Cracked the GMAT : 730 (Q50, V39) !

Hello all Pagals, Phew ! Its finally over. Score : 730 (Q50, V39). :: I could have scored a little more on the verbal though :sad:. Thanks guys for all the wonderful postings on this forum. Summary on my prep. I spent about 3 mon…

Hello all Pagals,
Phew ! Its finally over. Score : 730 (Q50, V39). I could have scored a little more on the verbal though :sad:.

Thanks guys for all the wonderful postings on this forum.

Summary on my prep.

I spent about 3 months for the preparation. Approx 1 - 2 hrs on weekdays and 4 - 5 hrs on weekends. That was the max time I could get because of a tight work schedule.


Books Used.

- OG 10
- OG 11
- Princeton Review
- Kaplan 800 score
- Manhattan Sentence Correction (the best book for SC)

The first 3 books easily got me in 650 - 700 range. But to break the 700 barrier, I had to look at more complex tactics like the ones in Kaplan 800 and Manhattan SC.

Practice Tests.

Kaplan - Not very useful - I felt that the questions were little off-topic. No harm in practicing if you have time

Princeton - Not the right one if you want to score 700+, but good for the basics

Manhanttan - Good for practicing, but the questions are lot more tougher/confusing than those in the actual GMAT.

GMATPrep - The alpha and the omega of GMAT :angel:. You can expect almost the same kind of questions in the actual GMAT. Practice.... Practice.... Practice... as many times as possible. Surprisingly I did not find many repetitions each time used it.

Another important point I learned on the way was to reason each answer in detail instead of just picking the best answer and jumping to the next question. Analyze the question properly and reason why you picked a particular answer. Think about variations of the same question. This will make your understanding of the concept clear and thorough.

All the best to all GMAT takers.

N'Joy
Sam

wow sam....gr8 job...can u share ur views on how to increase speed and try to attempt all the questions...Also which schools are you looking forward to ?? As well let us know ur profile too....

Sajid

Hey Sam,

First of all Congrats on getting 730 in GMAT...do let us know your profile and I would like to ask you only 1 question..Is coaching required to crack GMAT...

Thanks,
Kartik

Congrats SMATS2008, for the score!!

Had a query regarding OG. How much difference is there between OG10 and OG11 in terms of questions? I have OG10 and I wanted to know if it is worth buying OG11?

Cheers!!

Congrats Sam, As your post shows, 3-4 important books/courses are more than enough for cracking the GMAT. And the questions are mainly of the level of OG/GMATPrep.


Please do post a detailed debrief of your GMAT experience and congrats once again :).

Wow....Congrats Sam..
Cheers..

Amazing Sam. You rock! Thanks for the info you had provided regarding your prep. Helps a lot!

wow sam....gr8 job...can u share ur views on how to increase speed and try to attempt all the questions...Also which schools are you looking forward to ?? As well let us know ur profile too....

Sajid

Thanks Sajid,

Here is what I did to keep the timing,

* Kept track of time while solving the questions from the books. It gave me a rough idea on how much time I was taking for each question (also a split on various types of questions)

* Followed time for all practice tests. Some of the practice tests lets you pause the timer in between - don't do that.

* Don't get stuck on questions - if you are unable to find the answer, take an educated guess. Practice elimination techniques to improve accuracy of your guess. Finishing the test is more important compared to making few wrong guesses.

* Practice.......Practice.......Practice....... :)

Hope this helps.. All the best.

Cheers
Sam.
Hey Sam,

First of all Congrats on getting 730 in GMAT...do let us know your profile and I would like to ask you only 1 question..Is coaching required to crack GMAT...

Thanks,
Kartik

Thanks Kartik,

Regarding your question on coaching,

I did not take any coaching, so I am not sure how effective it is. From my experience - if you have good basics on verbal & math, you should be able to do a fine job with good practice.

But when you do self study, be sure to look for tactics & shortcuts for solving problems. There could n number of different ways to solve a problem, you should identify the easiest/fastest one. Coaching classes may help you here.

Cheers & All the best
Sam.

guys i have heard that u get an easier paper abroad, is it true?:grin:

Hi ..

I greatly appreciate your inititative to share your strategies .. BTW where are you planning to apply ??? and waht's your profile like ???

Congrats SMATS2008, for the score!!

Had a query regarding OG. How much difference is there between OG10 and OG11 in terms of questions? I have OG10 and I wanted to know if it is worth buying OG11?

Cheers!!

Thanks reachbinnie

OG 10 has more questions than OG 11. The question types are pretty much the same and there are few repetitions too. What I would suggest is if you are short of time, going for Manhattan/kaplan 800 will help you cover more types of questions than OG 11.

All the best with your prep,

Cheers
Sam.
Catcalll Says
guys i have heard that u get an easier paper abroad, is it true?:grin:

I wish 😃 All the best, if you are planning to verify it. :)

Cheers !!
Thanks reachbinnie

OG 10 has more questions than OG 11. The question types are pretty much the same and there are few repetitions too. What I would suggest is if you are short of time, going for Manhattan/kaplan 800 will help you cover more types of questions than OG 11.

All the best with your prep,

Cheers
Sam.


Thanks for the reply! I think I would go for OG 11 anyways. Why the heck bother myself with the old book?

Cheers!
My profile : Indian/M/32/IT/9+ Ex/3.8 GPA. I haven't finalized on the schools yet. Thinking of applying to Insead, HEC, LBS....

suggestions ?.

Cheers
Sam.

Congratulations to you!!!

Its a good score indeed.............am sure it will help you in gettting admission into a good school with your kind of profile.......!!

Have fun !!

I am preparing for GMAT from past one month. Last week I gave my first mock (Manhattan mock 1) and I scored 51 in maths and 33 in Verbal ,Also in verbal I cracked CR with 12 out of 14 questions correct along with a good speed.

I performed very poorly in Sentence correction and Reading comprehension mostly because of very slow speed. I am ready to do anything to improve on this front.Kindly suggest some methodology, material €Ś which can help me improve.