Hi Jazz
Sorry about that.
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I've been a silent visitor to this board, so here's my chance to give back. First of all, many thanks to orginizers for putting this together. The probability and combination guides are superb and really all you need to know for the test.
I am glad they helped.
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Took the test yesterday. Needless to say, I'm dissapointed with my results. As far as background goes, non-native speaker, BS/MS + 6 years IT experience. Studied
OG cover to cover, made an
error log and went over the problems I missed several times. Did not take PP since I decided to study
OG first. Did go thru PR CD and did the first two tests - 670, 650 (Both tests in the 40's for verbal and quant). Then saw that PR's questions started to repeat and decided not to take any more . Did take first Kaplan - 540, didn't pay much attention to it after reading numerous posts here. Studied intensly for about two months.
I dont see any problem here. you did ok.
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Now, about the test..
QUANT: Like many members, I felt I was scoring in the low twenties...First questions - a joke. Second question - very tricky - sequence of numbers/ set theory ..no clue, guessed. After that, I have to say that most problems were more or less similar to
OG. Indeed, most are worded. However, I couldn't control my nerves - was rushing thru the questions, made careless mistakes in calculations, guessed on a lot of questions simply because couldn't calculate an equation. What an awful feeling. Got a simple probablity question - very similar to one discussed in probablity guide. Got a combination problem which I missed, but can't say that it was too complicated either. Timing was a big problem. The clock was totally in control of me, I ended up with 5 min. left. because I rushed so much. Despite all of this, I pulled of a 42 which is nothing to be proud of, but nevertheless a solid score.
Not to worry. We hope to help you as much as we can.
1. I think the
OG is good for a score of 40-45 Quant score. but its EXTREMELY difficult to move from 45 to a 49 or a 50. In my opinion, if we miss more than one or two questions in the first 20, a 49 or a 50 is almost impossible.
2. I always recommend that practice with a clock. We run challenges regularly and ask our members to time themselves. Timing and pressure make a big big difference to performance.
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Verbal, however....Again, like many posts here, I felt I was cruzing thru verbal. RC - not bad at all, 4 passages - 3X45 + 80. Astronomy, Black history, market share..Overall, very doable. SC - some tough ones where you can narrow it down to two choices but then you either know it or you don't. I guess where I got screwed is CR. Got a bold face question, guessed on it. Guessed on few others as well, but at the end had 6 min left and had a feeling that verbal could save me. Well... how about a 32?
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Bottom line..Will take it again in mid-July, will apply for a part-time program, not that much concerned about getting high 600's but need to get into 640-660 range and I hope it is doable. Definitely need to work on building a stamina and controlling the nerves . Need to improve some more on quant and put in a lot more effort into verbal. I'm a little bit at a loss with verbal - where did I screw up??
yeah...Its a familiar issue and the problem is the first 10-15 questions. there is every chance that we make mistakes in RC and CR and not realise it. if we make several mistakes in the first 15 (which most of us do) , it is very hard to cross a 40 in verbal.
My issue here is that we obsess a lot over SC's. but i will tell you very confidently that RC is the most underestimated part of the GMAT. no one (including me) takes it very seriously. I ,for one, never even looked at ANY of the
OG RC's ( obviously, i ended up with a less than expected score of 39V) . Now with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, i strongly believe that RC is your gateway to a 40+ V.
What happens is we study the most toughest of SC's ALL the time. nothing wrong with it. SC is a tough topic. But if we cannot get the RC's and the CR's right in the first 10 questions, we are not going to come across the tough SC's at all. so obvious, isnt it.
RC might be boring, so try to time yourself for every RC.
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People make references to LSAT books for verbal..Which ones? Does it help? What about SC - are there any recommended grammar books that proved useful to folks here? Also, I've completely exhausted
OG questions. Are the old paper tests any good? Do you get them from mba.com? Are there any other decent CATs available on the market besides PR and Kaplan?
there are two books.
Unlike LSAC, ETS does not test logic in GMAT CR. So, only solve the LSAT questions that resemble those in the
OG? inference, assumption, strenghten, weaken etc...
The major advantage of praciticing with LSAT's is they are a good complement to the
OG. there is hardly any quality CR questions out there except the
OG. I am not a fan of Kaplan verbal and princeton does not have the quality either
dont look to just practice. this is where the
error log can be very very useful. test preps. tend to give standard procedures on how to tackle CR, RC. what you want to do is , try to develop your own strategy because we have our unique strengths and weaknesses.
So, with every problem you get wrong, try to see what exactly happened.? classify your errors and go over them each day. with time, try to impose a disciplined approach depending on the feedback you get from the problems you do wrong. no matter what it takes, try to make a custom strategy for yourself. and that can happen only if you practice smart.
I hope this help you. Did it help to maintain a
error log?
Sincerely
Praet
close
25 May 2004, 09:46
