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moneymango
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 19 Dec 2012, 17:10
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Hello everyone.

I am starting to study for the GMAT today. My test is scheduled for early February. I've decided to start this thread as a way to keep myself accountable while I study.

A little bit of background:

I am in my final year of university, looking to apply to HBS and GSB.

Around June I started becoming interested in business schools and discovered the GMAT. I downloaded the GMAT Prep software and took a test to see how I would do, and scored a 720 (48Q 42V if I remember correctly). After this diagnostic test, I somewhat forgot about the GMAT, and the whole business school thing all together. In November, I had a conversation with my mentor regarding getting an MBA. At this time I took another GMAT Prep test, this time scoring a 760(50Q 44V).

My main weaknesses seem to be data sufficiency and sentence correction questions. Right now I am looking at the Official Guide to the GMAT as well as the GMAT800 from Kaplan. If anyone has any suggestions to improve the above categories I would love to hear them.

The goal is 800, wish me luck.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 20 Dec 2012, 11:30
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All the best.
I am curious as to why do you need the 800?
From what I have seen and heard the 800 is pretty cursed dude.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 20 Dec 2012, 11:40
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All the best.
I am curious as to why do you need the 800?
From what I have seen and heard the 800 is pretty cursed dude.
Show more
Thanks for the support. In reality I will be satisfied with less than 800, but I'm going to study as if 800 is the only option. Shoot for the moon...as they say.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 20 Dec 2012, 11:58
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souvik101990
All the best.
I am curious as to why do you need the 800?
From what I have seen and heard the 800 is pretty cursed dude.
Show more

Haha.. What is it that you have seen and heard??
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 20 Dec 2012, 16:22
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Decided to take a stab at a Kaplan test that I got for free. Ended up scoring a 680. I guess I really need to hit the books.

IR: 7
Quant: 85%
Verbal: 89%

Really odd that my quant score is lower than my verbal, considering I'm an Electrical Engineering student. Reviewed my mistakes and a lot were really stupid errors. I'll chalk them up to being brain dead after my 6 exams.

Top 3 Topics:
Arithmetic (100%)
Properties of Sets (100%)
Number Properties (100%)

Bottom 3 Topics:
Algebra (40%) (Cant believe this, really bad mistakes)
Reading Comprehension (46%)
Sentence Correction (54%)

Not really sure how I seem to have a low hit rate on my verbal questions but still landed in a higher percentile. Biggest take away from this for me is, make sure I'm in the right state of mind when writing the exam.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT Updated on: 21 Dec 2012, 02:47
Originally posted by MacFauz on 21 Dec 2012, 02:17.
Last edited by MacFauz on 21 Dec 2012, 02:47, edited 1 time in total.
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moneymango
Decided to take a stab at a Kaplan test that I got for free. Ended up scoring a 680. I guess I really need to hit the books.

IR: 7
Quant: 85%
Verbal: 89%

Really odd that my quant score is lower than my verbal, considering I'm an Electrical Engineering student. Reviewed my mistakes and a lot were really stupid errors. I'll chalk them up to being brain dead after my 6 exams.

Top 3 Topics:
Arithmetic (100%)
Properties of Sets (100%)
Number Properties (100%)

Bottom 3 Topics:
Algebra (40%) (Cant believe this, really bad mistakes)
Reading Comprehension (46%)
Sentence Correction (54%)

Not really sure how I seem to have a low hit rate on my verbal questions but still landed in a higher percentile. Biggest take away from this for me is, make sure I'm in the right state of mind when writing the exam.
Show more

More people tend to get a higher raw score on quants than on verbal. So even if the raw quant score is higher than the raw verbal score, there is a good chance that the quant percentile is lesser than the verbal percentile. Eg: For me, I got quant 49 which was the 83rd percentile whereas a verbal 42 got me into the 96th percentile..
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 02:39
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souvik101990
All the best.
I am curious as to why do you need the 800?
From what I have seen and heard the 800 is pretty cursed dude.

Haha.. What is it that you have seen and heard??
Show more

Well stanford rejected a couple of 800ers a couple of years back.
Also, NonYankee, a really cool guy who scored a 800 got dinged at HBS and Kellogg.
Too bad for all of them, especially for Non yankee because from his posts he wasnt even aiming for an incredibly high score.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 02:49
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MacFauz
souvik101990
All the best.
I am curious as to why do you need the 800?
From what I have seen and heard the 800 is pretty cursed dude.

Haha.. What is it that you have seen and heard??

Well stanford rejected a couple of 800ers a couple of years back.
Also, NonYankee, a really cool guy who scored a 800 got dinged at HBS and Kellogg.
Too bad for all of them, especially for Non yankee because from his posts he wasnt even aiming for an incredibly high score.
Show more

Oh.... Then to top that off... Once you get to 800, it sticks to you for 5 years.. No way of getting rid of it...
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 08:23
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souvik101990
All the best.
I am curious as to why do you need the 800?
From what I have seen and heard the 800 is pretty cursed dude.

Haha.. What is it that you have seen and heard??

Well stanford rejected a couple of 800ers a couple of years back.
Also, NonYankee, a really cool guy who scored a 800 got dinged at HBS and Kellogg.
Too bad for all of them, especially for Non yankee because from his posts he wasnt even aiming for an incredibly high score.
Show more

Maybe some quant focused schools like Wharton, Booth would value his score more.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 10:47
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800 is not frowned at. In fact its a very special thing to achieve.
It just puts more pressure to round off a perfect application. This can sometimes work against you. But if you are not getting into a school with 800 and your existing profile, you won't get an admit with a 700-750 (and that same profile). Anything above 780 raises an alarm for the adcoms. They want to ensure that they are not admitting a wizkid/nerd who doesn't have a real world exp. You cannot substitute everything with the GMAT.

P.S: Non yankee is pretty awesome. I'm sure he'll land up in a great place.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 10:54
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jumsumtak
800 is not frowned at. In fact its a very special thing to achieve.
It just puts more pressure to round off a perfect application. This can sometimes work against you. But if you are not getting into a school with 800 and your existing profile, you won't get an admit with a 700-750 (and that same profile). Anything above 780 raises an alarm for the adcoms. They want to ensure that they are not admitting a wizkid/nerd who doesn't have a real world exp. You cannot substitute everything with the GMAT.

P.S: Non yankee is pretty awesome. I'm sure he'll land up in a great place.
Show more

Yep I completely agree with NonYankee's awesomeness!
He has great stuffs lined up for him and I am very sure of that.
The dude is a GMAT natural!
I also think 800 is almost equal to 760 when it comes to what the adcom thinks!
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 15:52
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Well maybe I will be the one to break the curse.

Anyways, decided to practice some Quant questions today. Downloaded this package that a user posted of 700+ quant questions https://gmatclub.com/forum/198-level-700-questions-from-gmat-prep-i-141117.html.

I finished 30 questions in 48 minutes, for an average rate of 1 minute and 36 seconds per question.

25/30 correct (83.33%). My incorrect answers were for problems 3,4,7,9 and 25. Question 3 seems incomplete to me, and I believe the answers for 4,7,9 and 25 are wrong. If anyone could take a look at the questions and confirm my suspicions that would be amazing. Also, these questions felt pretty easy for supposedly 700+ question.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 17:39
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Just took a quick look and I think those answers are correct.

In addition, since they are taken directly from GMATPrep and created by the actual makers of the GMAT the answers are more likely than not correct. Try doing a quick google search using the first few words of the questions and you are likely to find a lengthy thread discussing them. If all else fails, post the question in the quant section of gmatclub and discuss there.

If you are looking for more difficult material, try Bunuel's signature problems.

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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 18:01
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HImba88
Just took a quick look and I think those answers are correct.

In addition, since they are taken directly from GMATPrep and created by the actual makers of the GMAT the answers are more likely than not correct. Try doing a quick google search using the first few words of the questions and you are likely to find a lengthy thread discussing them. If all else fails, post the question in the quant section of gmatclub and discuss there.

If you are looking for more difficult material, try Bunuel's signature problems.

Posted from my mobile device
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Ahh, the answers are correct, my mistake. I have looked over them again.

And can anyone explain question 3 to me? I have no idea what is going on there.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 21 Dec 2012, 18:32
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3 is a bit of an odd question. I can't say I've ever encountered a problem like it in GMAT prep or any real GMAT.

The plus sign in the top right corner indicates that any intersection of the table equals the sum of the column/row headings. For example, x= -3 since at the intersection of x and 4 is 1. Now that you know x, you can figure out the other letters eventually getting m=4 and n=1. m+n= 5

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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 22 Dec 2012, 16:43
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Went to the book store today and bought Kaplan's GMAT Premier and The Princeton Review 1037 Practice Questions for the New GMAT.

Decided to take a crack at the diagnostic test provided in the Princeton book (I should really start actually studying...I think I have an addiction to test taking).

IR: 8/12 Finished in 23 min 30 sec
Quant: 35/37 Finished in 54 min
- One Data Sufficiency (Geometry question) , one problem solving (prime numbers) incorrect.
Verbal: 28/41 Finished in 33 min 20 sec (should have really taken more time on this, wasnt looking at the clock. Need to work on time management)
- Five sentence correction, 5 critical reasoning, 3 reading comprehension.

A lot better showing on the quant section here. I think endurance was key problem, when I got to the verbal I wanted to push through because I was getting tired.

Any suggestions on how to increase my endurance? Should I just keep working on the tests and it will come? Or will it never come?
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 27 Dec 2012, 16:31
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Tried to get some studying done over christmas, but didnt accomplish an awful lot. Did review some sentence correction material.

Attempted another CAT from Kaplan, this time scoring a 730.

Quant: 92%
Verbal: 92%
IR : 6

Interestingly enough, I got murdered by both sections in terms of correct answers (59% correct Quant, 56% correct Verbal). The last half of the quant section was ridiculous, answered 4 out of the last 14 correct.

I also did not know that a calculator was allowed in the IR section, that will make the section a fair amount easier.

Worst areas for this test were:
Number Properties (29%)
Proportions(50%)
Properties of Sets (63%)

Sentence Correction: Pronouns(0%), Comparisons (33%)
Critical Reasoning (43%)
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 08 Jan 2013, 15:26
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Well its been a bit of time since I've updated. I have been going back and forth between studying Quant, specifically geometry and combinations, and sentence correction. Recently I have taken two free tests offered by GMAT club, a 37 Quant question test and a 21 sentence correction test. Both tests the score was given as 98%/51, which doesnt seem entirely correct to me (wouldnt a 51 be 99%, since it is the highest score?).

Anyways, the Quant section I correctly answered 26/37 questions. The biggest problem I have for Quant is falling for little tricks, or making careless errors. This has always been a problem for me during my school exams. I noticed that for the questions where I made careless mistakes, I often completed the question in under 1 minute. I had 21 minutes remaining when I finished the last question, so I definitely need to work on time management.

The 21 sentence correction questions I completed 16/21 correctly. All the questions were labelled as 700 level, so I am fairly happy about that progress I have made with sentence correction.
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 09 Jan 2013, 06:07
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moneymango
Both tests the score was given as 98%/51, which doesnt seem entirely correct to me (wouldnt a 51 be 99%, since it is the highest score?).
Show more


nope.
A 99 percentile means 99% of the people who took the test were below your score. What happens if more than 1% of the people who took the test score the highest raw score (Q51) on quant?
to simplify, if 1000 people wrote the test, 25 of them scored a Q51 and you got a Q51 as well. Can you say 99% were below your score? (it would be 975/1000 * 100 or 97.5 percentile)
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The Start of my Journey to an 800 GMAT 09 Jan 2013, 20:54
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moneymango
Both tests the score was given as 98%/51, which doesnt seem entirely correct to me (wouldnt a 51 be 99%, since it is the highest score?).


nope.
A 99 percentile means 99% of the people who took the test were below your score. What happens if more than 1% of the people who took the test score the highest raw score (Q51) on quant?
to simplify, if 1000 people wrote the test, 25 of them scored a Q51 and you got a Q51 as well. Can you say 99% were below your score? (it would be 975/1000 or 97.5 percentile)
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Yes my mistake, I thought that a 51 score in both Quant and Verbal corresponded to a 99th percentile, but after rechecking the website I see that a 51 is actually 98th percentile for Quant
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