660 to 740 - Thank You GMAT Club!

Question

NOTE     – READ THROUGH MY REPLIES TOO - I'VE PROVIDED ADDITIONAL INFO THAT MIGHT BE OF MORE HELP.

(edited MAY 12- JUST GOT MY AWA. I got a perfect 6.0 - YAY!!!!!!)

I scored a 740 and can't be gladder (Yes, “gladder” is a word!) to share my story with GC members! I initially decided against writing my experience however my wife talked me into penning it down as a gesture to give back to the GmatClub community! So bear with me through this and I hope atleast one of you can benefit from my experience (if you are able to get through this loooooooooong write up!!)

This is my second attempt (740, Q49, V42) – so there are a few things that I learned from my first attempt (660, Q46, V35, AWA 5.5) and I hope you can avoid these during your FIRST attempt. And yes, I’m not a native English speaker however English was the medium of instruction at my school (in India!)

Resources –

For the first attempt, I did use the right materials – Manhattan SC, Manhattan quant guides, Powerscore CR, OG12 and a few questions from the verbal & quant official reviews. I think the problem was with the sequence. I started with OG12 and studied simultaneously with the guides. It should’ve been the other way around. Learn the basics, strengthen basics with practice and then use other resources that you have (or that you were able to afford) for more practice. I also had access to the 6 full length tests from Manhattan. For RC, I did not use any specific materials except OG and some random articles on the web.

For my second attempt, I bought the e-GMAT combo that provided access to eGMAT’s SC & CR, GMAT Club tests and a 3 month membership to Grockit. And I still had access to all the other resources that I mentioned earlier.

Although I registered with beatthegmat and gmatclub for both the attempts, I hardly used the “question a day” e-mails. I did not like the way I had to go through the questions at random without a proper plan of attack. It felt like I was reviewing questions without knowing if I really should. I read the articles posted on the forums (on SC, CR and Quant) but they were mostly included in the materials I was already using. Whoever has access to a majority of these resources, I suggest that you use your time on the forums wisely. Since I used the GMAT club tests for the 2nd attempt, I did not care much for the “question of the day” e-mails, but otherwise I suggest you make best of these questions.

And during the preparation for the 2nd attempt, I read more often that I did in my entire life (3-4 articles a week, that is!) – I used the magazines from the public library (the US public libraries are the BEST. So many resources at no cost! ) -

• The Economist – Good source to learn how parallelism and modifiers are used. The content will also be useful for AWAs and critical reasoning in that a lot of opposing views are usually presented for any article.
• The New Yorker – the articles themselves are long…5-6 full pages (ugh!) and I never tried to finish an entire article. I personally believe that the style is closer with the GMAT sentences, which are long and weird! You’ll also learn a lot of new words (can’t say that the new words are useful though).
• Scientific American – only 1 or 2 articles a week to get acquainted with bizarre topics for RC.
• American History (or any magazine that covers American history – civil wars, WW II, etc) – Very useful to learn those perfect tenses and conditional tenses. Just 1 or 2 articles a month.
• I listened to the NPR (national public radio) on my way to work every day. Its only a 10-15 minute drive but the news and the language made sure that my ears are used to the correct usage of American English.

A special note to friends back in India – not to worry if you don’t have physical access to these magazines.

• Access the economist online for 5 free articles a week. The “economist debates” are especially useful for your AWAs in learning to write opposing views, support one side and conclude accordingly. Don’t spend all of your time reading the entire debate – just enough to get the drift of it and the conclusions. The “Wall Street Journal” online also offers 5 free articles per week.
• “Scientific American”, the “New Yorker” and American History are all available online (although limited content).
• The NPR radio is also available online (live streaming 24 hours and recorded programs too)
• DO NOT read “The Hindu” or “The Hindustan Times” or other Indian national news sites. I mean no offence to the content but those resources are way off GMAT’s standards.

Preparation –

For the first attempt, I studied diligently for 3 hours every day. I was so stressed out and couldn’t focus at work or at my personal life. Everything seemed to come to a standstill. I was fussy about every little thing – the time I took to practice the exams, the daily routine, not accompanying my wife even for the groceries and most of all skipping my physical routine – All work and no play made jack a dull boy! I corrected this “fussiness” during my preparation for the 2nd time. I tried to keep life as normal as possible but studied at the same rate of 3 hours/day. I still wasn’t able to give 6 hours on weekends because it seemed too much for me and I had gotten so busy at work that it took a lot of energy to just keep myself going. Barring a few days, I was able to study atleast 2 hours a day and run for atleast 30 mins a day. (as in physically run on the treadmill and not run away from GMAT, although I almost gave up twice.)

During the first time, I understood all concepts and did pretty well (>80% on OG12) with practice, which was limited to OG12 and the Manhattan guides. However, although I did keep track of the specific questions that I made mistakes on, I did not perform an analysis. I did not “know” my weak areas and I only had a rough idea. Although, I went through some questions on beatthegmat and gmatclub forums, they did not stay put in my mind – I should’ve revisited my weak areas and practiced more to encounter tough questions and be prepared to answer atleast some of them.

During my preparation for the 2nd attempt, I downloaded the error log excel docs from gmatclub and beatthegmat and kept track of my mistakes for OG12 and the Quant & Verbal reviews. I went as far as creating bar charts to see where I made more mistakes (inequalities naturally!) on each section. I made my own notes from Manhattan SC – basically to remember all the rules that I’m supposed to remember. I studied all the Manhattan quant guides twice and made notes too to review anytime I had a 15-20 minute break. Let me write about the full length practice tests in a separate paragraph.

For the 1st attempt, I only took the 2 gmat preps and 3 MGMATs. But for this time, I took 10 practice tests (6 MGMATs + 2 GMAT preps twice) under timed conditions and took them at the same time as my actual GMAT time – 11:30am (I’m now sure you are nodding your head that I’m indeed fussy!). After completing the OG12, the reviews and 4 MGMAT full length tests under timed conditions, I went into “ Review ” mode. I took a 2 week break to only review – basics, incorrect questions on OG, official GMAT reviews and the 4 MGMAT tests. I have an   image attached to this post   with all the practice test scores (another evidence of my obsession to monitor & control!). It was clear that I needed to strengthen my “quant timing” and “verbal accuracy”. Although many of my fellow MGMAT-users said that the last 2 MGMAT exams have easier questions than the first 4, the improved scores in MGMAT 5 & 6 boosted my confidence and I wanted my confidence to stay that way. And I’m sure I faced more new questions from GMATprep repetitions than repeat questions from the earlier preps. I spent all of my last 5 days reviewing all of these tests, especially the GMAT preps and reviewing my notes. You may note that my actual GMAT verbal score is the highest among all GMATpreps.

Last few paragraphs, I promise!

On the D-Day

Mistakes from the 1st attempt and what I did in the 2nd attempt.

1. I did pretty good with the AWAs so I thought I should eat a snack and breathe easy to get ready for the quant section. However I overestimated the break and know what? The quant section had already run for 2 mins by the time the admin logged me back in and I was in a shock for an instant but carried on telling myself that I can do it. I was so nervous that my font size got bigger on the notepad. Would you believe if I told that I used up all of the space in the notepad around the 30th question? Well I did and got it replaced too.

For the 2nd attempt, I ensured that I had the snack but went back in exactly after 7 mins. I also had another minute to breathe easy during the instructions. Also, I used nominal font size for problem solving and still had only 1 page left in the end. And the quant questions didn’t seem easy either. At no point was I sure that I will score a 50, just like I did with the practice tests. I carried on and had 3 minutes left for the last question. I’m glad I got a 49 and am sure the 17 gmat club tests that I took helped me to stay focused.

2. For my 1st attempt, during the 2nd break, I did have a snack (a chocolate bar) but what do you know – it wasn’t enough. My brain demanded more fuel than that was available in my stomach! By question # 27 I had acquired a headache. I just couldn’t focus. And then my intestines made one small noise – that’s it! All hell broke loose and I could see that the RC passage I was reading was vanishing into thin air instead of reaching the cache. I already knew the result of my verbal section. No wonder I scored only 35.

During the 2nd time, I ate half a lunch during the break. Rice + Potatoes – all complex carbs that break down slowly for slow release of energy (bull ****, you say? Weird but true, I say!). I did not feel hungry until 2 hours after I completed the exam. And just to be sure I had taken an Excedrin (anti-headache + caffeine pill) during the first break. All along, the sentence correction questions felt like I haven’t seen anything like them before. But I was determined to stick to the rules (for example, “…without X, Y or Z”, subjunctives, unambiguous antecedents, etc). The CR questions didn’t seem tough but I did struggle with a few questions, one of which was a mind boggling “method of reasoning” question. Each of the choices was worded with such complex language, I just knew I shouldn’t waste my time with that question – I quickly scanned and chose an answer immediately.

All is well that ends well. I’m very happy that I got a 740 and hope to get atleast a 5 on AWA. I’m sure you are happy that this “brief” debrief has come to an end, finally!!

samramandy · Answer

Hi Vkredi,

First of all congrats on your marvellous score and best of luck for your apps.

I would just like to know your reviews about the e-gmat course. 
Was it really helpful? Were you able to apply their startegies in the real exam? Is their course in-line with the actual GMAT verbal questions?

BR
Mandeep

AbhiJ · Answer

How much practice could you do on Grockit, e-GMAT ?

Yukyodashte · Answer

I really like your careful analysis of your scores, building up to the big ONE. A lesson for us all ! Methodical planning goes a long way in assisting with achieving a high score. Congratulations ! method behind your magic! :-D

vkredi · Answer

e-GMAT Review

Even before I bought the e-GMAT SC+CR course, I had completed the Manhattan SC for my 1st attempt. So I'd say it only strengthened what I had studied. It is definitely a SUBSET of Manhattan SC. You will need patience to listen to all the videos for each topic however the explanations are methodical and ensure that you get the basics right. It is NOT sufficient for practice (nowhere close). e-GMAT SC has 2-3 examples for each concept (basic & advanced) and 10-20 questions to test you at the end of each concept. I can assure you that with e-GMAT SC, you will get your basics strengthened but you'll be left wanting more for practice.

+1 for e-GMAT SC with the warning that you may need to spend a good amount of time with each concept and find another resource for more practice.

I wasn't too impressed with their CR. The strategy is convenient if I have 3-4 mins to answer a question. And we don't have so much time. The explanations for the examples are good but at the end of it, I wasn't really sure if there was any strategy at all. They take time to divide the example stimulus into premises/evidence/counter-premises/etc and note down each of them separately before concluding that the conclusion is in fact strong/weak. Personally, I think powerscore helped me better. I revisited the e-GMAT SC twice to review the summaries for each concept but never went back to CR. And there were no practice questions at the end of the CR concepts. -1 for e-GMAT CR unless you don't have any other resource.

GROCKIT Review

Two thumbs up for Grockit. I did not utilize it completely but cannot reccommend it more. If you are done with OG12 and have analyzed your weak areas but don't have enough materials to strengthen your weak areas or want to ensure that you have your strong areas right, go for Grockit. The questions sure are very similar to the ones in OG12 and the verbal review. I did NOT use it for my quant so I cannot comment on it. However for verbal, I used it extensively. It has just too many questions but after about 200 questions, you might get the drift of it. Nevertheless, it is a loooooot of practice. Just keep answering the questions and you will definitely understand your strong/weak areas. Then, go back to basics if required and you'll still have a lot of questions to practice and attack your weak areas. I used it primarily for SC & CR and the video explanations are also pretty good for both SC & CR. I recommend grockit. +2 for grockit.

anuragbytes · Answer

This is awesome , your score and the detailed breakup especially.
I see your started with smaller number of errors in CR, reached a peak at around 6-7 and then came down to only a couple.
What was your overall hit rate in CR during your prep?
What were the questions that you found troubling , if you did?
How did you manage to improve your CR?
Did you see any idiom based questions("target at" etc), except for the regular ones like "from x to y"," between x and y" etc?

and many congrats for the lovely score

.

vkredi · Answer

Thanks anuragbytes!

I see that you are interested in CR and the truth is that I always had my doubts with CR accuracy before and during the actual GMAT. I was not very sure of myself when it came to CR. I put a lot of effort for improving my SC and I was confident that I can do well with SC. And I knew RC was all about reading and grasping as much as possible in 4 mins. But CR was the culprit!

I read Powerscore CR Bible atleast 5 times. The content is all great and you understand everything but when you need to identify and apply those concepts, there's struggle. I was able to answer most of the practice questions in the book however during practice with MGMAT and Grockit my accuracy dropped. I was scared at times that I might really screw up CR. And the inconsistent scores in my practice exams was no solace. I was really impressed with the Powerscore CR's "Method of Reasoning" chapter. Each type of reasoning actually provides how GMAT test makers can induce flaws and assumptions into their stimulus. I recommend that you read and understand each of these "types of reasoning" and it'll go a long way in helping you with other question types.

For CR - I highly recommend the following strategy.

1. Go through Powerscore CR bible - you'll understand what's being tested and for each question type, you'll understand how the right answers would look like and how INCORRECT answers would look like.
2. Use OG12 and the verbal reivew BUT first download the error log for OG12 and Verbal review from gmatclub or beatthegmat.
3. In the error logs, ensure that the error category and the sub categories are filled in. That's the key to your analysis after completing the OG12 and Verbal Review.
4. I cannot insist enough why error analysis is so important. When answering questions, I used to put an *asterisk beside the question number that I was not confident about. It means, given the time, I wouldn't have been able to identify the correct answer. In the error logs, I added another column for these types of questions - the ones that I guessed or wasn't sure if I was right.
5. I combined the data from OG12 and the verbal reviews and built my own pivot tables for the charts that I wanted. I'm not sharing all the charts but if I did, you'd definitely think I'm crazy! The error logs are categorized the questions by difficulty. I WARN you - do not go with the difficulty given in the error logs. Some may find algebra easy and other may find arithmetic easy. ALWAYS create your charts by the CATEGORY & SUB-CATEGORY.

Remember that now I have a list with these criteria -

(i) No asterisk And Correct (which means that I answered confidently and was actually correct - Yay!!)
(ii) No asterisk And Incorrect (which means that I answered confidently but was actually wrong - dent on confidence! read the explanation properly.)
(iii) Asterisk And Correct (which means that I did not answer confidently but was actually correct - need to gain confidence so review the correct answer.)
(iv) Asterisk And Incorrect (which means that I did not answer confidently and was actually wrong - great! I know this question is difficult. More practice required.)

Now that you know what your weak areas are, try to focus on those chapters and practice more questions for those question types. I almost did the same for other sections too. See images attached. One of the images that shows the % correct/incorrect is based on the difficulty type (Easy/Medium/Hard) - I would NOT recommend creating this chart because difficulty could become relative after a lot of practice. (added this image with a subsequent reply because only 2 files are allowed per post)

And for SC idioms, I went through the idioms only during the last week. I realized early on (with e-GMAT's advice) that GMAT really emphasizes MEANING rather than just idioms. So in the end you'll find atleast 2 options with the correct idioms. Ensure Parallellism! That's the key.

"...between X and Y.." is always easy to spot. The tough part is to identify whether X and Y are parallel (for example concrete nouns never go in parallel with action nouns, etc). So I recommend that you go through Manhattan SC parallellism concepts and apply it along with idioms.

Hope this helps!

vkredi · Answer

The image that shows the % correct/incorrect is based on the difficulty type (Easy/Medium/Hard).

piyushksharma · Answer

Hi vkredi,
Congrats for that lovely score. I want one advice. I would be giving my GMAT next week.I have about 5 days left. Recently i gave Manhattan GMAT practice test and scored a very low(540 and that was because i actually felt sleepy in the mid of quantz section, so sleepy that i actually wanted to sleep, so i finished it quickly). Till now i have given only 3 practice tests. On GMATPREP1 i scored 570 and on GMATPREP2 i scored 640. Would you please give me some last minute advice as to how can i increase my score. Actually i had to take the exam date as the new pattern is getting introduced. I had completed OG12 and Manhattan. On GMAT club site i usually score in the range 600-700. There is one problem with me, and that is if i came to know that it would be difficulty level 700 problem, then it would be sure that i would make it wrong. On the other hand if someone would give me a 700 level problem telling me that it is a 600-700 level problem, then i would pretty easily solve that. Now with 5 days left, what would be your last minute advice to me, so that i can score fairly better than what i have performed in the practice tests.The main problem is that i usually feel sleepy and anxious while giving practice tests. i have taken a 9:30am slot. And i want a score of more than 700.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Piyush

vkredi · Answer

Hi Piyush,
Do not think of the difficulty while solving the problems - either you know how to solve it or you don't know. I hope you have practiced enough to identify the concept being tested in a certain problem. There's one thing I noticed with Gmatprep - It doesn't matter how you are doing at a certain point, it tries to test you with every concept. Let's say you are at question # 8, and if the next concept to be tested is number properties, you will get a number properties question no matter what. But the difficulty of the question will depend on how you are performing at that time. If you are hovering around 650, the number property questions will of the 650 range but if you are at about 700 at that time, you'll get a 700 type number property question. The point is is that the GMAT will try test you with all concepts but the difficulty level keeps varying based on your performance during the exam. So if you are doing well, you will see the 700 level questions - the idea is to get as many correct at that level. Even if you make a mistake, the next questions will give you an opportunity to push your score up and more so if the concept tested in the next question is easier for you to solve. So, so keep going with the exam - like Rahul Dravid in a test match. Ball by ball, hit it only at its merit. Imagine that the previous ball was tough and the ball now is going to be tougher - Skip the bouncers and defend the rest.

1. So the first thing you do is strengthen your knowledge on concepts by reviewing what you already know and what you are weak at.
2. Take GMATprep 1 and 2 again BUT on a different computer from the earlier ones. You'll then be able to review 4 gmat prep questions (although there will be a few repeats, I assure you that its worth taking the preps again)
3. Review your mistakes from GMATclub tests, Manhattan tests and Gmatpreps for these last few days. Go back and review the concepts that you forgot to apply while you made the mistakes. 
4. Sleepy? Have some black coffee before the exam. Eat well during the breaks. Don't have your stomach full. I can't think of anything else - I thought sleep and anxiety were exclusive to each other.
5. Anxiety? Well, sleep well the night before. Do not do anything out of the ordinary - I read a GMAter's experience where he got drunk the previous night and had a hangover the morning of the exam day. Just sleep atleast one more hour on the night before the exam than your regular sleeping hours.

Good Luck for you exam!

class2013 · Answer

Hi Vkredi,

Many Congrates for such a nice score !!! Honestly speaking I really liked the analysis part which you have highlighted. It can really help one to reliaze the exact gaps.

I have planned my exam in July IInd week and need your inputs to improve my score. I have posted my overall profile and queries in this forum in 'General GMAT Questions and Strategies' section with a subject line :

Pls Help -- Provide guidance to improve Score + Verbal (SC)   not able to paste the link here.

Could you please devote some of your time and after having a look on my profile, suggest me on following points :

a.) I am currently standing on 530 ( V28, Q31), in remaining 1.5 months, how much improvement is possible ? Is it possible to touch down 700+. I am putting 3-4 hours in weekdays and around 9-10 hours in weekends.

b.) I have gone through the fundamental part for Quants & Verbal and did around 2 rounds of questions from OG 12, but still significant improvement is not there in score. How should I direct my efforts to really achieve significant improvement ?

c.) I am maintaining error logs and attempting those problems with a gaps of around 10-15 days, after reading rules, etc ( on SC) but still doing the same errors ? How should I use this error log, to really improve on these errors ?

d.) Any other pointers in general to improve the score ?

Would be really appreciate your help and time to reply me.

LSahu · Answer

Wow, that's a tremendous score. I appeared my first test on 11th and I too scored 660 (Q 50, V 29). I felt hungry after the quantitative section (which I had not expected, so obviously had not carried any snack with me) and just as you had mentioned in your experience, the RC and CR questions all bounced over my head and I knew that I had screwed it off. So even though I tried to keep my brain cool throughout the test, my stomach did not help at all

So I will make sure next time I too will carry a mini rice-meal with me to the test (yes, I a from India too

) My weak point in GMAT is CR. In RC, I mostly get the "general questions" right, however fail in cracking the "specific question" types. So I assume there is something wrong with my overall CR skills. Could you suggest me a way to improve my CR skills? I had been following the MGMAT CR guide and OG 12. Do you think PowerScore CR will help me? Your story is really an inspiration to test re-takers like me. Any suggestion would be highly appreciated.

vkredi · Answer

Hi class2013,
a) You sure need to spend time on both quant & verbal. Pick your strong section (Q/V) first, master the basics and practice to identify your weak concepts. Practice, Practice & Practice - make sure you've got the right resources.

b) After two rounds of quant on OG12, if you need improvement - I strongly suggest that you get the Manhattan quant guides and strengthen your basics & concepts. You'll definitely see improvement.

c) With error logs on the questions from OG12 SC, the explanations in OG12 may not be enough. The exact rules are not elaborated for all questions. Please refer to forums and youtube videos for detailed explanations. I'm sure gmatclub and beatthegmat has an explanation for every OG12 question. Understanding the concept is really important to not make the same mistake again. I used grockit for more practice - grockit is really OG12 in disguise. So you can validate your skills from your grockit practice. Do not use any resources that do not provide clear explanations.

d) Use GMATprep test to the MAX! and review each question. The forums have explanations to almost all GMATprep questions.

vkredi · Answer

Hi LSahu,
I did explain my CR strategy in a previous post (in this same thread). Please see if that'll work for you. There is an important difference between Manhattan CR and Powerscore CR. Manhattan's strategy for CR is to "read the question first" but Powerscore's the opposite - "read the stimulus first". If you are already comfortable with MGMAT CR strategy, then I'd suggest that you start with practicing a few questions powerscore style. If this is throwing off your comfort level or your timing, it may infact be counter-productive. But personally I think that the "method of reasoning" chapter is completely missing from MGMAT CR. The last chapter that covers the odd questions isn't enough info. If you have enough time, then go ahead with powerscore CR. The practice on MGMAT full length tests is good. I used both OG12 and the verbal review for CR. If you are doing really good on GMAT CR, expect to see a question that you've never encountered in all of your practice. Most importantly, expect to see all question types - weaken, strengthen, assumption, inference, etc : based on how you are doing, the difficulty level of these questions will vary.

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