So this is for sure gonna be a marathon post so warning in advance.
BACKGROUND"Non-Native "
Prep-Time-6 Weeks.
From an engineering field so had a strong sense of Quant from the beginning of my preparation.
First Diagnostic Test: GMATPREP-1: 650( Q49, V30)
I thought I was good at english, I have always been a voracious reader, and this score came as a shock to me, I realized Verbal is not gonna be easy especially Sentence Correction. I had an accuracy of
35% in my first test in SC. Hence this was gonna be the main focus of my preparation for the 6 weeks. I started hitting 80% in SC towards the end. I had to relearn english in a way for GMAT(more on this later).
I have used Non-Native in double quotes, reason being, many people think of it as a reason for not getting a good verbal score or justifying there poor verbal score. It isn't english the GMAT is checking, it is checking the logical construction(Will elaborate more).
Target Score: 720-730
Final Score-760
Preparation1) Always make a plan. Best Guide for a plan: your initial GMAT PREP test. Analyse each and every question, each every section, each and every subsection.
For instance:
My analysis Comprised of a) Accuracy of each subsection: DS, PS, SC, RC and CR.
b) Distribution of mistakes: Are the mistakes in a cluster or are spread. I usually made 2-3 mistakes in a cluster around question 20, hence, I started becoming more careful. Such mistakes in cluster usually happen due to a concentration lapse. Hence by just being a little careful you can ignore that.
c) Knowledge Gap Mistakes: Topics/ Sub-Topics in which I was making mistake because I was having some issue with conceptual knowledge.
d) Silly Mistakes: Possibly the most important thing to look at.(More detailed way on how to go about this later).
e) Should/Could Analysis: Questions that you knew everything about, and you should get them correct, and may be you made a slight mistake like overlooking the numbers etc. Could: Some questions you may or may not get write and some questions you may have gotten right by fluke. Hence analysing such questions you may actually come to realise your real level of preparation.
I would highly suggest you to have an analysis strategy in place from the very first test you take.
After realising my weak areas I started with the prep.
Quant Quant was not my weakness. But some things in quant did require my special attention.
DS: I had a very low accuracy in DS. Mainly because I had never seen such questions in life. Start with MANHATTAN Guides. If you know basic maths, you will be able to rush through them and be done with them very quickly. Main issues to be realised in DS are:
1) Critical Points: Most of the number questions depend on the critical points.
a) greater than 1, less than -1
b) 0
c)-1 to 0 and 0 to 1
Checking cases on such questions most often gives a concrete answer.
After Manhattan:
Official Guide: I did 13, now even 15 is out. I can not stress how important these guides are. After
official guide start with quant and verbal review. These have a huge bank and i believe they are enough.
## Do not ever ASSUME you will get the answer by using both statements or 1 statement. Always try and find the answer. I made many mistakes due to tsuck ASSUMPTIONS of mine. We as humans are over-optimistic, we think and believe we will get the answer.
PSI never really had a problem with PS. I was fairly comfortable with them. Most important issue with PS is silly mistakes. We see a slightly easy question we pounce on it, and mark something which has been very intelligently placed in the options. Hence, for PS most important thing is to maintain the cool, not get excited and dont commit silly mistakes.(Of-course noone commits them knowingly but will elaborate on a strategy which I used to avoid silly mistakes).
VERBALThe main Focus of my prep was Verbal. RC, CR were okay for me, but not great. I had a 3 pronged approach for verbal.
SC: Read in many posts that it is the easiest to improve in verbal. Thought everyone is joking. How can one improve in a thing, in which all 5 options appear same. But, I was so wrong. It actually is the most easiest to improve on.
a) I cannot emphasize enough on
MGMAT SC. It is, the best possible book for SC. I went through it thrice in 6 weeks. And by going through I mean understanding each and every aspect. Spend time with it. I made notes from it. So a 270 page book was condensed to 40 pages of notes. And finally these 40 page notes were condensed to 15 Flashcards. I went through these flashcards almost every alternate day.
B) STICK TO OFFICIAL QUESTIONS: I am happy I realised this very early on. There are so many official resources from GMAC out there, you dont need anything else(Except
MGMAT ofcourse). I did Verbal review and the
OG-13. After this I did the 9 paper tests of ETS. I did not do them as evaluative tests but just as sectional practice tests. These combined together are possibly the best and most exhaustive resource for Verbal.
c) Approach: The mindset one has for SC is most important. I started it off as a Grammar Testing section, but I was so wrong. I did Manhattan SC, and the
OG and the Verbal, still my accuracy was about 60%. I finally bumped into these videos by Veritas on sentence correction. And this changed my whole perspective about SC. Most of the higher level questions are not wrong due to grammar, but due to logical fallacies, hence, in a way I had to relearn english and analyse sentences in a more holistic way.
I would recommend everyone to go through those videos,. not in the starting but after sometime. And I am sure they will help you.
If you have an Ipad or an iPhone, you can download the veritas app and view these videos for free. SC videos are available for free on youtrube.com too.
RC: I was good at RC, ( Definition of Good - >60% accuracy)- But there was unpredictability. I again came across the STOP strategy recommended by Veritas and found that pretty useful.
a) No Writing: I thought of taking notes as a huge waste of time(unless there was an exception discussed below). What veritas says is, Summarize each para for 4-5 seconds and pay attention to the structure and not the details. And this possibly is the best tip, DONT GET LOST ON THE DETAILS, the examiners are very intelligent in making us think too much about details and then we fail to realize the bigger picture.
b) Exception to no writing: When you are at the end, in the last 10 questions, you get a long passage, your mind is almost dead, what do you do? That is when I used writing. It helped me make sense of things when mind is totally blocked and you can't make head or tail of anything.
c) Detail Oriented Questions: Always find the proof statement from the passage. Don't ASSUME it said this. Make sure and find the line from the passage. Many mistakes happen because we ASSUME it said this.
CR: Just one book. CR BIBLE. Its possibly the best resource for understanding CR. Not a lot of questions for practise but for Strategy and Approach it is by far th best thing available. I again made notes from it. And then finally condensed a 300 page book to 11 flashcards and went through them every alternate day.
Overall Strategya)What I realised was, GMAT was a test of strategy. In a post somewhere I read, after 650 it is purely a test of a sound strategy. I kind of agree with that. There are 3 types of test takers(accordng to strategy) according to me
1) Who analyse why they got the question wrong and what is the right ans(Upto 650)
2)Who analyse Why is the right ans right, make out and realise their weaknesses and strengths and then work on them(From 650-730)
3)They do all the above, but also do one most important analysis, Why did they get attracted to the wrong answer. This helps them avoid mistakes.
I only started doing 3 very very late in my prep. And I would say, it is really very important to follow this from starting.
b)
Planning: PLAN PLAN AND PLAN. That's all you should do. For 6 weeks I was lucky to have a break. Hence all I did was GMAT. But had everything planned. I had my gmat on 22 july. I had planned everything what to do, how to do and on JULY 1 I knew what I will be doing 1 day before the exam. Surely with every test you plan will get revised, but overall, planning should be done to keep yourself moving in one direction.
c)
Booking a Date: Book as soon as you decide you want to give GMAT. When you see the credit card statement that 250$ have to be paid, you surely realise that the things are getting real and you become all the more serious.
d)
ANALYSE: As I mentioned above paper analysis is the most important thing you can do. It is your everything. Do it in as much detailed manner as you can. I usually spent 4-5 hours minimum on analysing 1 paper.
e)
MISTAKES: THEY ARE YOUR BEST FRIENDS:
I had decided on 1 main idea for myself.
I might not be the smartest person giving this test, but I would surely be the one who makes least silly mistakes. If you got a 800 on your first test, without any mistakes will you have anything to learn? One can learn maximum from mistakes. I made many silly mistakes and I finally made a strategy to tackle these silly mistakes
1) After every test I identified my silly mistakes and noted them down.
2) Then after every subsequent test, I again went through all my mistakes in that test and in the previous tests and identified common patterns.
3) After 4-5 tests I had a good database of mistakes and started working on them.
4) After this, I finally made flashcards of my top 5-6 mistakes in each section and MEMORIZED it. I actually went through those mistakes 2 times a day by the end.
5) And it started paying off. While doing the question, one final check was to make sure I wasn't commiting any of my TOP MISTAKES and I remember correcting 4-5 answers on the final GMAT due to this process.
I repeat, MISTAKES are your best friends, DO EMBRACE THEM.
f)
TIMING:1) No matter if you always have 5-10 minutes remaining in a practise test, have a timining strategy and a guessing strategy in place. I used question 10,20,30 as my timing markers. And though I never struggled on timing in practice I was a little short of time on the final thing. Thankfully, I had my strategy for this too, I just skipped a question from my weakest section in Quant and still got a strong q50. Its not wrong to skip. We as humans have strong ego issues. We just can't let a question go. Even if it takes more than 2-3 minutes we do that.(I did this quite a lot). But we have to learn that we need to let go. You don't need to win every battle to win the war.
2) For verbal, I made sure I had 20 minutes for my last 11 questions, reason being, mind gets slower by the end. And if by chance you get a long passage, it will really be challenging. Also, by that time, I always felt like, just get it over with. Hence, a little extra time is needed to remain composed.
g)
TESTS:I always did all my tests with AWA and IR. It is necessary to have the same kind of fatigue level to start with quant and verbal. Otherwise, the scores may be a little skewed.
1)
GMATPREP: By far the best and most accurate tool. My scores were: 650,720,710,740,740. I did buy the expansion pack. And I would recommend everyone to buy that instead of the other third party tests.
2)
MGMAT: Had really bad experience with it. 670.650,670. I found the quant way off mark. And didn't like these tests at all. Towards the end they started playing on my confidence and hence I only did 3 of them even though had bought 6. They are a great practise tool, but not evaluation tool. Be focussed on practise and don't get bogged down by scores. The real quant is not as lengthy as
MGMAT.
h)
TEST DAY: I took an energy bar for first break and red bull for the second. I am a red bull person, hence I guess it worked. If you don't drink it regularly, dont use it.
i)
AWA: Look at the chinese burned template it is gold. Studied for 1 hour, got a 5. Also, if that;s not enough, have a look at the Veritas Prep's Template. It is even more refined.
j)
IR: never really worked on this. Always did the IR and AWA on tests though. And I thought that was enough. Finally managed a 6. Hence I am satisfied.
k)
STUDYING SESSIONS: I always put in long study sessions. Reason being, 4 hours requires a lot of stamina. And I had no idea when was the last time I worked for 4 straight hours. Hence I made the study sessions always at least 2 hours long, to make me comfortable with long hours of studying and get used to mental fatigue.
l)
GMATCLUB: Follow this religiously. It keeps the process on track and keeps one motivated.
m)
ERROR LOG: Maintain an
error log from starting. Do the errors again and again from time to time.
n)
Last week and Self Belief : The most important thing you can do is believe in what you have worked on. In the last 1 week, I reduced my study hours drastically. Only did 1 test. And just focused on my mistakes. I also saw a lot of motivating Videos on youtube and read a lot of debriefs on gmat. We usually read, 650 to 770 in 3 weeks type of a debrief. But what I learned was, reading 770 to 690 type of a debrief tells a lot about what not to do. Hence, read all types of debriefs. Finally a day before the exam I studied my mistakes for about 1 hour and after that went out for a movie. Do not under estimate the power of a relaxed mind. Be confident and be relaxed, and I believe these few things in the last 2-3 days took me to 760. I got a highest of 740 and finally got a 760. Hence, its a lot about your mental state too, and how well you cope to the pressure. So prepare yourself for that.
THINGS I WISH I COULD HAVE DONE:1) GMATPREP Comprehensive set. It contains all the GMATprep extracted questions.
2)
OG 15: It came just a week before my appointment.
3) GMATPREP Retakes
4)Finished
MGMAT tests.
5)
Gmatclub tests: I have heard so much about them. Just didn't have enough time.
Finally, I would just say. I hope you can learn a little from this. Look and try and implement the strategies. But always adopt WHAT SUITS YOU. One shoe doesn't fit all. Hence, adopt the strategies that suit you.
If you have any doubt or any question, post here or you can PM me, I would surely reply.I am indebted to this community. I can't even remember how many times a day I visited this site for checking a solution or seeing an explanation.
BUNUEL, BB and SOUVIK are actually legends here.There posts are always very helpful.
All the best to fellow gmatters!!!!
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04 Aug 2014, 10:14
