I have been a silent spectator of the forum and have picked up a lot of good points from the numerous de-briefs that I have read, and hence, it becomes my responsibility to add to the pool of knowledge some fine points that I have learnt during my GMAT journey. So here I go................
First... a small caveat : From all the debriefs always pick up the good things that suit your style of studying... the debrief presented below is what I followed and suited me the best. However, I request all to make their own individual strategy. My comments on the relevance of practice tests suited me, but may not suit all.
The beginning:
A colleague of mine told me about GMAT and inspired me to give a shot. The decision to take GMAT was taken in August. Was touching books after 7 years and hence was very apprehensive from the beginning. I had even forgotten the basic Maths concepts and hence had to start from the very beginning brushing up the basics.
Materials referred:
GMAT Overview: Kaplan Premier Edition (with CD), Kaplan Workshop
Section Practice:
Problem Solving: OG 11, Kaplan 800 (not that useful for PS)
Data Sufficiency: OG 11, Kaplan 800 (very useful for DS)
Sentence Correction: OG 11,
OG Verbal Guide, Kaplan 800, Manhattan SC 2003-Ed
Critical Reasoning: OG 11 (worked out only 30% of the problems)
Reading Comprehension: OG 11 (worked out only 25% of the problems)
Practice Tests:
Full Length Tests: GMATPrep 1 & 2
The Journey:
Studied mainly during the weekends (4-5 hours) and sometimes during weekdays (1 hour). Being a working professional, I was never able to concentrate on the weekdays after coming back from office. And hence, any serious preparation that happened was only on the weekends.
My first two weeks went in brushing up the basics of Maths and English. I went through the Kaplan Premier Edition and the Maths Review from the
OG 11. Went through all the formulae and concepts related to Algebra and Geometry.
I attempted the Kaplan Paper test and landed up with 610. Quants score was good, but scored poorly in Verbal esp. SC and RC.
I continued my weekend studies of Quants and SC.
Around 20 days prior to the test I took the
GMATPrep and scored 690 and 700 respectively in the two exams. However, I knew that I would end up atleast a few notches higher in the real exam as the pressure and the seriousness in a real exam atmosphere will bring the best out of me.
I did not give any other full-length tests purely for one reason: All full length tests consists of a combination of 60%-70% simple questions & the rest difficult questions. In all these tests we will invariably get the simple questions correct, and the rest wrong. Hence, the last 15-20 days I only concentrated on mastering the concepts of PS (esp. Number Theory, Permutation & Combination, Probabilities) and SC
OG Verbal)
During the last 15-20 days I also went through all the PS, DS and SC questions of
OG 11 which I had got wrong the first time. (Had made an excel sheet to track my performance as well as progress in the
OG)
Test Experience:
After the initial registration process, the essays went pretty cool. After I completed the second essay the time got over before I could press SUBMIT and hence got a little anxious as to whether the essay would be accepted or not. The invigilator assured me that whatever I had typed will be saved and accepted. That relieved me a bit. Took the optional 10 mins break, and exceeded the break by 1 min.
Quants
The Quants started with a number theory problem and went on to become progressively difficult. A few of the quess. Were pretty tricky. Infact, for few questions I remember changing my answer after re-reading the problem. I remember getting two questions on Terminating Decimals, one of Permutation & Combination, Geometry and Number Line, and no probabilities.
Finished quants with around 7 mins to spare and took the optional break.
Verbal
Finally the section that always used to let me down. The section started with 3 SCs and a couple of CRs and a small RC passage. I realized that the degree of difficulty was increasing slowly. Got the most dreaded Boldfaced CR around 17-18 and somehow managed to pass through it. The RC that followed was a nightmare. It was a science RC that scrolled into two pages. My mind went numb after reading the RC for the first time. Could not understand anything. Read it the second time and still could not figure out anything. Adding to the misery were the four questions, that were all of “Inference” type (when normally we find specific “According to the passage…” kind of questions for science passage.
Had to rush a bit towards the end as was left with only 10 mins and 12 more questions to go. However, as the last 10 questions were CR and SC, was still able to complete the section within time.
Finally, saw the 750 displayed on the screen and was overjoyed!!!!
Some points worth pondering: - There are numerous books and materials that you can find on GMAT. Don’t get unnecessarily bogged down by all. Do a small research and select the ones that you feel are right for you. Once you do the selection stick with those till the end.
- Identify your weak areas and work systematically to master the concepts of those areas. You need to master the concepts that are tested on GMAT. Otherwise, even the easiest of questions will appear tough.
- Don’t get too bogged down by doing practice tests after practice tests (This is my personal suggestion which you may ignore). GMATPrep is enough. Full length tests leave us too tired after 4 grueling hours. If I need to toil for 4 hours, let those be the actual test hours.. and let me keep my best 4 hours for the Test. The rest of the hours I will spend on building the concepts and making the foundation stronger.
- Attitude on the test day makes the difference. You need to fight against each and every question that GMAT throws at you on the test day and you need to defeat the question by clicking on the correct answer. The more questions that you defeat, the tougher opponents will be thrown at you. And you should enjoy more by pinning these tougher opponents to the ground.
Please let know if I can be of further help in anyway to the group.
Cheers
KK
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