760 (Q 51, V 41)

Question

Folks,
I bumped into this website a couple of weeks ago. It has been a very useful site and has a lots of good / challenging questions and interesting discussions. So, I wanted to share my experience so that it may help others.

I started preparing about 3 months ago - but was not very regular. I used to spend 4 to 5 hours over the weekends and about 3 hours over the week. I put in 3 days of rigorous preparation before the test and that helped a lot. I took both the powerprep tests in the beginning

PP-I - 690
PP-II - 760

Looking back, the PP tests seem to resemble the real one more closely than the others.
I did take the Kaplan tests and scored 600, 660 and 680 (didn't take one fully). I do think that their math problems are good and prepare you for some tougher questions. But, like so many others who have posted before, I too think that their verbal is quite tough especially the RCs and don't give you the real picture.I also think that the math questions discussed on this forum were very useful in my preparation.
As for the exam itself, I was a little nervous and wasn't able to sleep well yesterday night. But the Essay section helped me calm down a little bit and get used the environment. I have one advice - when you practice your tests, don't always do so in a room that's very quiet. The exam hall was a little noisy and I could hear the traffic on the road. Also, people were moving in/out etc.

The math section started off with an easy question, but I was still nervous. Indeed I kept double checking my answers and was not able to concentrate properly.I spent about 10 minutes on the first three questions - not because they were difficult, but because I was still feeling nervous.. But luckily, I was able to calm down after that and concentrate. I ended up finishing with about 8 minutes to spare. The questions were easier than the ones that are discussed here. Just a few standard tricks that we are all too familiar with.

I felt that the verbal was dragging on... May be I was tired too. I was very slow to start with - I still had 24 questions with only 30 minutes to spare. I realized that I was again checking my answers way too many times and started to pick up speed. Once I felt an answer was right, I picked that answer and moved along. I don't think that's the right thing to do though. I ended up finishing with about 2 minutes to spare. I think OG is the best source to practice for this section. The questions are almost of the same difficulty level as those in the OG.

Overall, I am happy that its over and happy with my score. I would like some advice on the application process etc. - I have about 8 yrs of experience in the networking industry and have an MS in CS (gpa 4.0).
I plan to do my MBA in Berkley. Is there a good forum that discusses such things?

Thanks and hope this helps.
-R

bono · Answer

Great score!!! Berkley is a great University and it is in my TOP 3 list

Can you compare Q section from the GMAT to one from OG? Are they comparative?

ngulati · Answer

Congrats for that fabulous score srb2k.... You surely are on ur way to a top B school with this performance and ur GPA. A few things mate which I wanted to ask about the verbal and the quant part. Does the difficultulty level of both sections simulate that of OG? I have been onto OG bsides GMAT plus , Princeton and Arco. And as bono asked how difficult was quant wrt OG? Your views would be og hr8 help. In the mean while enjpy the moment and party hard. You conquered it man!

cheers
neeraj

ngulati · Answer

Congrats for that fabulous score srb2k.... You surely are on ur way to a top B school with this performance and ur GPA. A few things mate which I wanted to ask about the verbal and the quant part. Does the difficultulty level of both sections simulate that of OG? I have been onto OG bsides GMAT plus , Princeton and Arco. And as bono asked how difficult was quant wrt OG? Your views would be og hr8 help. In the mean while enjpy the moment and party hard. You conquered it man!

cheers
neeraj

srb2k · Answer

Thanks Bono and Neeraj.
The difficulty level of the quant section was similar to that of the last few questions in OG. Once you have the fundamentals right, the questions are definitely solvable. I did run into a very basic perm/comb type question. The questions discussed in this forum are quite good and should suffice.
Watch out for the various tricks regarding +ve/-ve numbers and other number properties - factors, exponents, qoutient/remainder etc. The geometry problems were pretty simple - but you need to know the formula for area of different quadilaterals, circle etc. 

The Verbal was very similar to OG. I think if you use OG for verbal, that is good enough. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go through the OG verbal more than once. Do the SC questions in OG twice and that should help a lot. The difficulty level of RC passages were very similar to that of OG. The CR choices were a little more vague than the OG, but not very different though. Overall, I think if you are comfortable with the material in OG, that should be good enough for verbal. 
-R

tyagas · Answer

Dear srb2k,

 First of all congrats on your brilliant score ..How was the verbal in partcular..Did you find big RC passages in this section or any other type of difficult question (2 bold face type in the CR , last in OG). My verbal is not very good and I definitely need improvement ..I am giving exam again next Wednesday ..how did you go about solving verbal ..I mean was it double checking first 10-15 answers and then increasing the speed or do it in single flow keeping accuracy in mind. In my last attempt , I think I lost the grip after 30th question when I got very big RC passage(100 lines) ..After that I was not very sure of whether the answers that I was marking were correct and that led to a poor score in Verbal.Did you have to guess on any q's in verbal?Would definitely appreciate your comments on this …
Cheers…

srb2k · Answer

Hi Tyagas,
The verbal part was not very different from the OG - I had 4 RCs in all - one was 90 lines long, two about 50 lines and one around 40 lines. I am not a native speaker of English. So, I wasn't quite sure how I would do in the test - but atleast from my experience, I think using the OG is the BEST way to prepare for this section. At least all the questions I faced were very much inline with the ones in OG - I had about 3 to 4 SCs to start with - they were quite simple - just testing the basic stuff - misplaced modifiers, wrong subject/verb agreement, misused pronouns etc...
There was on bold face CR, similar to the one in OG. As I said, I started off slow - double checking my answers even if I was sure about the answer. But then I ended up rushing through the later half. Though I didn't have to guess, I think it is a good idea to maintain a good pace even in the beginning. The difficulty level seemed to remain pretty much the same over the course of the test, for me.
Good luck.

Yoda · Answer

Congratulations SR2BK, a 41 V for a non-native speaker is very good. In your first post you mentioned that Kaplan verbal is tough and not very representative of the real test. Would you say that the toughness of the kaplan verbal questions helped you think harder and score well in verbal?
Also, how was your timing thru the verbal part? I normally reach question 20 with 20 minutes left in the clock and eventually have to guess a lot of questions at the end. Do you have any strategy for timing in verbal? Thank you,

srb2k · Answer

Hi Yoda,
I don't think the Kaplan verbal questions helped me much in my preparation. Specifically I don't think doing the Kaplan RCs and CR questions helped me much. Infact, most of the time, the passages were so complicated that I was having trouble comprehending the ideas. The CRs choices were usually very vague and most of the time, I felt that the reasons they provided for choosing one answer over another were lame...

One thing that I used in my preparation for RCs and CRs are the official LSAT questions - They are a little more complicated than the ones in GMAT, but they helped me in improving my speed. 

Regarding the timing strategy, I always tried to maintain the same pace throughout the test - I tried to avoid spending more time on the first few questions. But in the actual exam, I ended up spending more time on the first few questions because I was re-reading the answer choices and double checking my answer etc. But I guess the key is that if you find that you have less time half-way through the test, don't panic, simply pick-up your pace. Most of the time, one answer will stand out as the right one. If you are very short on time, simply trust your instinct and pick the one that you feel is right and move along. It is better to do that than to end up randomly guessing on several questions. Again, this is just my 2cents. Not everyone may agree with this strategy.

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760 (Q 51, V 41)

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