760 (q 50, V 42)

[rjayender]

Hello all,

I took the test yesterday and imagine my relief when I saw a 760 on the screen! I've been on these forums in the past, but my participation has been passive and I figure I owe it to folks here to post my experience so others can benefit (warning - long debrief follows).

PREP
I got serious about taking the test in the last week of March. I spent a couple of weeks researching the TestMagic forum (http://www.urch.com/forums/gmat/) and http://daveformba.blogspot.com/ (check out the GMAT resources link) to find out the best resources and strategies. BTW, I bumped into PG on a routine google mission to find additional GMAT resources.

April - May
In the second week of April, I started off with the first GMATPrep test to figure out where I stood (btw, I scored 700). I then took stock of my workload and the amount of prep recommended by others (3 months) and then registered for the test (G-Day 7 July). I strongly recommend that people register first and then start studying – the pressure forces you to get through your study plan.

I started off with OG11. It shouldn't take two full months to go through this book, but I could only spare some time on weekends and it took me until the end of May to get through it.

After spending the first couple of weeks on verbal, I spent two weeks or so on Quant and after that I randomly started switching between sections.

Interspersed with the OG study was study of material on 800score.com, where I found some decent content.

During this time, I also got my hands on a copy of Kaplan800 and unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations. Their Math questions, IMO, are NOT the toughest of the tough. Their verbal section was only a shade better in terms of difficulty. If you’re pressed for time, avoid this book.

I skimmed through the Princeton Review, and gave up. Although their book has some good tips, I found that their Joe Bloggs strategy didn't quite work for me. Others have raved about the approach though; to each his own.

I didn’t spend any more time on other books/sites. My effort during these two months probably totaled about 40 hours.

June
By this time, I was done with the OG. I started spending some time on material from American Education Aids, Chennai. I loved the amount of material. I spent about 6 hours each day during the final two weeks on it (FYI, I was on vacation for these two weeks). My total effort during June and the first week of July was around 60 hours.

June was also the month I started putting practice tests into high gear. I solved a total of 13 practice tests. Only the last one was with an AWA thrown in and lasted the full 4 hours. For each of the others, I only worked on the Q+V sections.

GMAT Prep 1 (8 Apr) – 700
PowerPrep 1 (30 Apr) – 700
A paper-based test that someone forwarded me (4 May) – 730
800Score.com Test 1 (16 Jun) – 670
American Education Aids Model Paper 1 (18 Jun) – 680
800Score.com Test 2 (22 Jun) – 660
American Education Aids Model Paper 2 (24 Jun) – 710
Princeton Review Test 1 (26 Jun) – 730
800Score.com Test 3 (1 Jul) – 720
Princeton Review Test 2 (1 Jul) – 650
Princeton Review Test 3 (2 Jul) – 680
Princeton Review Test 4 (3 Jul) – 620
GMAT Prep 2 (5 Jul) – 740

As you can see, I had to face a spate of 600 odd scores at the end, which unnerved me a bit. I’d expected low scores from Kaplan (which is why I hadn’t even bothered taking those tests), but not from Princeton Review. Anyway, all my hopes were pinned on the final GMATPrep test. Several folks have said that this is a fairly good indicator of your final scores. My confidence shot up a few notches when I got a 740 in that.

FYI, the number of questions I’d gotten wrong were roughly the same in almost all the tests, but my score varied because of ‘when’ I got them wrong. Learning to stay calm and getting the first half-dozen questions right is critical.

To summarize, I spent approx 100 hours on the GMAT over a span of three months – two-thirds of it was study and a third was devoted to practice tests.

THE TEST
My test was scheduled at 10am on Friday. I deliberately kept Thursday very light – did some sample questions from each section to keep myself in the rhythm, but avoided practice tests (didn’t want to worry myself with a low score). Also, if you find yourself ‘cramming’ all sorts of formulae until the very end, then something’s wrong. Anyway, I was off to bed at 10 pm and up by 5 am the next day. I didn’t study that morning - spent some time praying and chatting with my mom and in general avoided any thoughts about the test. I headed out early to beat rush hour traffic and ended up arriving at the center a good 1 hour 40 minutes early. BTW, do follow the advice of others and check the exact location of your test center prior to G-Day. Anyways, after loafing around for a while, I lost patience and wandered in about 45 mins prior to the scheduled start. To my pleasant surprise, the person there asked me if I wanted to take the test right away and I agreed (probably shoulda gone in earlier).

Anyways, after the jazz of fingerprinting and photographing, I was away. The erasable notepads were easy to work with. I had needlessly worried about the thickness of the markers. They work just like pens and are comfortable to use.

The essays were easy. Quant started off well, and my pace was good (I was doing a question a minute for the first six or so) – this helped ease my mind because I knew I had an additional six minutes for others if I needed it. Turns out, I did need that time. I finished Quant with one minute to spare. And since everyone around me is usually curious, I did end up with two questions on combinations and one on probability (somewhere in the 20s and 30s).

Verbal was tougher. Started with two SCs, followed by a CR. The SCs were ok, but CRs were tricky and the third RC passage was a real killer. I hate the mumbo-jumbo in many social and humanities passages and I got just that. Re-reading did me no good and I actually ended up drawing something like a use-case diagram (for all you techies out there) to represent what the author was trying to say. That helped me muddle along. I got one bold-face CR in the 30s, which I likely goofed up. Finished with about two minutes to spare.

Finished with the stupid BIQ (who wants to fill that out when you’re dying to see your scores) and then sat back and caught my breath when I saw the number “760” on the screen – my highest score ever (surpassing even the practice tests I’d done).


TIPS ON SECTIONS

AWA– I spent less than a day on this, and that too only after I was satisfied with the rest of my prep. I went through the sample topics (listed at the back of the OG) and mentally figured out what I’d spew in the test. Although I have yet to receive my score, too much time spent on this does not yield much, IMHO. Folks may have different opinions on the amount of time to devote to AWA. Caveat: if your written English skills are poor, you may want to write a few sample essays and get them evaluated by someone else.

PS/DS – There’s only one point I’d like to make here – RTFQ. There were so many times I’d taken integer examples when real numbers were permitted, or taken both negative and positive values when the question only restricted me to positive values, that it’s not funny anymore. Do not be in a hurry to get through the question! Read, and absorb, each and every word.

CR – Even if your logic skills are alright, the questions (and answer choices) are worded in language designed to trip you up. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any ‘easy’ way to crack CR questions apart from just practicing as many I could and then identifying similar patterns in other questions. Don’t bother about BF CRs too much. You may only get one or two, that too usually at the end. It’s not worth the time studying for that. Practice a few to get a hang for the structure of the question, but move on to other valuable topics.
SC - I'd heard that Sentence Correction questions can be answered if the choice "sounds right". I didn't find this to be the case. Extensive colloquial usage of the language and the human ability to decipher the correct meaning of a statement inspite of grammatical flaws are major impediments to cracking SCs. Personally, I had to go back to grammar basics and revise the theory behind the various types of gotchas in the test. Folks, please do understand the type of mistake the sentence contains before trying to get to the answer. I used to start off by plugging each choice in an attempt to see which choice fits best - this is NOT the most efficient way of solving SCs. Identifying grammatical and idiomatic errors and spotting the choices that contain the same errors results in quick elimination.
RC - Similar to CR, you need to practice more and maintain an intense focus on gathering the meaning of the passages. On many occasions I could rarely comprehend the passage and since that is essential to answering RC questions, I had to break up the passage into little bits and reword it in my own words using bullet points or quick little sketches.

OTHER TIPS
1) If possible, schedule a week or two of vacation time prior to the day of the test and devote yourself full-time to preparation. Schedule your test well in advance and put in your vacation request ASAP.
2) Practice, practice, practice - this cliché is worth repeating. No matter how many problems I did, I found some new nuance that I'd never come across earlier. While this may defeat your self-confidence somewhat in that you always seem to make some mistakes, worry not. The more questions you work on, the higher your probability that you'll come across something that follows a known pattern.
3) If you're the religious type, use your faith. If you don't believe in God, use meditation techniques. Prayers, deep breathing, and other such activities were extremely useful in calming me down. The ability to stay unflustered in the face of a tricky question was something I struggled with initially and got better at, with time. BTW, as I mentioned earlier, you absolutely need to stay calm during the first few questions of each section. The adaptive nature of the test means the first few questions can make or break your score.
For those who are still curious, I credit my score primarily to Sandhyavandanam, Vishnu Sahasranamam and Aditya Hridhayam. IMO, true devotion, can (and in my case, did) work wonders.
4) Mental make-up and attitude towards the test is, IMO, what differentiates top scorers from the rest of the crowd. If you aim for a 650 score, it’s unlikely that you’ll go beyond that by much. If you want a score in the mid-700s, you have to shoot for 800. The best part about the GMAT is that there’s no subjectivity in the Quant and Verbal sections. The very fact that it’s multiple choice implies that “theoretically” you could score a perfect 800. You need to have the attitude that you can outsmart the person who came up with the question and that you can control the clock. Anything else leads to the test overpowering you. A different way of looking at this (a slightly more pessimistic view, but which helped me nevertheless) is that unlike certain other exams/tests, the GMAT can always be taken again. Universities won’t give a damn about your number of attempts since they only look at your best score. So your only ‘loss’ is 250 USD. You can always treat the 4 hours at the test centre as valuable experience and go back for one more shot to crack the GMAT.

Wish you all the very best! I’ll try to answer any questions you may have.

[dablu]

Congratulation 4 this astronomical score
U know how to get maximum output from minimum input thats great
All the best i wish u get into top 10 B-School of the world

[Run Time Error]

Good score man!!!

All the best for app procedure...

[fundoo1980]

Congrats rjayender !!!
ur motivational lines were encouraging !!

an offtrack question- is getting date, a difficult task ?.. i hv just started prepaing for GMAT n wud want to give the exam around 1 Sep.. am currently figuring out (by giving miscellaneous sections !!) where do i stand and how soon can i complete the preparation given my work priorities..

[Bostonian]

Awesome score man...Great going!
Could you please post your profile, so others can know where they stand in the applicant pool. What schools are you looking at?
Congratulations and good luck for the app procedure.
-Amit

[Run Time Error]

Originally Posted by fundoo1980

an offtrack question- is getting date, a difficult task ?.. i

Register @ mba.com where u can online check date availability daily ...

[rjayender]

Originally Posted by Bostonian

Awesome score man...Great going!
Could you please post your profile, so others can know where they stand in the applicant pool. What schools are you looking at?
Congratulations and good luck for the app procedure.
-Amit

I'm a manager in a biz & IT consulting co. with close to 7 yrs work-ex. BE & MS in Comp. Engg (Univ of Bombay) & Comp. Science (US).

I'm looking at the usual suspects in the 1yr MBA arena - ISB, INSEAD and IMD. IIM has entered the fray as well, so will be worth a dekko.

Thanks for the wishes, Amit.

[Eccentric001]

whoaa a mind blowing score dude..congo...

[ahmadazeem777]

FUNDOOOO Score & a great post

rjayender you rock

Congratulations buddy.

Azeem

[Bostonian]

Originally Posted by rjayender

I'm a manager in a biz & IT consulting co. with close to 7 yrs work-ex. BE & MS in Comp. Engg (Univ of Bombay) & Comp. Science (US).

I'm looking at the usual suspects in the 1yr MBA arena - ISB, INSEAD and IMD. IIM has entered the fray as well, so will be worth a dekko.

Thanks for the wishes, Amit.

Thats a great profile buddy. I have a similar educational background as yours. BE in India & MS in the US. Are you looking at schools in US too? I am in the US, so I will be looking at schools here. But the whole screw-up is to manage the visa in terms of number of years on H-1 and the re-entry into the US laws...Going from H-1 to F-1...etc...They suck. I am sure all this sounds familiar to you! Anyways...Good Luck. We'll be in touch. Congrats again.