I retook the test and got 770 (Q 51, V 44). Was expecting V 45 or more, but am not complaining
Quant was OG level – except a couple of Qs. The 3rd Q was a combination of Venn diagram, equations using two variables, and probability
Talk about an auspicious start! I stared at it, trying to figure it out. I usually convert a word problem into an equation immediately, but this time the equation could not be solved, as there was only one value given (e.g. mX + nY = Z; I had to ‘find’ the value of aX + bY, and then calculate X, Y, XY (i.e. both X&Y – remember this was a Venn diag Q), and then find the probability. After trying to solve for 5 min I had to use my common sense after looking at all the answer options. Maybe it was an experimental Q (probably it was). Later I thought about that Q, and realized that instead of jumping into equations, I should have scanned the answer choices and used my common sense – would have saved me 3-4 mins at least. None of the other Qs were this difficult.
Verbal – was OG level. For my retake I did all the OG SC Qs again, and that helped me. However, I got stuck with a simple looking but tricky SC some 15 min into the test (after narrowing it down to 2 options, I stared at it for 8 min, without being able to make up my mind). Finally I had to force myself to move ahead. This screwed up my timing so that I had about 1.5 min each for the remaining Qs, and I had to speed read/solve some CRs and long RCs & SCs (and I guess that’s where I got some of the Qs wrong). Got a couple of boldface Qs that were simple – in fact simpler than some of the non-boldfaced CRs on the test. (I think some of the boldface Qs floating around are crap – since some of the answer choices are similar, unlike in the ETS BF CRs. I tried out a few BF CRs from the net, but even after looking at the so called “original answers”, I was not totally convinced with the reasoning – and I used to get about 97-98% of OG CR Qs right)
Practicing the essays beforehand helped – last time I had suffered due to this. When I practiced a couple of essays, I thought that I had done OK – but re-reading them, I found that I had made silly errors (e.g. Secondly instead of Second, weak conclusions, spelling errors and typos, not using words and phrases that are picked up by the artificial intelligence engine of the e-Rater, etc). So do practice your essays – at least a couple of AoAs and AoIs each.
When I started my prep, I had thought that IMS (a test prep company in India) material would be good enough – as I had used IMS to crack CAT (I have an MBA from IIMC). But coming to online forums like these opened my eyes. While IMS is good for Quant mastery (actually one doesn’t need to learn/use 80% of the concepts present in their material), their verbal is crap. I learned a lot of things here – that something like OG exists, and that it is the bible for practice, that people aiming to do well should use Kaplan rather than Princeton or Barrons, that PP tests are realistic, that one should do them before touching OG, …so many things. Thanks guys.
A few tips:
- Figure out what works for you – especially tips like these
- Cut out all the hype and ignore all the esoteric Qs floating round. Focus on getting the basics right.
- Leverage OG and PowerPrep to the fullest. A combination of Kaplan and OG should be good enough.
- Go through the explanations – figure out why you made a mistake, how you should ideally have reasoned when looking at the Q, and identify weaknesses/ recurrent errors. For SC, I looked at (skimmed through) all the answers t he second time round – unlike the first time, when I had looked at only the ones that I had got wrong. For CR and RC, I marked the Qs that I had been unsure about, and also looked them up (along with the ones that I had got wrong – but these were very few). I did the same thing for DS, but again only for a few Qs. PS I ignored, because if it was right, it was right because I knew the concept already, and I didn’t need to look at the explanation. I cut down on my careless mistakes – e.g. reading ‘percent’ for ‘cent’, calculating an answer using min instead of hours etc.
- Use LOTs of scratch paper. While practicing, I used to scribble equations – and realized that sometimes figures/ equations from two different problems would overlap, and create confusion – at the very least, slow me down. Use the grid for verbal and eliminate wrong answers ASAP.
- Have chocolate between breaks – it gives energy.
- Get good sleep the night before. Before going to the test, do some light exercise (btw, remember that OG CR that talks about how exercise increases blood flow to the brain and improves concentration?), and maybe practice a couple of Qs from all the 5 sections.
- Practice with PowerPrep section tests the last 2-3 days. When you see the actual GMAT screen, you won’t have ‘medium dissonance’.
- If a Q stumps you, do not spend more than 3 min on it. Narrow down, make an intelligent guess, and move on. I could have improved my verbal score if I had not spent 8 min on one stupid SC question.
- Analyze your performance. After solving all the Qs in OG, I had made a chart, with mistake % for the 5 sections, the expected number of mistakes on a 78 Q test (37+41), and how this number - and my score - would vary on a good, bad, or 'par' day. I had figured that 770 was par - (PP2 was also 770 before OG), and 740-750 would be a 'bad day' score, while 780 or more would be a good day score (Q : 50 or 51, and V - less than 3 errors). My first GMAT score was a 'bad-day' score.
congrats man for the the great score. the info given by you would be definately useful to all those who are planning to give GMAT
Linear Mode
