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muxtheic
Joined: 11 Dec 2011
Last visit: 20 Mar 2014
Posts: 19
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 1
Concentration: General Management, Strategy
Schools: Haas EWMBA '15 (A)
(Updated with AWA score)
• Background
○ Engineering PhD
○ > 6 years post-PhD experience
○ Registered for GMAT on September 10th. Pretty last minute non-serious decision to apply for business schools for Fall-2012. Aiming for part-time MBA at a top school.
○ Wasted 3 months and did absolutely no prep till Dec 07, 2011 because I had the year end vacation to fall back upon. Big mistake.
○ GMAT date: Dec 29, 2011.
• Books & materials used
○ OG12 -> Solved most of the medium and hard problem in all sections
○ Manhattan SC guide -> 2 days. The best guide out there. Mostly responsible for my improvement in verbal.
○ Manhattan Inequalities, Word Problems, Number Properties -> 1 day (mostly skimmed through the concepts)
○ Kaplan Premiere Quant description -> 2-3hrs (skimmed through the concepts)
• Test scores
○ Sep 11: GMAT Prep 1 (without any prep) without AWA : 640 Q 45, V34
§ This was taken without any prep and without knowing much about the format
○ Dec 11: OG12 Verbal Diagnostic 41/52 (RC 16/17, CR 13/17, SC 12/18)
§ This was taken after reading the first 5 chapters of Manhattan SC guide and doing the exercises there
○ Dec 11: OG 12 Quant Diagnostic 40/48 (PS 19/24, DS 21/24)
○ Dec 17: GMAT Prep 1 Retake (after Manhattan SC and Kaplan Premiere Math) without AWA: 760
§ There were a fit repeated question in both quant and verbal so this wasn’t a very good indicator of my level.
○ Dec 19: Manhattan CAT #1 with AWA: 670 Q45 V36
§ Rude awakening with only 10 days to go. Panicked and went bought the Manhattan quant books for inequalities, word problems, and number properties.
○ Dec 20: Manhattan CAT #2 with AWA: 690 Q47 V37
§ This was a bad day. I was completely down in the dumps, and realized how bad a state my quant was in. Even verbal seemed to have hit a wall.
○ Dec 22: Manhattan CAT #3 w/o AWA: 700 Q43 V42
§ Decided to take the test without AWA to see it was an stamina issue. It really wasn’t, and by this time I was panicking. So I went back and hit the quant books again.
○ Dec 24: Manhattan CAT #4 with AWA: 690 Q43 V40
§ Seeing a similar score as earlier, I was pretty devastated. At this moment I decided I am not going to take any more Manhattan CATs and will take only one more test which would be the GMAT Prep2. Also after this I focused only on solving the OG12 question. I knew that the questions on actual GMAT may be slightly harder but it became more of a game of confidence at that point.
○ Dec 27: GMAT Prep 2 with AWA: 730 Q48 V41
§ This test lifted my spirits. I decided not to touch anything after this. I relaxed completely on the 27th and then did some mild revision of number properties, SC, inequalities on 28th.
• Length of study
○ ~70 hrs
○ Dec 08 - Dec 14 (a couple of hrs each day)
§ Woke up every morning and solved some OG questions in 2hr sessions.
○ Dec 16 - Dec 27 (~ 9 days with a couple of days off; ~6-7hrs each day)
§ This was my year end vacation that I decided to devote to GMAT. I found it exhausting and personally would have like to devote the same amount of time over few months. By 27th when I took the final CAT, I was feeling burnt out, and didn’t study much over the last few days.
• General strategy
○ Focused on verbal SC
○ Focused on number properties, inequalities and probability which remained my nemesis till the end.
○ Solved all OG12 medium and hard questions.
• Words of Advice
○ Things you wish I knew
§ That math would require significant amount of focus. I have an engineering background, and though the quant would be a cakewalk, so I devoted most of my time to verbal. Eventually it was quant that dragged my score down.
○ Things I have learned
§ Spread the preparation over a couple of months rather taking vacation and trying to cramp everything in last week or so.
§ I wish I had done some preparation during Oct/Nov. Completely wasted three months after registering for GMAT on Sep 11.
○ My test experience
My test experience was not that great. I had a restless sleep the night before and midway through AWA I developed a headache. I usually get headache when I don’t sleep well, so I generally carry headache pills with me - however, as luck would have it I completely forgot about it and had to endure a headache through the quant and verbal section. So if you are prone to headaches, don’t forgets those pills.
• Background
○ Engineering PhD
○ > 6 years post-PhD experience
○ Registered for GMAT on September 10th. Pretty last minute non-serious decision to apply for business schools for Fall-2012. Aiming for part-time MBA at a top school.
○ Wasted 3 months and did absolutely no prep till Dec 07, 2011 because I had the year end vacation to fall back upon. Big mistake.
○ GMAT date: Dec 29, 2011.
• Books & materials used
○ OG12 -> Solved most of the medium and hard problem in all sections
○ Manhattan SC guide -> 2 days. The best guide out there. Mostly responsible for my improvement in verbal.
○ Manhattan Inequalities, Word Problems, Number Properties -> 1 day (mostly skimmed through the concepts)
○ Kaplan Premiere Quant description -> 2-3hrs (skimmed through the concepts)
• Test scores
○ Sep 11: GMAT Prep 1 (without any prep) without AWA : 640 Q 45, V34
§ This was taken without any prep and without knowing much about the format
○ Dec 11: OG12 Verbal Diagnostic 41/52 (RC 16/17, CR 13/17, SC 12/18)
§ This was taken after reading the first 5 chapters of Manhattan SC guide and doing the exercises there
○ Dec 11: OG 12 Quant Diagnostic 40/48 (PS 19/24, DS 21/24)
○ Dec 17: GMAT Prep 1 Retake (after Manhattan SC and Kaplan Premiere Math) without AWA: 760
§ There were a fit repeated question in both quant and verbal so this wasn’t a very good indicator of my level.
○ Dec 19: Manhattan CAT #1 with AWA: 670 Q45 V36
§ Rude awakening with only 10 days to go. Panicked and went bought the Manhattan quant books for inequalities, word problems, and number properties.
○ Dec 20: Manhattan CAT #2 with AWA: 690 Q47 V37
§ This was a bad day. I was completely down in the dumps, and realized how bad a state my quant was in. Even verbal seemed to have hit a wall.
○ Dec 22: Manhattan CAT #3 w/o AWA: 700 Q43 V42
§ Decided to take the test without AWA to see it was an stamina issue. It really wasn’t, and by this time I was panicking. So I went back and hit the quant books again.
○ Dec 24: Manhattan CAT #4 with AWA: 690 Q43 V40
§ Seeing a similar score as earlier, I was pretty devastated. At this moment I decided I am not going to take any more Manhattan CATs and will take only one more test which would be the GMAT Prep2. Also after this I focused only on solving the OG12 question. I knew that the questions on actual GMAT may be slightly harder but it became more of a game of confidence at that point.
○ Dec 27: GMAT Prep 2 with AWA: 730 Q48 V41
§ This test lifted my spirits. I decided not to touch anything after this. I relaxed completely on the 27th and then did some mild revision of number properties, SC, inequalities on 28th.
• Length of study
○ ~70 hrs
○ Dec 08 - Dec 14 (a couple of hrs each day)
§ Woke up every morning and solved some OG questions in 2hr sessions.
○ Dec 16 - Dec 27 (~ 9 days with a couple of days off; ~6-7hrs each day)
§ This was my year end vacation that I decided to devote to GMAT. I found it exhausting and personally would have like to devote the same amount of time over few months. By 27th when I took the final CAT, I was feeling burnt out, and didn’t study much over the last few days.
• General strategy
○ Focused on verbal SC
○ Focused on number properties, inequalities and probability which remained my nemesis till the end.
○ Solved all OG12 medium and hard questions.
• Words of Advice
○ Things you wish I knew
§ That math would require significant amount of focus. I have an engineering background, and though the quant would be a cakewalk, so I devoted most of my time to verbal. Eventually it was quant that dragged my score down.
○ Things I have learned
§ Spread the preparation over a couple of months rather taking vacation and trying to cramp everything in last week or so.
§ I wish I had done some preparation during Oct/Nov. Completely wasted three months after registering for GMAT on Sep 11.
○ My test experience
My test experience was not that great. I had a restless sleep the night before and midway through AWA I developed a headache. I usually get headache when I don’t sleep well, so I generally carry headache pills with me - however, as luck would have it I completely forgot about it and had to endure a headache through the quant and verbal section. So if you are prone to headaches, don’t forgets those pills.
30 Dec 2011, 03:51
Kudos
Bookmarks
Congrats for your score..which schools are you targetting ?
muxtheic
Joined: 11 Dec 2011
Last visit: 20 Mar 2014
Posts: 19
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 1
Concentration: General Management, Strategy
Schools: Haas EWMBA '15 (A)
Have changed my plan a bit and am not targeting 3 schools haas, booth, kellogg...
