x2suresh
Arj,
Can you debrief your Verbal preparation.?
well... sure.
my studying for verbal was very crude. i always thought that my english is decent enough, and so, SC should not be a problem.I was totally mistaken. I began with theprinceton review, but i still didnt know what sort of mistakes to focus on etc etc, as there is more humor in that book than there is useful material . i later moved on to the OG, but it was all still very vague. i didnt know why one sentence was wrong, even though, i felt that it was correct. THE THING IS I HAD NOT LEARNT THE
GMAT WAY ......when i began to read the forums , i discovered something everbody was mentioning, i.e the
MGMAT SC guide. I still being the arrogant fellow iam thought to myself... " what can be there in that guide ,which is not there in other books. its just a psychological thing...." etc . But after a few weeks, when i did'nt see any improvement in my SC, i went through the guide and was really surprised to discover so many ways of shortlisting mistakes. I HAD A SET OF SHEETS ATTACHED TO THE GUIDE, in which i began to write down any net SC i would discover which were unusual. i wrote the entire SC, with the options, with a view that i would go thro it in the last minute. i always carried it around , and would read and read and read it again and again. Writing down some new SC also helped me.
also, sondenso's collection of gmat prep SC helped me. its a collection of about 185 sentences from the prep. i went thro that twice.
KAPLAN 800 SC also was excellent, though slightly different. i went through it twice . there are bout 100sc IN the book
For CR, nothing like the powerscore CR bible. i accidently discovered this , when a friend of mine suggested it to me. He told me to just go through it. (how can one just
go thro 525 pages??) so i decided to go through the entire thing . i read the entire book about 2 times and marked different parts with different coloured pens , in order to differentiate. also the GMAT 800 BOOk cr is also quite good.apart from this, i went through tons of CR , well... on the forums, on material available on the net etc etc . i would try to relate with the gmat bible . i must have read atleast 700 CR.
For RC, i found this software called GMATTER, which is quite helpful. it is just like the gmat prep software , but it contains about 100 RC, with a same background and options etc. i went through about 50 RC, plus the entire RC on the 0G 11 , entire set of OG10 , entire set of OG VERBAL REVIEW, kaplan 800.
i also went thro every forum to search for the best way to get a good method to solve RC, but found that RC solving is unique to a person and it is something that one should try and develop on his own ,rather than get from someone.
But the key is practice , practice , practice and more practice. read , read and read.
when my dad or mom or friend used to say something, i used to think "ok they are concluding like this.... but what is the premise they are using? is what they say justified?". i began to view everyones way of talking like a SC or a CR and began to analyse it . it may seem strange , but probably thats how much fanatic i had become.
i hope this helps.
will be on the forum anyway, so am always available.
cheers and best of luck!!!!