My GMAT Journey
My GMAY journey began when I got to know that I needed a GMAT score to be eligible for a dual degree in a French University (EDHEC), where I was going for a student exchange program.
I was in Hyderabad for my summer internship at the time, so decided to start GMAT prep after getting back to Delhi on 7th June.
So on the 8th of June, I sat down, turned on my comp, and turned to the all trusty pagalguy with
this post. As can be gauged from this post, I didn't know shit about the GMAT, and all this talk about OGs, JJs, SCs and what not had me sweating even in my air conditioned room.
Next step, called Arun (PsychoDementia) in Bangalore. He told me that 600 was no big deal and that I should concentrate on a few questions of the OG that he'd tell me, and verbal. He also told me to take a diagnostic GMAT at the princeton review site. Next he told me to book my GMAT for somewhere around the 25th, so I could fax my scores to the university by the 30th June deadline.
As it turned out, the university didn't accept faxed scores, so I had to book my GMAT for the 22nd June. That effectively gave me 14 days to prepare. Further, classes at MDI were due to start on the 14th of June, and once that started, no GMAT prep would be done.
So I sat down with the princeton review online test. Finished both quant and verbal sections with about 35 minutes to spare in each. Got a 710 in that and I was over the moon.
Next, got PsychoD's mail, attaching some material and some advise on the preparation. I paste below the text of the mail.
The attachments were:
2004-12-15_215209_spidey-gmat-notes.pdf
2005-05-10_064649_My_Grammar_2.doc
2005-02-02_095315_Vstudy_Material.zip
2004-10-05_112338_Hard_Math.rar
In addition, I went to the esnips folders given in the
GMAT Prep Material Thread (GMAT Prep Material) and downloaded stuff which caught my fancy.
I downloaded a lot of stuff but wasn't able to study even 10% of it. Just did some OG problems and some hard math.
By that time, MDI had started. So would do some odd questions for 15-20 mins whenever time permitted.
On June 14th, I registered for the GMAT over the phone and got an appointment for 1330 hours on the 22nd. The mail I got from them told me there was some GMAT Prep software available at mba.com. So went ahead and downloaded that.
Finished off the questions in that, except the RCs...in about 3-4 days.
On the 21st night, went home. Attempted one of the full length tests at about 3 in the morning. Got a 740 in that. Went to sleep with confidence.
D Day:
Woke up the next day around 11. Got ready and left for the center at noon. Got there at about 12:40. Was ushered in and asked if I'd like to start right away. I said yes. So they took my passport, made me sign electronically, fingerprinted me, took a photo. I kept my stuff in the locker and asked if I could take the code of the university I wanted to send my scores to. They told me there would be names of the universities. So I went in, with my passport and locker key.
She logged me in, and after the preliminaries, up came the AWA. Analysis of an argument.
The argument went something like this:
"The volunteer ambulance servive af West _______ (some place) has been found to have greater average response times than those reported by the professional ambulance service of East ______ (same place). So the volunteer service is slower than the professional one, and the West ______ govenrment should hire professional ambulance services to ensure better medical care for accident victims. This would also get additional income for the West ______ government"
Obviously, a lot of holes in the argument. I made no notes. Just started typing straight away.
Gave my answer in plain old British English, no fancy words or constructions. Just communication. I enumerated the reasons why the argument was flawed (gave about 7-8 reasons) and what would make the argument more believable.
This one took me about 25 minutes.
Next came the Analysis of an Issue. The issue was something like this:
"If every individual took care to preserve the natural environment, the government wouldn't need to do anything"
I wrote absolute fart of the first degree in this one. All sorts of logic and sentiments mixed in. Didn't have much content, so finished in 20 minutes. Again, hadn't used my scratch pad yet.
These two were the first AWA tasks I'd ever undertaken in my life. So a few hiccups were there. I kept expecting the automatic spell check of MS Word to kick in to correct or highlight my spelling and grammar mistakes!!
I didn't know whether I was expected to use British or American spellings....so I stuck with the British.
Then I took my break. Went out, went to the loo. Had a glass of water and a piece of chocolate. 3 mins break.
Quant section started with the most dreaded type of question: DS....Arun had told me to be careful with the first 8 questions...so I was. Went on solving questions...at one point of time there were questions which involved some very lenghty calculations...I was feeling the pressure of nature's call again in that air conditioned room...so I just finished off the section as fast as I could (for some reason I didn't want to take an unscheduled break). Finished in about 35 minutes. Went out, relieved myself and came back in for the verbal.
Verbal was pretty relaxed...just went about answering questions based on my gut and what sounded right. The RCs were much easier than the ones which we get in CAT. The SCs were a delight to solve...such intricate detail to look into!
Finished this section in about 30 mins....clicked on report scores and waited with bated breath! Seeing the 750 on my screen made my heart leap. The lady came in and signed me out. I took my score report, gathered my belongings and went out. I was home at 3:30.
The AWA scores arrived a couple of days ago, got a 6 on that. Also got my official score card, which I attach here for people who would want to see how it looks like!
So that's it folks....my GMAT journey...I know there's not much of a takeaway here....but in case anyone has any queries, I'd be glad to answer them.
PG rocks!
.
Re: GMAT 750 (q50 v41) with 2 weeks of prep -
04-08-2006, 07:06 PM
Linear Mode
