Tips for GMAT Test takers in 2005

[Dilbert_Kumar]

Hi Guys,
Just thought to share my GMAT experience with the soldiers getting ready to go into the battle. I gave my GMAT on 9th September and got a score of 640(Q 48, V 29). Hardly impressive and inspiring.

I will not touch the essays section as you can read it from any good book (Try Princeton or Arco)

Quant:
Quant can be easily managed by people with a mathematics background. However the section is getting tougher and tougher day by day. On a really tough day you could get a barrage of questions on Perm Comb , DS questions on probablilty or statistics. However do not get depresssed the moment you see such questions (as early as the second in my case), since this means that you will reach the difficult questions early . Try not to commit mistakes in the first 10 questions. I got the most difficult questions in the first 10, after that it was relatively easy. Prepare your basics well , that means spend more time here.

Verbal
Verbal was a real shocker. My first question, was a six liner sentence correction. I identified tense, modifier, passive voice and parallelism problems in this, there could be more. After this i was confronted with one RC (4 inference questions) and then 4 sentence correction questions. My CR started pretty late , around the 10 th question, and it was the toughest of the lot. Barely manged to finish the section on time. However i did not feel so bad about my performance since the verbal section was very tough. Was expecting around 680, but landed with 640. After my test , i compared its level with all tests that i have given so far: Kaplan, Princeton, Cambridge , Barron, ETS and found that none of them could represent the actual test in difficulty or in format. I felt that the difficulty level for the SC and CR questions was greater than that of Kaplan questions. The RC was less tougher than Kap RC's.
I also disagree with people who think that doing the OG (10th edition) throughly could help you to reach a score of 700. Please, please do not believe people who tell you that one month is sufficient for the preparation. The GMAT has taken a more sinister look that it was a year before. Prepare your basics well, if your english is poor, you dont stand a chance to score 700 !!

The test which i got was different from what i had prepared for. I had used Kaplan 800, OG (10 th edition), Princeton 2004, Arco.
Anybody out there who supports my observations ?

Best of luck
Don't get disappointed by my mail
It is just to wake you up

[Narayan Sivaraj]

Hi,
I am planning to write my GMAT on DEC 23.I am planning to start my studies from oct1st.As i am working i can only puyt 3 hrs of study daily.Can some one give me tips , like which part to concentrate more and strategy??

[wassupbuddy]

hi dilbert,

indeed your mail was a timely wake up call for me cos I have been heavily relying on the material mentioned by you.may be i was still under the illusion that things are going absolutely fine for me but the reality is different.you know,it makes me wonder how the actual GMAT questions could be so easy.moreover i have been attempting CAT,XAT every year.so its hard to believe the GMAT level of difficulty.i am planning to take up GMAT on November 21st.hoping to prepare well by that time.

plz guide as to what other material can i refer.wat abt study material provided by ims.is it really the benchmark??for CAT at least it is believed ims has the best material, may be touch difficult than the actual CAT which invariably takes care of sumthing easier.i hope the same funda holds true in case of the GMAT material as well.

anybody refering ims material for GMAT plz revert asap.anyways thanx dilbert for the warning.wish me good luck.

regards,

vijay

Originally Posted by Dilbert_Kumar

Hi Guys,
Just thought to share my GMAT experience with the soldiers getting ready to go into the battle. I gave my GMAT on 9th September and got a score of 640(Q 48, V 29). Hardly impressive and inspiring.

I will not touch the essays section as you can read it from any good book (Try Princeton or Arco)

Quant:
Quant can be easily managed by people with a mathematics background. However the section is getting tougher and tougher day by day. On a really tough day you could get a barrage of questions on Perm Comb , DS questions on probablilty or statistics. However do not get depresssed the moment you see such questions (as early as the second in my case), since this means that you will reach the difficult questions early . Try not to commit mistakes in the first 10 questions. I got the most difficult questions in the first 10, after that it was relatively easy. Prepare your basics well , that means spend more time here.

Verbal
Verbal was a real shocker. My first question, was a six liner sentence correction. I identified tense, modifier, passive voice and parallelism problems in this, there could be more. After this i was confronted with one RC (4 inference questions) and then 4 sentence correction questions. My CR started pretty late , around the 10 th question, and it was the toughest of the lot. Barely manged to finish the section on time. However i did not feel so bad about my performance since the verbal section was very tough. Was expecting around 680, but landed with 640. After my test , i compared its level with all tests that i have given so far: Kaplan, Princeton, Cambridge , Barron, ETS and found that none of them could represent the actual test in difficulty or in format. I felt that the difficulty level for the SC and CR questions was greater than that of Kaplan questions. The RC was less tougher than Kap RC's.
I also disagree with people who think that doing the OG (10th edition) throughly could help you to reach a score of 700. Please, please do not believe people who tell you that one month is sufficient for the preparation. The GMAT has taken a more sinister look that it was a year before. Prepare your basics well, if your english is poor, you dont stand a chance to score 700 !!

The test which i got was different from what i had prepared for. I had used Kaplan 800, OG (10 th edition), Princeton 2004, Arco.
Anybody out there who supports my observations ?

Best of luck
Don't get disappointed by my mail
It is just to wake you up

[Crash_test_dummy]

Originally Posted by wassupbuddy

plz guide as to what other material can i refer.wat abt study material provided by ims.is it really the benchmark??for CAT at least it is believed ims has the best material, may be touch difficult than the actual CAT which invariably takes care of sumthing easier.i hope the same funda holds true in case of the GMAT material as well.

anybody refering ims material for GMAT plz revert asap.anyways thanx dilbert for the warning.wish me good luck.

regards,

vijay

hey vijay

do u have the IMS material? how did u find it? useful/worthless? i`m desparately looking for more and more practice questions from any which source coz i really need to improve my speed, which is quite poor even by GMAT standards, let alone CAT/XAT! plz let me know more abt the IMS material.

[parag_bhadra]

IMS material for GMAT is real good for Quant. Jus ask someone for which portions to ignore (there is even conics in it). Also be sure to practice lots of DS questions from other sources because though IMS material is good for concept the pattern in DS questions is not very GMATish.

My opinion about the verbal material is not very good. the funda part is hopeless. The questions (& section tests) can be used for practice inititally - but at the later stages of your preparation stick to official Guide so that you are close to the Real GMAT type answers.

The CAT (about 10 of them) are good again for Quant. But for Verbal there are lot of questions (esp in CR) which are not the GMAT type.

As you will realise during your prepn its hard to find 1 good place for GMAT material you will have to mix and match stuff from various places and IMS is the best source for Quant.

[craziest_20]

Guys, I am taking GMAT again in Dec 2005. I have already taken it on Oct(first attempt) but badly crushed..though got 49 in quant and wrote long and good essays, succumb to the verbal section. I was left with 10 verbal qu when only 10 mins were remaining.

almost 4 hrs long test can exhaust test taker's energy and that happened to me. I lost concentration during verbal section(last part of the test) and screwd it.

can any one let me know, is it ok to take GMAt twice ? what is the criteria for the Universities, whether they take the recent score or consider both first and second score?

[Crash_test_dummy]

Originally Posted by parag_bhadra

IMS material for GMAT is real good for Quant. Jus ask someone for which portions to ignore (there is even conics in it). Also be sure to practice lots of DS questions from other sources because though IMS material is good for concept the pattern in DS questions is not very GMATish.

My opinion about the verbal material is not very good. the funda part is hopeless. The questions (& section tests) can be used for practice inititally - but at the later stages of your preparation stick to official Guide so that you are close to the Real GMAT type answers.

The CAT (about 10 of them) are good again for Quant. But for Verbal there are lot of questions (esp in CR) which are not the GMAT type.

As you will realise during your prepn its hard to find 1 good place for GMAT material you will have to mix and match stuff from various places and IMS is the best source for Quant.

thanks for the info parag! 10 CATs sounds good...i always felt just 4 CATs were not enuff. i would like to get some practice from the IMS quant. is anyone here interested in sharing his/her ims material? i`ve got kaplan 800, OG 10th ed, and PR to share from my side if someone were generous enuff to help me out with IMS.

[parag_bhadra]

My recipe for CAT Practice
2 PowerPrep
2 GMATPrep
2 Recycled GMATPrep
4 Kaplan
3 PR
1 Kaplan Online
2 IMSCAT (+ 4 Qunt part of IMSCAT) // Arco for people who dont have IMS.

Believe me, if you do that in 2-3 months you will forget about the stress, strain etc of the 4 hour GMAT at least, get some good idea about your expected score and also find out along the way your strengths and weaknesses.