questions (36, 37) were definitely wrong (which I realized after marking the answer choice) but I still got a Q48.

Bunnel sets if done randomly can hurt the confidence. Do these questions topic wise and that too in increasing order of difficulty, after solving around 30-40 questions of each topic you'd start to see repeated patterns of usage of shortcuts/tricks (such as Standard Deviation questions - 99% SD questions on GMAT can be solved in under 30 seconds).

up4gmat · Answer

Thanks for the valuable inputs.You analyzed my problem so well.Will surely follow the advice.

rahulmathur490 · Answer

Hi and congrats on your success in GMAT

I just have a few questions to ask - I really think that the strategy of giving 15 days each to the three sections of verbal is really awesome but I wanted to ask that should we give any mocks in between these 45 days to just keep testing our progress or should we give it only after these 45 days? - Second thing I want to ask is regarding the mocks. I have appeared in GMAT once and did not get a satisfactory score so for that I have given mocks for Princeton review, MGMAT and Kaplan tests but for my next GMAT which I am planning to give in next 3-4 months, I want to start afresh. So regarding that, I wanted to ask whether is it a wise decision to start with Princeton review tests and then gradually move on to MGMAT and GMAT prep or Princeton Review is just useless as many people say. Whats your take on that? Thank you

Gian · Answer

Sumeet- 720 is cool, Congrats!

Would like to ask more about your below point:

-> Quant on real GMAT was much harder than that in GMATPrep and OG12.

Is GMAT Quant calculation intensive like in MGMAT Mocks or is it more concept based ?
Would you like to rate the Quant difficulty level of actual GMAT similar to GMAT Prep Question Pack 1?

Thanks!

sumeetkarora · Answer

My suggestion is not to give any mocks unless you have studied all the topics at least once. However, for each topic you shall solve questions from OG12 or other official/unofficial sources to ensure that you are indeed able to apply the concepts that you learnt.

Princeton Review is not a good resource if you are looking for a 700+ score. MGMAT, GMATPrep, and VeritasPrep CAT are nice. 
Kaplan and Princeton CATs are useful only if you want to build your stamina to sit for four hours before you move to MGMAT and GMATPrep.

sumeetkarora · Answer

GMAT Quant is purely concept based. Those questions that looked calculation intensive too could be solved easily by approximation and logic.
Actual GMAT Quant was more like the hard questions from GMATPrep Question Pack1.

adityag85 · Answer

@sumeetkarora
Congrats on getting a great score!

Would you mind sharing the incorrect answer options, which you may have made notes, for each of the RC question types?

Aditimishra · Answer

Hi.

Congratulations and excellent debreif.

I am about 10 days away from my GMAT. My latest score is 670(V:35 Q:48). Since I am working, I have not been able to take a lot of time out of work to prepare.

What do you think are my chances of crossing 700+ and what tips do you have for me for the coming 10 days ... Just FYI these 10 days I will be completely away from my work and only concentrating on preperation material etc.

- adi

Posted from my mobile device

kam20 · Answer

Hi Sumeet,

First, congratulations on your GMAT score!

I have question regarding your verbal performance in mock tests... How many questions out of 41 were you able to answer correctly in your GMAT prep tests to end up scoring a V40 or higher?

And also if you kept track of the number of questions you got incorrect from each of the 3 sections - SC, CR and CR, that data will immensely help me in bench marking myself with some one who scored over 40 on the real GMAT..

Thanks a lot and good luck with your applications!!

sumeetkarora · Answer

Here:

V41 - 9 Questions Incorrect (2, 13, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38) (CR- 3 RC- 3 SC- 3)
V42 - 6 Questions Incorrect (14, 19, 30, 32, 36, 41) (CR- 2 RC- 2 SC- 2)

kam20 · Answer

Thanks a lot, Sumeet! 
Wish you all the best!!

Posted from my mobile device

cyberjadugar · Answer

Congrats sumeet,

I do agree with you that GMATPrep Question Pack1 is indeed the most helpful resource and it helped me too I lot.

Regards,

mokura · Answer

good job sumeet! great score!

I am hovering around 650ish in the MGMAT CAT's ... my weakness seems to be math right now.. im scoring in the low 40's... I guess its mostly a timing issues. What would you suggest as the best help after going through all the concepts and materials from MGMAT? I guess it was GMATPrep Question Pack1? I think that will be my next purchase.. any suggestions?

viki00762 · Answer

Hey bro great score and Congratulations

I am starting to prepare for the gmat but i am not able to figure out which material i should go for,either OG or Kaplan to build in-depth concepts.
Please suggest me on the same and on the study plan i should follow.

Thanks

Keep Winning 
Vivek|

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