hi everyone ,
gave gmat a while back and scored 700
. extremely dissapointed.
but first let me provide some background:
i am computer science graduate , indian with a year of work ex .
sufficiently strong in maths and weak in verbal, like most people out here.
i sporadically prepared for about a month and a half with a lot of
breaks in between when i had a lot of work. but serious preparation was
only for a week .
however i think i had a good test preparation strategy was adequaetly
well prepared to score 730+ , just a bad day i guess and as i have
benefitted from a lot from posts by people such as twinnsplitter,
ursula, jeepers, and tianlong . i will give a detailed
account of what i did, though not a succes story, some of you could
apply relevant information in your study strategies. but first the text
experience while it is still fresh
test experience:
my test was scheduled at 9:00 at the centre in prometric , which i had
checked out before to know stuff like where the loo's are and what id's
we need to get , earplugs et cetera. and i reached by 8:50 very late
and was further delayed by the incessant amount of checking that
happens in india . i had to write confidentiality agreement , by write
i mean that they actually make you copy out the agreement and sign it
below . and a mugshot was taken after which i was shoved in to my
cubicle time 9:15, yep they started late.
my awa started with an analysis of an issue for which i wrote an
extremely simple though sufficently long essay's as i heard somewhere
that length is a factor though not a crucial one, vaguely based on a
template developed by twinnsplitter, who is probably one of the
greatest minds in the gmat fraternity.
i have always found analysis of an argument simpler because it doesnt
require any creativity but rather just the ability to refute some
amount , some debating skill do help here. after some rudimentary
attacks on things such as staistics and incorrect comparisons i was on
my way to the heart of the test.
the one thing good that gmat does is start with the awa , as it really
calms your nerves down before the real action starts . my math section
was far too easy initially. in fact it was so easy that i was wondering
whether i commited some stupid errors and the difficulty level had nor
risen . so i ended up taking extra time . i got 3 probability
questions one of which required quite some thought , the details will
be put up in the respective forums. one ratio question which i got was
more than 8 lines long , almost like a boldfaced cr question and took
quite some time to figure out what was needed . in fact probably the
reason why i got a 50. by the time the last question came i had 40 secs
left , though an easy one i did not possess enough time to mark the
right answer. i think it is crucial to finish the test . as i dont
think i made any error till that stage.
the verbal ! this is probably the most important section on the
gmat and learning from my mistakes could enable you guys to do much
better.
1st error : didnt use my break to well , read a lot of tips on what to
do in the break and took water , bananas, chocolate and red bull .
ended up only having the chocolate, and also met a friend from iit
roorkee in the hallway , that also consumed some time. so in short use
your breaks well , if needed just take a leak and come back fast and
sit in front of the terminal until time.
in fact when the test started i wasnt quite well prepared for it , it
was too sudden . as in most cases my test started with an sc , which in
hindsight was quite simple one but i stared at the screen until quite
some time until i could figure out what was happening. it was follwed
by 3 more sc's and a barrage of critical reasoning questions. my first
passage was quite late around the 7th or 8th question and extremely
long , in fact all my passages were extremely long , one of them being
80 lines long " massive i know" . anyway i spent a lot of time in the
initial questions of the verbal section due to lack of concentration
and the fact that i was getting extremly irritated with the procter
walking around in his heavy and noisy boots. to add to it some toefl
guy was talking , i didnt bother to look at to whom , but the guy was
talking !.
all of this led to the fact that i had only 17 mins left for the last
20 questions and was contemplating cancelling the test , but soldiered
on got a simple rc which helped in by time a bit a science passage with
4 questions i think took 2 mins for that followed by some sc's which
helped in managing time a bit however i reached the end with 5
questions remaining and 40 seconds on the clock blindly guessed from
then on.
in hindsight i would say the pivotal factor would be my lack of time
management , and i think it is very important to give a lot of times
tests . i totally agree with TIANLONG in this . and also a lot of time
is wasted in just acquiring information rather than studying. i spent a
lot of time just getting hold of info but didnt study much . not
beneficial .
ill give my test preparation strategy which was quite strong ,in
another debrief , and i seriously feel that some of you could benefit
from it .
my practice test scores are as shown below :
pp2 : 710 , started with this some 3 months back at one of these
training centres no prep, no idea even about the time
required in the test.
gmatprep1 : 720 , before prep
princeton review : 690, 720, 720, 730 ; all during prep
kaplan : 600 . wierd huh , extremely demoralising didnt study for 2 days after that. good review though.
ims diagnostic test: 710 , a training centre in india
gmatprep2 : 710 "after prep , but before starting og"
powerprep1 : 780 " after doing math and part of sc from og, no rc and
cr though . so slightly skewed
so in conclusion my score is ok . not good and would want to take it
again but am still undecided . it would be great if i could get some
suggestions and opinions , needless to say i am extremely confused.
my prep startegy and debrief is yet to come , stay tuned......
right!! -
27-04-2005, 10:06 PM
22-06-2005, 08:17 PM
700 ( m 50, v 34) ... long post -
27-10-2005, 12:40 AM
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