Ok here is the debrief i promised.
The Idea:
Around Feb this year my cousin who made it to tuck 2010 batch convinced me that GMAT was a good idea. Until then i really had no plans to give GMAT or try for an abroad MBA. So i convinced a pal of mine to take a test with me on a sunday to see where we stand. I had made up my mind that if i scored less than 600 in the test i wouldnt take the gmat. We took a crack gmat mock test in which i scored a 640 and he somewhere above 550. I was convinced that GMAT was crackable.
The Booking:
Armed with my conviction in mid March I booked a slot for myself , decided that August wud be the best time since I will have atleast 5 months to prepare. I chose 17th since the number 8 has always been lucky for me and 15th happened to be a holiday . Chose chennai over hyd , even though I live and work in hyd cos my parents are here in chennai and hence was kinda senti abt going to the exam after taking their blessings
The Preparation:
This is the most interesting part. I might seem a bit boastful in here but the idea is to give hopes to all late starters. I have no intentions of being boastful.
I purchased Princeton Reviewing Cracking the GMAT somewhere in May , till then work load and all that had kept me away from starting my prep. In May someone convinced me that it was high time I start so purchased the book. But it wasnt until my birthday on June 16th that i opened the book. I am serious I was always lazy about preparing for exams and the trend continued with GMAT preps too. I read meticulously for about a week , finished the quant chapters in the book. But the meticulousness dint stay, work and personal life soon started interfering and till early July I was doing nothing about GMAT.
Somewhere in the second week of july i took two more mock tests and posted this
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/gmat-a...-pls-help.html (To take or not to take - Pls Help!!!)
Also in the meanwhile i completed the verbal chapters of the princeton book i had purchased. By completed, i mean reading the chapters.
But yet, I was still extremely confused as to whether I must proceed with taking the GMAT or buy another months time. It wasnt until 17th July exactly one month before my D-Day, that someone came to my rescue, ChanduChick answered my query in here
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/gmat-a...tml#post818610 (GMAT takers in August 2007)
and boosted my morale with her positive reply(dudette yet again thanks for the same). I listened to her advice and took a powerprep to see where i stood and my score was around 700-710 i guess. She said cracking the GMAT from where i stood with a one month prep should be possible. I was happy and decided to start practicing sincerely. But work and bad health again interfered.
and then I wasted time deciding on schools and all that, as is clear from this thread
Thanks to nagpalkunal
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/member...nal-24132.html for taking time to answer my queries there.
I wasted time and days rolled by and before I could realize it was already august. So I decided it was high time and created my battle plan.
I took a week off from work and shifted gears somewhere around second week of august. Was down with high temperature due to throat and ear infection in the first week of august and hence reading was out of scope. But in what would be my one sincere week of preparation(the second week of august) for the gmat I meticulously followed this strategy
i) Morning take one test without AWA (150 min)
ii)Afternoon analyze answers and errors,Based on the analysis find out which section i am week in (60 min)
iii)Evening read for abt 1-2hrs some chapters from the princeton book that concerned the section I found myself most weak in.
Sometimes in the nights i used to take a mock mock test where in the scores really dint matter i was just trying to keep my brain from cooling down. Also the tests that came along with the powerprep book allowed me to see what i scored after each question this helped me a bit to analyze how many mistakes were ok, when in the exam and how many of questions i had to get right initially to achieve my target scores of Quants 51 and Verbal 42
6 Tests and scores varying from 580(Kaplan) to 730(PowerPrep) later I was convinced that I would score a 700+ in GMAT.
(P.S: although my pals where good enough to gift me kaplan , kaplan 800 and the so hyped OG I really dint have time to check them out)
The Day before the D-Day :
Gave a princeton mock in which I scored a 630. Read a bit from the book(princeton) abt the one topic i had totally ignored AWA. Watched 3 hrs of F.R.I.E.N.D.S (thanks to my dvd collection). Revisited SC section of the book. Watched tonight show by Jay Leno and pushed off to sleep somewhere around 1 am after mindlessly surfing tv channels for abt 2 hrs or so.
The D-Day:
My house being considerably far away from the testing centre so had to get up at 6 am get ready and leave by 7 am. Had asked dad to bring 2 cans of Red Bull which he did , so armed with my red bulls, passport and the printout of the appointment , i left home after taking my parents blessings.
Reached the centre at 8.05 after one hour of travelling. Was a bit tired but unfortunately test centre was closed. Had gotten drenched a bit in the rain hence was feeling cold and my bladders where troubling me big time but all offices in the building where closed. It wasnt until 8.45 that the folks at pearson vue came and opened the centre. Finished all formalities, answered natures call , drank a can of red bull and went on to take the challenge.
AWA :
The question started and i started to panic. The lack of experience or whatever made me a bit unconscious, yes unconscious, I dint realize what was happening for a couple of minutes , but then i recovered and wrote something(not expecting more than 5-5.5 in fact even 4 is a possibility) and completed the AWA sections.
I did follow the think for ten minutes write for 20 strategy but in the ten minutes i thought i really couldnt come up with much points. Just thought of 3 points to create 3 paras from , how i will start the passage and how i will end the passage(in fact i wrote the last para first) and took to writing. I am very good at typing so finished each section abt 6-7min before alloted time.
Learn from my mistakes/experience:
i) Prepare for AWA if not for scoring to prevent a bad performance in that section from affecting ur morale prepare for AWA.
ii) Use the time effectively, after the sections were done I was thinking "probably i shud have used the 6 min to analyze what i wrote than clicking next" dont do that.
iii)Write a couple of essay thinking they will be evaluated before the D-Day
The Break:
Promptly came out of the hall during the break, drank the remaining red bull from can 1 and threw the can away. Stretched a bit and then went back in.
Quants:
I love maths, give me some puzzles and i will isolate myself from the rest of the world. Am a national mathematics olympiad silver medalist, scored 99 in 10th and 12th, a 800 in quants in gre and also consistently scored 50-51 in most mocks. Nah not boasting just making it clear that perhaps you really shouldnt be going by advice if u are mathematically challenged.
I am totally convinced that my first 20 math answers were all correct , I was so happy while taking the test that i enjoyed each problem as the difficulty increased. I found that as the difficulty increased GMAT gets more tricky rather than tough. The questions are wordy and have lots of hidden details. I rechecked my answers , plugged in wherever i cud before I confirmed. It was during my 21st ques that i realized by sheer stroke of luck that I had 17 more to go and only 12 min
I paniced , wasnt used to this , where very particular about the timing in all mocks 12-13 questions in 25min i kept saying but here i was in the GMAT with 12min for 17 ques. I made some intelligent guesses, solved whatever i could but the equation came to 10 Questions 4 mins. Now i had no chance but to run thru the questions. Nevertheless some of them were so damn simple that the answer was quite obvious , i signed a NDA so am not sure if i can disclose the ques here but i will tell u this much that strangely some of the last 10 ques were very simple. The equation then came to 1 ques 16 seconds and I dint even read the ques
Learn from my mistakes/experience:
i) Pace yourself, it affects ur morale if u arent sure how much u will score.
ii)Watch out for tricky ques, read ques very carefully, every word of it. Must give it to GMAC, some of the questions i got where really wow, although simple they had a lot of elements to consider and i enjoyed solving them.
iii)Dont panic, well easier said than done, I know,but it really doesnt help, my legs where shaking and that only affected my concentration.
iv) Getting as many initial ques correct as possible really pays
The Break :
What else the other can of red bull
Verbal :
I was and am pathetic at verbal. Most of my mocks i scored somewhere near 33-34
There was only one strategy for verbal that i had formed from the mocks. I had no plan b . I needed to score a 42 and for that it was imperative to get the first 10 ques right.
This is how i went abt 11 ques -30 min, there after each ques one and half minutes. Had 4 RCs but they were alright. Finished verbal with 12 min to spare which means i answered 30 questions in 33 min
Something told me i had done well and hence at least a 40 was assured. So clicked on to end exam.
Learn from my mistakes/experience:
i) Pay attention to the first ten questions.
ii)I lost focus in between for 2-3 ques i just dint think twice , you may want to avoid that perhaps take deep breaths and regain focus.
iii)Work on SCs i am sure my RCs and CRs were mostly right but most of my SCs were wrong, Its always been my weak point.
iv) Focus on ur strength since i knew that SC was my weak point , I did all i could to ensure that i got the Rcs and CRs right I guess it helped.
v) Dont focus on ur weak point, although on the d-day u dont want to have any weak points if u do have one take a guess when u have to and move on its ok.
The useless section :
a math catastrophe, an ok verbal and all i wanted to see was my score but GMAC wont let me to, they wanted to verify background and whats odd , the section was timed too
I dint read what was written in any of those pages. Clicked away till it asked do u want to report scores, for a few moments considered cancelling but then gathered couraged and clicked report.
My scorecard
Math : Score- 49; %ile- 89
Verbal : Score- 40; %ile- 89
Total : Score- 730; %ile- 96
I pumped my fist in the air, was very happy. Came out of the hall and jumped up pumping my fist as if i had taken sachins wicket(or perhaps pontings taking sachin's is quite easy these days but i am digressing)
It was after about 5 min that i realized that my target was a 750+ and that i had scored less than my usual 50-51 in math and felt a little bad.
Learn from my mistakes/experience:
i) Since college first year my day starts at 10 am , thats when i mostly wake up. If u are like me u may want to get up early atleast for a week before the d-day to tune ur body. This might sound funny but is not. My metabolic clock works at 10 sharp i am sure u can guess how it affected my gmat performance , i was for once sad that i had nt listened to my dad abt getting up earlier than i used to.
ii) Practice sitting for 4 hrs in the same slot as ur d-day
iii) Dont mean to hurt anyone but OG and all the truck load of papers and samples are totally worthless if u dont know what u are doing. Take regular mocks, see where u stand and only concentrate on ur weak sections for sometime. GMAT is not an exam that can be conquered by cramming.
iv) Set targets and work for them, whenever i took a mock before the test i used to tell myself the target is v40 q50 or wateva based on where i wanted to improve it really helps.
v) I was initially very demoralized by reading some posts in PG about how people prepared. If you are likely to get demoralized too then listen to this what works for one need not work for another. Find out whats stopping you to score on that instead of arbitarily practicising something or reading just abt anything folks say is a good material.
vi) With 6 days serious work, abt 10-12 casual, one book(which wasnt OG) and 8 mocks i did it so u can too.
vii) Take lot of mock tests.
viii) And yes drink red bull
(it gives u wings and nah i dont work for them)
Apping:
Well not sure what my plans are , thinking ISB and GLIM . Have got some soul searching to do to see what i really really want lets see.
Finally :
Good luck to all those who are planning to write their exam in the near future. I am not sure if my post helped but if it dint and/or you have a specific query do post i will do my best to help.
cheers,
--Badri--
That's what I call GMAT hangover 
Re: What is my gmat score? -
18-08-2007, 11:25 AM
Linear Mode
