Thanks guys!!!!
I have waited long to write my debrief on this forum. I have been a lurker for quite a while now ( a year to be exact), just reading everyone’s debrief and trying to analyze how 700+ scorers reached their target score.
I will break my preparation into 2 categories, for each of my two attempts.
650 (48q, 31v):I started thinking about GMAT in the first quarter of 2007 and bought some books from the store during June-July last year. Then in August someone at work suggested me the OG books. I bought all 3 of them. Also about the same time I came across this site while googling. This site is a gem and I owe all my success to this site and my wife who had to deal with my study schedules all this time.
This is the place where I got to know about
MGMAT SC book, which is a must have if you want to improve on Sc’s.
Study materials:Mgmat SC,
Gmat prep.
OG.
Sets ( 30 of those available somewhere on this site).
One thing I would advice is never to trust those sets. I believe it’s a good source of some extra problems, but never take them under timed conditions. After a couple of sets, you will start seeing some repeats and you will get a false feeling of performing well, even though you might not. I would rather take GMAT preps a couple more times just because its different when you do those. The repeats on the sets increases on both the sections as you do more of them. My advice would be just to go through them once if you have time.
Another mistake that I did for this attempt was that I did not buy the GMATclub challenges (now called test). They are the must have’s, after the OG. More about them later.
After all this, I booked November 19th for my first attempt. I was nervous and had the feeling inside that I was not fully prepared for the test. I thought I will attempt it, and if needed take it again. That first attempt proved to be a disaster but also an eye-opener.
Below are my practice scores, don’t remember the exact splits though.
Gmat prep 1 – 640
Gmat prep 1, retake -- 670
Gmat prep 1, retake – 700
Gmat prep 2 – 710,
This prep2 score really pumped me up and I thought that 700+ could be achieved if I stay alert throughout the 4 hours.
I had my test scheduled for 12.30pm. Had a good 8 hours sleep the night before, woke up at around 8. Had a nice hearty breakfast at panera bread. Since the test center was 1.5 hours drive from my home, I started off early at around 10 and was there just before 11.30am. One more advice here, if you reach at the test center, take your time to relax, use restrooms, stretch your legs. I didn’t relax at all, and went straight into the center at 11.30. the lady asked me if I want to take the test and I said ok, bad bad move. I was immediately checked in and before I knew, the test had already started. I cursed myself for a few seconds and went on to do the AWA.
AWA went smoothly, both topics were from OG. Took a scheduled break of 10 mins. Had a banana, drank some water, took a leak, and stepped outside for a couple of seconds to get some fresh air. This was a big mistake, as when I returned to be checked back in, there were 3 other test takers before me waiting to be checked in. I kind of knew that I will loose time on my quant section, and when I started the test the clock said that I had lost almost 3 minutes. I panicked, and tried to rush through the problems, which proved to be fatal. I had to guess the last 2-3 questions and took a break again after the quant section. This time I made sure that I was back in front of the computer before time. Verbal was ok, but I always had it on back of my mind that I had messed up the quant, my strongest area.
Managed to somehow finish the verbal before time and clicked the “report score” button and selected next --- 650 --- I was totally devastated, but I knew I had to blame myself for that.
710 (49q, 36v):I had scheduled my yearly 4 week vacation in December which I couldn’t cancel. In January I again started preparation, but after few weeks had to give up for some personal reasons. That blew off my chance to get into any school in 2008.
I couldn’t shake the GMAT off my mind and again started preparation in the first week of June. I took the GMAT prep -1 after couple of months, and scored a 730. This raised my hopes, but I brushed it away thinking that it might be just luck. Within couple of days, I took Prep-2 and came up with a score of 720. thought this cannot be luck the second time, and booked a date for June 30th on June 8th. So basically, I had 3 weeks of study time.
Study materials:1000 SC. SC was and still is my weakest area.
Gmatclub testsGmatprep
Mgmat online tests.
This time around, I did almost 10+ tull length tests. Took gmatprep more than 4 times each. When I was not taking full length tests, I did a gmatclub math tests only. Below are my scores;
Prep 1 – 720, 730, 710 (off day I guess), 750(with AWA)
Prep 2 – 730 , 740, 740, 740(with AWA)
Powerprep1 – 720
Powerprep 2 – 740
Mgmat cat 1 – 660
Mgmat cat 2 – 670
Gmatclub tests – 23 correct – 32 correct, did about 12 of them.
When I was doing the Preps, I didn’t check my wrong answers just to make sure that I didn’t know the answer while attempting them the next time. I have a bad memory and even though I knew some of the repeat questions, I never ever remembered their answers and had to do them all over again. I used to see how I performed in each of the sections like sc, rc ….
Sc was my weakest point in my preparation, and used to do almost 30sc’s from the 1000 collection, with a 70% hit rate. CR was my strongest area on verbal, and I never ever prepared for CR. On many occasions, I was able to CR’s in less than a minute. On all the tests, my hit rare on CR’s was about 90-95%. I was average on RC’s and also never prepared for it, and my hit rate was in the upper 80’s.
My math was stronger than verbal, and I directly jumped into
Gmatclub tests. My score varied from 23 (done while watching Everybody loves Raymond) to a 32. I remember on one test I managed to do 32 of 37 right with 13 mins to spare. I was quite confident on my math skills.
Test Day:Got a good 8 hour sleep the night before, woke up fresh. My better half cooked some nice Brunch, and by 11.30am were on the road to the test center. Test was scheduled at 2pm. Arrived at 1.00pm and relaxed in the car, stretched myself, and went inside at around 1.30pm. I was immediately taken in and started my test at around 1.50pm.
AWA was smooth, I didn’t prepare for it at all, as I had scored a 5.0 on my first attempt, and thought I will just do what I did last time.
Took the scheduled break of 10mins. Had a banana, drank some water, took a leak, splashed some cold water on the face, stretched myself. This time I was careful though, and tracked my time. By the time I was checked in and the lady logged me back in, I still had 30 seconds left. Felt good about it.
Quant started with an easy question. Did it in 30 seconds, but spend another 15 seconds checking it again. Same for the next few ones, though the time it took to solve the question kept increasing to about 1.5 mins. But nothing great and nothing out of line with Preps. Everything was fine till the 7th question, which was neither a PS nor a DS. It was like one of those IQ questions which I was not prepared for at all. I made an educated guess on it after spending 3mins trying to reach a solution. The 8th question was very simple and took less than 10 seconds to solve it. I guessed that I answered the previous one wrong, but thought there are still lots of questions to answer and it wont be too bad. Everything was smooth, with each question taking less than 1.5 mins, till the 15th question. Again another IQ type question. I had to guess again, and moved on till I hit the 25th question, a permutation / combination problem. I thought I knew how to solve it and spend more than 5 mins on it, the biggest mistake. Eventually I guessed it and moved on. By that time I had approximately 25 mins left to solve the last 12. I thought I am in a good shape, but the questions got tougher and tougher and for some I had to spend 3 mins to solve. For the last 3 questions I had 4 mins left and eventually I guessed the last 2. Overall I think if you are comfortable with Prep, OG and club challenges, you should be good for 48+.
Took a 10mins break, ate 3 cookies, had some water, took a leak and back to the testing booth. This time I had 60 seconds of my break left. Verbal started with a SC, and I spend 3 mins on it since I was weak at SC and didn’t want to get the first question wrong. Second was a CR, did it under a minute. I was so comfortable with all the CR’s that after I was done reading the passage, for most of the times I knew what the question will be and what the answer should be. CR’s were all a breeze. The 3rd question was again a SC, did answer it right I guess. Next came a big full screen RC, which was so tough that I had to read it twice and even then I couldn’t absorb everything it had to say. Answered all of the questions for that RC with uncertainty and moved on. By the time I was through 10th question, I had used about 25mins. I was seriously lagging behind, but I knew I will make it up in CR’s, which I did. Overall, the CR’s and Sc’s were quite in line with OG and 1000 sc’s. The Rc’s though were tough. There was only one passage out of 4, the questions for which I was able to answere with confidence. Completed the whole section just in time with about 10 seconds left.
For some reason, I thought I didn’t perform to my best capability, but clicked the next button to report scores. Those few seconds that the software takes to calculate the score are the longest. It felt like I was waiting for hours to see the score. I closed my eyes and prayed. Then the screen refreshed and there it was –710 – I was happy with the score, but when I saw a 49q, I thought I could have done better. I had never scored below 50 on any of my practice tests.
But eventually thought, well even if I had a 50 or 51q, my score would have been 720 or 730. But well, 710 is the average of the programs that I am aiming at and thought that I will divert my efforts towards my essays. Immediately called my better half, and gave her the good news.
Ohh, one more important thing. I saw 2 questions on the math section during my first attempt which I had seen before, and also 1 math question in the second attempt, which I knew.
Exact same questions, not even a single change.
This score is totally dedicated to Gmatclub and my wife who had to put up with my schedule. I would be more than happy to answer any questions, and its time for me to give back to the club and you all will see me a lot in the math forum.
Thanks for reading this longggg post.
Manish
Apr 28
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30 Jun 2008, 20:01 
