Gmat-710 (q-44; V-42; Awa: 5.5)

[shipra.gupta]

hi everyone..

i took my GMAT on Dec 10 and then got completely drowned in work. So sorry for the delay in this post. I got a 710 (Q-44, V-42, AWA-5.5) . I was expecting somewhere around 740, so I must say I am a tad disappointed . But I guess it could have been much worse so its ok

I'd like to thank all the PUYS and especially vikram_1982, neptune_000 and ajayreddy for solving so many of my doubts in both Quant and Verbal, which really helped my confidence.

not too make one post too long, I'll be posting my prep strategy separately.

Since till now I had been focusing primarily on the score, I now need to start looking for universities where all I can apply with this score with fair chances of converting the calls.

Can anyone provide some useful links..make suggestions?

thanks a lot,
shipra

[shipra.gupta]

here's the prep strategy post...

I started my preparation around 15 Sept with a diagnostic test, where I scored a measly 530. Thoroughly scared by this score, I started off with Kaplan Premier, purportedly the easiest book in the league. Finished with the book and all the practice tests on the CD by end of September. Followed it with OG-11, which was over by 15 Oct.

Then I went back to Premier. Re-did only the book questions in about a week or so. This was followed by Kaplan 800. Doing this book was a major challenge, since the level of questions was much tougher than any of those in either Premier or OG 11. So I went through all the questions and their explanations carefully and actually felt my own learning curve rising rapidly, especially in SC. Finished this book too by end of October. I referred to IMS-CAT material to brush up my math concepts (especially Geometry, Sequences, P&C and Probability), since math (these topics in particular) had always been a show stopper for me.

Then 1 month before my test, I took my first full length test. The sheer length of the test, coupled with the fact that it was a Kaplan test, made the experience quite intimidating. I ended with 560. After 2 months of hard work, and 3 books, my scores had risen by 30 points. I was, needless to say, completely disappointed. Again read some post on this forum and realized that it was more the Kaplan test than me, and felt much better...

I then studied Manhattan SC (in just a couple of days), not sure if it added a lot of value, but given that I did not spend too much time, it was worth the effort. I then revisited OG-11. Just to get rid of the test phobia, I re-took the Kaplan test I had goofed up earlier. This time I got a 640 on it. I then took the first Power Prep test and got a 740. feeling much better, I then started taking 1 test every weekend and 1, if possible, in the middle of the week (though this used to be hard with office.)

OG-11 round 2 was over by around Nov25. I had 15 days left for the test, and i did not really want to stress myself out in these last crucial days. I just revisited Kaplan 800 briefly. All throughout, I had been keeping log of all the questions I got wrong (but not the answers I marked to avoid getting biased). Surprisingly, I always got the same questions wrong, even if I had completely forgotten the question/answer options. So that gave me a clear indication of my weak points.

Till now I had been spending atleast 3 hours everyday, and between 7-8 hours on weekends towards this preparation. In the last week, since I was on leave, I spent almost 6-8 hours every day revisiting concepts, mistakes, solving new problems etc.

After round-2 with every book, i had made notes against the questions I got wrong more than once. during these last days, I took leave from work, revised all the weak points, concepts/formulas notes and these problem questions. I also did some questions from CR-1000, SC-1000, 1 super tough math test from 800score.com and took a very brief overview of Wren & Martin, primarily to solve some lingering SC doubts. Though my accuracy fell miserably on these, the learning curve was still great. and I made it a point not to get bogged down or scared in these last days.

By this time I was scoring 680 on Kaplan tests and 760 on Powerprep. I had also been making notes of all the new/interesting concepts of Verbal and formulas in Maths

the weekend before my test (it was on Monday) , I just read some essays for AWA and did some other light reading of SC concepts and math notes I had prepared over the last 3 months.

phew...loong post. looks longer than my preparation actually :P to summarize :

1) sept 15 - Kaplan Premier + CD =>
2) Oct beginning - OG-11 =>
3) (around)Oct 15 - Premier Round 2 (notes for repeated mistakes) =>
4) Last week Oct - Kaplan 800 + IMS-CAT math material (for P&C, Probability, Geometry, Sequences) =>
5) 1st week Nov - First FLT (kaplan CD -score:560)
6) Manhattan SC + first Powerprep test (score 740)
7) OG-11 round 2 + Kaplan FLTs every weekend (scores reached to 680 by the fourth test)
Nov 25 - Kaplan 800 round 2 + second Power prep test (score 760)
9) Last 10 days
- Revision of notes, concepts, repeated mistakes, Manhattan
- very little extra practice from SC-1000, CR-1000, 800score.com - just to get the flavor
- Very Brief overview of Wren & Marting for Grammar concepts
11) For AWA - just used to read sample essays (2-3 ) once every couple of days, throughout the preparation (more as a relaxing technique than anything else)

The application process is to begin now. Since I was late in taking the test, I really need to hurry things up for the applications.

Hope this helps someone...this forum has been of great help to me and if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask..I'd only be too glad to help.

thanks,
Shipra

[fringant]

hi shipra
nice write up
i am a complete novice as far as gmat and foreign b school applications are considered..
here are a few queries??

1)i have been preparing for indian b school entrances this year,and generally i am pretty ok at logical reasoning and maths but it's grammar and vocab where i have to work a lot.. how much time do you think i need to give to gmat preps??

2)i have had a decent cat and snap,expecting a fair number of calls and giving fms,xat as well so would be caught up till jan end,will have to prepare for gd/pi as well..
Would it be poss for me to take the gmat in feb end,devoting just a month to preparations??time won't be a problem coz i am going to stop working after jan 31st.
say,if i take the gmat in feb last or march mid would i be able to apply to b schools in singapore and australia with my scores whose classes start in july..what other options could i look at??

3)what would be the approximate total cost of taking the gmat and buying all the study materials for gmat??

thanks in advance...

[tarun_maths]

hello shipra
similar to fringant, i m a novice here as well.
i just completed my 3rd sem of btech in computer science.

i wanted to know which is the best month to give the gmat exam. as u said u now have to rush to universities, in which month one should give gmat so that he/she can send his/her application comfortably.

another thing i wanna ask is that what else is required to get admisssion in an reputed university.
i mean i heard a lot of co-curricular activity certificates are required to seek admission in univs like oxford, stanford etc. can u tell me about this!!

[shipra.gupta]

hi..

please find my replies inline...

Originally Posted by fringant

hi shipra
nice write up
i am a complete novice as far as gmat and foreign b school applications are considered..
here are a few queries??

1)i have been preparing for indian b school entrances this year,and generally i am pretty ok at logical reasoning and maths but it's grammar and vocab where i have to work a lot.. how much time do you think i need to give to gmat preps??

2)i have had a decent cat and snap,expecting a fair number of calls and giving fms,xat as well so would be caught up till jan end,will have to prepare for gd/pi as well..
Would it be poss for me to take the gmat in feb end,devoting just a month to preparations??time won't be a problem coz i am going to stop working after jan 31st.
say,if i take the gmat in feb last or march mid would i be able to apply to b schools in singapore and australia with my scores whose classes start in july..what other options could i look at??

looks like u hv a pretty packed schedule for the next couple of months. Though I took about 2.5 months on 3 hrs/day preparation, I do know people who got 700+ with 15 days of prep. So that really depends on how many fruitful hrs cn u put in a day (I'm not expert, but I guess u'd need about 6-8 hrs/day given ur not-so-gr8 verbal). With a decent CAT, XAT etc. experience, I think you could prepare in Feb and tk the test in the last week of feb, preferably around 25th Feb, so that even if you do need to tk it again, you cn schedule it for arnd 26 Mar, (u need a 31 days gap between 2 attempts), and still be able to submit your application by 29 Mar (the deadline for NUS, NTU, AIM and a few others as well for the Aug08 intake).

However, this does mean that you will have to keep your apps ready along with your GMAT preparations

Ofcourse you could make your life easier and prepare for Jan'09 instead

3)what would be the approximate total cost of taking the gmat and buying all the study materials for gmat??

GMAT costs abt. US $250, Kaplan premier (INR 1000), Official GMAT Guide-11 (INR 1800), Kaplan 800 (INR 500) and other books in the same range. (Ofcourse the costs could vary slightly with different bookstores and cities)

thanks in advance...

you can get all the GMAT info on the official site http://mba.com

Hope this helps,
Shipra

[shipra.gupta]

Hi tarun,

Please find my replies inline..

Originally Posted by tarun_maths

hello shipra
similar to fringant, i m a novice here as well.
i just completed my 3rd sem of btech in computer science.

i wanted to know which is the best month to give the gmat exam. as u said u now have to rush to universities, in which month one should give gmat so that he/she can send his/her application comfortably.

I'd say the ideal time would be early october..since most Round I deadlines get over by Nov-end to Dec-end, and Round-II deadlines by Mar-end. So that gives you nearly 2 months to fill in the applications. Also, do some research on the univs prior to starting your prep, that'll save your time after GMAT.

another thing i wanna ask is that what else is required to get admisssion in an reputed university.
i mean i heard a lot of co-curricular activity certificates are required to seek admission in univs like oxford, stanford etc. can u tell me about this!!

well I am still going through the applications process myself, but that's what I've heard too But firstly, most universities require atleast 2 years of full-time work-ex after graduation. Since you are still studying, it might be worth it to strengthen your profile with extra-curricular activities in your college, and good acads, especially if you don't already have those.

The GMAT score is valid for 5 years, and you can take the test multiple times, with a gap of 31 days between 2 attempts, not exceeding 5 times in 1 year. The official GMAT score card shows the scores from all the attempts. While some univs consider your best score, others take the average.

you can find more information on mba.com and if u havent already, then do post on
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/our-an...-yourself.html (Introduce yourself)

will give you a good starting point on this unbelievably exhaustive forum!

Hope this helps,
Shipra

[deeps5]

hi Shipra,

i'm a Software Engineer with 2+ yrs of work ex, plannig to take GMAT aroung April - May this year. I havent started with my preparation yet. I have been going though the posts in this form for about a week's time.
i have heard that OG,Kalpan and Princeton are good resources to work on.i'm not able to zero down on the broader strategy to take up. i was wondering about what would be a better approach, devoting some time every day on atleast 2-3 sections in GMAT or get done with one round of prep of one section,say SC or quant...,before starting with the other.

thanks in advance

[ajeesh.aj]

congrats shipra..710 is not bad

[shipra.gupta]

Originally Posted by deeps5

hi Shipra,

i'm a Software Engineer with 2+ yrs of work ex, plannig to take GMAT aroung April - May this year. I havent started with my preparation yet. I have been going though the posts in this form for about a week's time.
i have heard that OG,Kalpan and Princeton are good resources to work on.i'm not able to zero down on the broader strategy to take up. i was wondering about what would be a better approach, devoting some time every day on atleast 2-3 sections in GMAT or get done with one round of prep of one section,say SC or quant...,before starting with the other.

thanks in advance

Hi,

first of all, I am extremely sorry for the long delay in responding! No excuses... just apologies

I hope by now you have figured out the strategy, if you haven't then all I can say is different things work for different people. you must have read my strategy already, I did one book at a time. That means, I kind of studied all the 3 sections simultaneously but not all 3 on the same day. It was more like all 3 in 1 week, but 1 section in 2-3 days each. This way, I used to be able to devote enough time on every section, without actually getting out of touch from the others.

Of course I kept improvising as and when required. For instance when I got completely stumped by Probability, I devoted 2-3 days exclusively to probability, P & C and threw in some geometry as well. At that time I left all GMAT prep and did all the math from IMS material. Then at another time when I could not figure out some things in SC, I again left GMAT books for 2 days and just concentrated on Wren & Martin.

So I guess the best thing to do is pick up a strategy and if you dont feel confident or see any improvement in ur scores or learning curve, then improvise. But then again, thats just my opinion and I am no expert

Hope this helps and hope I am not too late.

Please feel free to ask further questions, I'll try my best to be more regular in replying back.

thanks & regards,
Shipra

[ajeesh.aj]

could you tell me on what basis percentile is given with your score.. batchwise or weekwise?