570 to 600 to 700 : "The Story of a Fight Within"

Question

Hi All ! I was waiting for a very long time (now almost a year+)to write this post and am happy to have the opportunity today to write one (PS: This one will be from the heart !) From 570 in OCTOBER 2013 to 600 in AUGUST 2014 to 700 on 21 NOVEMBER 2014 (Also happens to be my Birthday and I did party hard after the exam !) , this is a story of detailed planning , strategy , dejection , uplifting and finally a fight within ! BACKGROUND Am a project manager with a leading FMCG firm in India and did my graduation in Engineering from a decent enough college . I have given computer adaptive tests in the past and faired quite well in them - PMP , GRE & TOEFL , so naturally I was confident of getting a good score in GMAT as well and this great thought started in 2013 (Atleast for me ! ) PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS OCTOBER 2013 - GMAT - 570(Q 46 , V 23) Just studied from OG 13 and KAPLAN premier ... was rather just reading them like a novel to get a feel of the exam and was not focussing ! SO .... went for the exam thinking about acing it , rather was aced back by this great Adaptive Beast ! Was dejected for a while and thought of giving it again , took a long time but then fixed up another appointment for AUGUST 2014 AUGUST 2014 - GMAT - 600 (Q 49 , V 21) OK so ... The strategy changed and I did prepare for it - MANHATTAN BOOKS , manhattan exams , OG 13 , GMAT PREP SOFTWARE , KAPLAN , VERITAS EXAM Series , POWERSCORE BIBLE . The preparation was up in verbal because that's where I tanked . the wordings , sentence correction - strategies , CR strategies from POWERSCORE (did not practive enough RC though). Went confident , came back again with a broken Heart ! This time was really disappointed as preparation was lot of hard work and time devotion but I believe not enough strategy . Practice exams had scores like 680 - VERITAS , 650 - MANHATTAN AND 690 - GMAT PREP . FINAL ATTEMPT - GMAT - 700(Q 49 , V 35) Alright .. so after bombing twice before I had thought that this will be the final attempt .. I even started naming my folders in my LAPTOP with "GMAT FINALE " .Now the game had to change as I was not playing by GMAT rules . Decided to completely reverse my strategy and " think from test Maker's point of view" :roll:

- YUP guys .. u must have heard this a gazillion time but trust me this strategy rocks as it gives you a fair battle plan to approach each and every question . After all one of the most feared exams on EARTH - The GMAT , is a cleverly designed , adaptive , and a time consuming exam which is not so tough to beat provided U can anticipate it's moves and play by it's game in it's battleground (OK brought that one from the movie Predators !) PREPARATION MATERIAL USED OG-13 POWER SCORE CR BIBLE VERITAS ALL BOOKS - COOLEST STUFF for all MANHATTAN ALL BOOKS ARISTOTLE GRAIL'S ALL BOOKS - VERBAL PREP only - SC is cool KAPLAN PREMIER GMAT CLUB GRAMMAR BOOK GMAT CLUB MATHS BOOKS(by BUNUEL bhaiya) :lol:

ARUN SHARMA - This one is an Indian author and the book has detailed quant - normally used for CAT preparation - way above in the STRATOSPHERE compared to GMAT quant ! :lol:

TEST SERIES GMAT PREP SOFTWARE GMAT PREP EXAM PACK 1 VERITAS TESTS MANHATTAN TESTS KAPLAN TEST and trust me lots of free stuff out there on the internet ! HOW I DID IT Trust me guys motivating oneself after two bombings is not easy .. But A never say die attitude is required for GMAT ! BASICALLY In my last two attempts I prepared like a normal student ... learning stuff , practising stuff and just getting the routine passes - accuracy - 60-70% in most of the preparation and the tests .As I mentioned above this time I had to change the strategy completely ! Many thanks to Brian Galvin from VERITAS and his cool YOUTUBE videos that helped me get a feel of the test maker's logic in making a question . Also combined with all the material I collected (like tonnes of it) I could get a seasoned pattern for all the questions and the strategy to ace them .. REMEMBER THIS IS A TEST THAT TESTS YOUR SKILLS IN ANALYSING A PROBLEMO AND GETTING THROUGH IT .. FAST ! VERBAL For example take any CR question for MUST BE TRUE and the options will be more or less circling around: SHELL GAME OPTION , OUTTA SCOPE , REVERSE ANSWER , CONTENDER ANSWER (which looks cool but still does not apply 'CRITICALLY') AND THE RIGHT ANSWER (which is almost eveytime so cleverly hidden ) For another example , the Most common redundancy errors in SC (some of which we even use in daily life ) Revert + back , recommended + should , past + experience , basic + necessities , originally + native , foreign + import , sum + total , join + together , close + proximity and like 30 more to add . Not just this but GMAT will give you atleast 3-4 decision points in long SC statements , so tracking at least one will help you eliminate some options ASAP and then you can proceed (The low hanging fruits - Pronouns , SV agreement , and basically IMPACT list as per VERITAS , the great insights as per MANHATTAN SC and yes .. the excellent examples as per ARISTOTLE GRAIL SC ) :lol:

For another example in RC the trap answers will be the ones you can read in the passage that are directly above or below from where the question stem is picked up ...the statements you find should be double checked before you put it as the right answer ... In short : GMAT is full of trap answers (

)that can be easily eliminated by vigorous practice :!:

This will help u Focus specifically on that question (I had a log sheet for around 500-700 SC , 300-400 CR and around 100 RC passages) and volla ... u wil notice a complete change in the mindset and yeah u can think of getting closer to the mind of A TEST MAKER !) And so..after doing a detailed study for verbal my accuracy went up to 90-95% in Normal conditions

QUANT To be honest guys - Did not practice hard on Quant , had got a score of 46 and 49 in previous attempts so had a list of all the Math techniques ready with me and just went through them one week before the exam and did some handy 80-100 questions for QUANT . VERITAS again has the coolest material ever for a STRATEGY BASED PROCESS .. ! EXAM DAY - third attempt I have given all three attempts in different test centres to let me get out of a DEJA - VU feeling i! Was nervous yes .. AWA was good , IR was excellent , QUANT WAS SMOOTH and then came the BIG ONE VERBAL - started well , middle part was spending too much time , ending was smooth (did bite my nails quite a few times but had confidence in the approach ). CRUCIAL TIPS PRACTICE HARD GUYS (knowing a game and Practising a game changes you altogether) MAKE TIMED ATTEMPTS and know your comfortable speed MAINTAIN A LOG BOOK (so that u r not doing the same mistake twice ) & ABOVE ALL .... "U MUST BELIEVE! " - Master OOGWAY https://carolc13.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/turtle.jpg All the BEST and Cheerz guys ! :-D

kushwahanuj28 · Answer

Hi chaine21 :wave:

Congratulations on scoring 700 . :wave

I'd like to know a bit more about you profile , your work experience & how you've been studying over this last year. 1) What were your Scaled Scores on your Original GMAT? 2) Over the course of the last few months, how many practice CATs did you take? And which "brands" of CATs were they? 3) How did you score on each of your practice CATs (please include the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores)? 4) Was there anything about Test Day that was different from your practice? Think about the details. The time of your Test? What you did the night before? Did you skip the Essay/IR during practice? Etc. 5) If you weren't close to your goal score during your practice, then why didn't you push back your Test Date and continue studying? Are you on any deadlines? Thankfully, the GMAT is a predictable, standardized Exam, so we should be able to define what went wrong, then correct it before you retest. In addition to the above, I also want to ask you a few questions that will help me in understanding your case in a better manner. Mocks 1. Which mocks have you taken? What was your score in the mocks? 2. Were there any repeats in the mocks? Approach – Sentence Correction 1. How do you solve SC questions? Present the thought process that you go through. 2. What has been your SC accuracy in mock tests? Approach – Critical Reasoning 1. How do you solve CR questions? Present the thought process that you go through. 2. What has been your CR accuracy in mock tests? Approach – Reading Comprehension 1. How do you solve RC questions? Present the thought process that you go through. 2. What has been your RC accuracy in mock tests? Time Management 1. What was your time management strategy in mocks? 2. Were you able to execute on the strategy? Looking forward to your response. Best Regards, ANUJ SINGH

chaine21 · Answer

Hej Anuj

Am a project Manager working since 2010 , and part of my study pattern is listed above . Details below : 1) GMAT ATTEMPT III SCALED SCORES - Q49 , V35 , IR 7 and AWA awaited 2) & 3) For the last 2-3 months have been practicing CATs(had almost 8 CATs left from VERITAS & MANHATTAN and bought 2 more from GMAT PREP- EXAM PACK1 ) To be honest Anuj , personally will rate the CAT in terms of decreasing difficulty MANHATTAN > GMAT PREP > VERITAS was scaling around 730-750 in VERITAS (Q 50 , V 40) - no repeats MANHATTAN - 690-710(QUANT is tough here so was getting around 48ish and 49 , but verbal was a great stamina builder and a practice tool with some extensive questions : There was an interesting 700-800 CR question which asked a percentage and the answer was a multiplication of two percentages of two premises , on an avg 39-41 ish) - no repeats GMAT PREP - This is the one closest to GMAT with similar fonts and tabs on PC and probably a similar difficulty level , detailed scoring of 4 tests (2 were repeats and 2 were new ) : 750 , 760 , 710, 720 4)As I mentioned , I made sure I chose a different test centre for an attempt to relieve my self of a DEJA VU feeling . This third attempt has the smallest test centre ever , 15x15 feet room with 6 spots for exams , even the washroom was outside the centre . There were moments in Verbal specially in the mid section where I took more that average time and was thinking of making the mid section powerful , with a good start . Rest was quite OK and normal and yes the "cold Delhi Winter always helps to COOL the nerves" 5)FOR The second attempt I did a lot of hard work but not enough strategy for approach and that did me in , and yes there was deadline also . MOCKS : Discussed above APPROACH - SC This section is the one with the maximum rules (even more that QUANT :lol:

) , I made sure I covered SC (even if repeating a topic but did see the approach) from almost 5 Seasoned TBs - MANHATTAN , VERITAS , ARISTOTLE , GMAT GRAMMAR BOOK and KAPLAN . This helped me create a master record book (hard copy only as I believe in writing down stuff for a good download) Then realised that the strategy is present in almost every question . Following that was an intense practice session for almost 700 SC questions from them . After this u realise that there are lot many decision points(almost 3-4 in every long SC statement ) and cool trap choices (in short ones) ACCURACY IN MOCKS SC - out of avg 14-15 q was getting 12-13 right ! APPROACH CR Again this section is very "critically interesting to tackle " :wink:

! Whenever you start with this first get a feel of the question types : - POWERSCORE BIBLE - divides them quite well into sub types also with an interesting PERCENTAGES at the end - VERITAS - SWIM approach - STRENGTHEN , WEAKEN , INFERENCE & METHOD of REASONING - 5 STAR ***** QUESTIONS here for practice , do all of them (ALL OF 'EM) After you have mastered CR question types , u move to a question with the type in mind . For example ASSUMPTION NEGATION TECHNIQUE rocks in assumption questions and SHELL Game answers elimination in MUST BE TRUE questions ! Then u practice hard again ! 8-)

ACCURACY : out of 13-14 , was getting 10-11 right APPROACH RC Personally no approach is sound here unless one can read and analyse the PASSAGE FAST ! One should practice reading hard and critically first . I remember reading NY times in OFFICE with a huge STARBUCK COFEE MUG to keep me awake ! :lol:

.. The passage can be boring at time specially the - HISTORY ones , the ones with languages and there roles , and personally i did not like the political ones ! But u gotta read 'em and fast ! I never looked at the first question unless I read at the passage and got involved with it . If am reading about" BUTTERFILES - I MAKE SURE I INVOLVE WITH THEM, FEEL THEIR PAIN AND STUFF :lol:

" and answer for their WELL BEING ! :lol:

Also as I mentioned in my post above , TRAP answers will be lingering , the ones where u can direcly pinpoint from the passage ! BE CAREFUL OF 'em and DOUBLE CHECK ! ACCURACY - 13-14 of 4/5 PASSAGES : usually getting 12-13 correct (highest accuracy here !) TIME MANAGEMENT Aaaah ... the one where i strategized big time ! OK ..So.. In verbal : TIME 75-60 : 10 Q DONE 60-50: 15 Q DONE 50 - 40 : 22 Q DONE 40-30 : 27 Q DONE 30-20 : 31 Q DONE (reason is you will slow down a bit due to tiredness of TAMING THE BEAST !

20-0 : LAST 10 QUESTIONS (i MADE SURE i have 20 mins for last 10 as IT IS the final SPRINT !) SC - 50-1 minute max CR- 1.2 - 1.5 MINS MAX PASSAGE IN RC with 4 questions - 2.5 mins for reading and then 50-60 secs per question QUANT I always managed to finish like 10-12 mins to spare so did not strategise here zyaada . :lol:

Do let me know in case you need any more clarification . PS : ABOVE ALL ...U NEED TO BELIEVE ANUJ ! :-D

kushwahanuj28 · Answer

Thanks

, I shall keep these points in mind and shall post in case I have a query . :btw

You should write your name in thread in gmat club that contains name of students who have scored 700 or 700+ Congrats again .

surenagastya · Answer

Congratulations.. you have used lots and lots of books.. I have just 25 days and can put in 4 hours per day. Which books would you recommend for

1. Quant
2. Verbal

What do you think about some of the online courses.. I have heard a lot about egmat for non natives. I am currently at q45 v20-25

chaine21 · Answer

HI surenagastya 25 days is good time provided you are regular . I will suggest that some days you put in more time and give a mock exam(maybe a SAT/SUN and sacrifice on that occasional outing with buddies :lol:

) , this will help map your progress and help identify your weak points . To make a good base = do VERITAS complete series of VERBAL AND QUANT and you will notice commendable improvement (Trust me it was only in the III attempt I stumbled upon VERITAS books and they are awesome !!) U need to then juggle b/w OG and VERITAS books for practice and command over your skills (+ SC MANHATTAN ) Then u may give a mock to analyse your progress . If you really want to go deep then u may progress with more material . But keep on PRACTISING and do not let go of that mental Tuning u might have set ! For any online/external course you need to ask yourself 2 questions : :!:

ARE U LACKING IN CONCEPTS ? If yes then plz go for an external course (after U go through some material as discussed above and u have anaylzed your performances in a few mocks ) :!:

ARE U LACKING IN PRACTICE ? If yes u need to take a call whether u can devote more time in practising which U and only U can do ! Again above is my personal observation and I do believe EGMAT is a good course ! And obviously above all .. U NEED TO BELIEVE !

Braydon6 · Answer

ya...This is a very intersting story!

chaine21 · Answer

Cheerz Braydon6 :lol:

Klenex · Answer

Congrats on a great score.

Can you suggest some regular practice sources for Verbal other than mocktests.

Thanks.

chaine21 · Answer

Hey Klenex

For both Quant and Verbal , you should start with Veritas and juggle simultaneously with OG to get a good grip . Veritas has got excellent questions and interesting approach which takes you from basics to advanced level .

Do also practice the Manhattan series !

U need to be regular in all and above all : U NEED TO BELIEVE .
CHEERZ and All the best !

aashu4uiit · Answer

5 STAR ***** QUESTIONS here for practice

By ***** I mean questions that are very interesting and have more than one option that u might think is correct and U end up confused !

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