GMAT 750 ( Q 50 , v 40 )

foreendogma · 11:17 AM

Wrote my GMAT in sep - score 750 pretty decent score I guess, could have done better on the verbal but I will take 750 anyday. My score report :-

Verbal 40 / 90% Quant 50 / 95% Final Score 750 / 98% AWA6.0 / 95%

Just trying to write a small debrief. Althouth I am not a regular user of PG , I did use PG to fine tune my quant skills. ( I registered early though activated my account today =) ). Apart from PG Scoretop was great help. Anyway I hope my debrief will make for some good reading and will inspire others to achieve the same or even better. As for my GMAT test experience it all happened so fast, could hardly feel anything.

I reiterate what has been mentioned countless times before - a 750 score is within your reach. The only deciding factor will be the amount of practice you put in. When I started preparing, my verbal performance was abysmal. I feared verbal. With a very limited vocab and no reading habits, verbal became a huge mountain to climb. Reading RC passages was a pain, SC performance was awful. Even as I was writing second mock prep test, I was relying more on instinct than on any of the GMAT magic tricks.

As for SC, I started going thru various docs I downloaded from the Scoretop forum, finished manhattan SC guide ( excellent for a beginner like me - gives a gentle and optimum introduction into to the world of SC ), started solving 1000SC, making sure that fully I understood the explainations given in the scoretop forum. Over a period of time, it all started making sense to me. I was able to visualize the bigger picture. Mind you, I had to literally start from the basics. I spent a good amount of time on high school grammar ( wren n martin ) as well just to make sure that my foundation was good enuf to absorb all the knowledge being assimilated.

As for CR, Manhattan CR is good for starters. Once done you can straightaway start solving, OG11 and OG 10 and then jump on to 1000 CR. If you do 1000 CRs carefully, i.e with the intention of learning by seeing patterns, you will learn a lot of new things.
For instance if an argument is given in the form

A => B ( Read as If A then B ), the following rules hold good.
NOT A => NOT B ( is false )
NOT B => NOT A ( is true ).

If you want to master the CR part try going thru some tutorials on prepositional and predicate logic. You will become better at dissecting CR arguments =).

For the quant part, the first mock test I took I got a score 48, so it was not a big concern for me, yet you need to practice quant as well. I downloaded a lot of info from PG like shortcuts etc and that helped me a lot. For practice, I did go thru the GMAT4u math material and some CAT material too.

As for resource - here is a brief list.
OG 11, OG 10 ( rest all ok, as for SC please put in an extra effort to understand the explainations given by GMAT, most of them are straighforward but couple of them are cryptic, so go thru it a couple of times, eventually it will all start making sense to you - dun give up - it will help you a lot in your GMAT endeavour ).

Docs such as Sahil's notes, Spidey's notes etc and a couple more like these.
Trust me going thru these docs transformed me into a GMAT Ninja from a GMAT wannabe. Solve all of them, look for explainations around and do not be satisfied until you seek the truth =).

Went thru many threads from PG for quant shortcuts.

GMAT4u math sets - again it is good for practice.

Abhishek's post in Scoretop ,ARCO's essay - helped me a lot in formuating my essays. I really can't comment much on this as this one has been always been my sour point. I am trying to improve my writing skills and hope someday I will treat you guys with a well written debrief, although I did manage a 6.0 is AWA.

Am applying at :-
Harvard, Stanford , Wharton , Kellog , LBS.

Hope to crack one of these.

Cheers and All the best for your GMAT exam.

Juis