I took the GMAT on 28th of April 2011 and landed up with a score of 730(96%ile) Q49(86%ile) V40(89%ile) : AWA 5.5 :: The* Materials* I used were 1) OG 10,11,12 2)Manhattan GMAT SC 3)My old IMS quant books to brush up my Quant formula…
I took the GMAT on 28th of April 2011 and landed up with a score of 730(96%ile) Q49(86%ile) V40(89%ile) : AWA 5.5 
The Materials I used were
1) OG 10,11,12
2)Manhattan GMAT SC
3)My old IMS quant books to brush up my Quant formulae
4)ETS Paper Tests
5)Manhattan Gmat Tests
6)Princeton Tests
7)Kaplan Premier CD
8 ) 800 Score Tests
9)Gmat Club daily question of the day
Strategy that I took for my GMAT :I actually took a long circuitous way towards my GMAT goal 
. Decided early 2010 that I would be giving GMAT , but had no idea on the how to's and the where to's ...and besides I was woefully short of practice ...last gave CAT(Common Admission Test) on 2007 ...so was undecided on what to do .....
Then my wife decided that she wanted to give cat and enrolled for IMS correspondence and CL tests ........ though initially uninterested I slowly got intersted while helping her understand the nuances of CAT(she being a first timer) ...and at the end of the day decided that giving CAT would provide me the best practice for GMAT . Started around June and found that I was woefully out of practice . Slowly after a few Mocks my %ile started to come around 98 and like true CAT fanatics I forgot my actual goal of using CAT as a practice for GMAT and started believing that I may be 3rd time lucky .
However fate decided otherwise and I had to leave for US for a trip of two months and came back just 3 days before CAT. Though I practiced using the online CL tests ...the jet lag proved too much for me and I had a repeat of my previous cat debacles :drinking:
....Thereafter I procastinated for a few days on what to do and finally in Jan decided to go with my original goal that of giving Gmat ....I downloaded GMAT prep from the mba.com site and gave the practice test 1 with a score of 650 (Q42 V37).I was in a complete disarray on seeing the score , and was so disturbed that I took the GMAT Prep test two the very next day landing up with a score of 720(Q47, V 41). However this proved to be a bad influence as I again grew lax and stopped studying for a few days . Started again after a gap of 2 weeks and finished OG 12 in the next one week . OG 12 proved to be pretty easy and provided me some confidence. Then in a typical slam bang way I finished with OG 11 and 10 in the following 2 weeks . I was in pretty good shape by then , however as I am often wont to do slackened off again . However I was awoken from my slumber by my best friend who had already scheduled his GMAT on Mar 14 (he wanted to apply for TAS, the last date for which was Mar 16 or so ) . On seeing someone who had started preparing a lot after me , give the exam before me and get 730 , I was quite charged up. but inspite of my best intentions could not study till Mar 28th as I had a Japanese exam on that day . After finishing my Jap exam on 28th of March I decided that enough was enough and booked my date for 28th of April , a day after voting ended here in Kolkata.
In the next 3 weeks , I tried to take up as many exams as I could lay my hand on , and the scores were as below
Exam Code--------------------------Maths--------Verbal-------Total
Official test 1-----------------------42-----------37---------------650
official test 2-----------------------47-----------41---------------720
Kaplan-----------------------------42-----------41-----------670
Paper Test 14----------------------47-----------47-----------740
Paper Test 25----------------------48-----------43-----------730
Princeton Review Paper 1-----------51-----------41-----------730
Princeton Review Paper 2-----------48-----------39-----------700
800 score 2------------------------44-----------33-----------610
Paper Test 28----------------------47-----------45-----------740
Manhattan Gmat test 1--------------47-----------36-----------680
Paper Test 37----------------------48-----------42-----------730
Paper Test 42----------------------49-----------45-----------760
Manhattan Gmat Test 4--------------51-----------38-----------730
Manhattan Gmat Test 5--------------50-----------39-----------730
Manhattan Gmat Test 6--------------51-----------41-----------750
Manhattan Gmat Test 2--------------51-----------44-----------770
Knewton Test-----------------------45-----------44-----------710
Gmat Paper Test 52-----------------51-----------42-----------770
Official Test I Repeat-------------50-----------40--------------740
Gmat Paper Test 55----------------50-----------51-----------790
Official Test 2 Repeat-------------49-----------46-----------760
Actual Gmat ---------------------49-----------40-----------730
I was quite charged up by the last few exams where I consistently scored well and even scored a magical 790 somewhere(All exams taken with AWA) . As the D day came near I gave my last exam on the 26th of March and was quite happy to get a 760 in the official GMat prep. By this time I was quite sure that I would get something above 700 if I could hold my nerve on the D -day.
Day before the exam: The day before the exam I did not give any further exam , and only brushed up a few formulae , had a look at the template given by chineseburned in his AWA guide in GMATCLUB. Sine it was vote day , I went and exercised my voting rights and in the evening watched the IPL match between Kochi and Deccan
D Day: I went to sleep late the day before exam and got up at 10:30 am the day of the exam . Since I had my exam scheduled at 2:00 pm , I whiled away my time watching Shinchan , trying not to think of the exam. Finally , I left for the exam center at 12:15 and reached the exam center at 1:00 pm an hour early . I was pretty worried that it would be very sunny here in Kolkata but it being cloudy was pretty enjoyable. I was told to wait at the center and had to wait till 1:30 when the proceedings began . I started the exam at 1:40 pm instead of 2:00 pm.
The argument section was quite easy and I finished it in time and to my surprise finished the issue section of the AWA 5 minutes before time . It was time for a break . I just went outside , washed my face , went to the loo , came back and started the Quant section . The Quant section was easy enough , but there was another person who had scheduled his exam bang in the middle of mine , so could not concentrate for some time as he was settling down . The room was very cold as the AC was very low and I was pretty tense so as to not make any silly mistake . However I did make some as the score came out to be 49 .
I finished the Quant section 5 minutes before schedule , and again went for the break . Was back in 2 minutes and started the verbal . The verbal was going well till I noticed that I had slowed down considerably and had about 20 questions to solve in the last 26 minutes . I hurried through the last few questions and finished with about 3 seconds left on the timer.
Many thoughts of previous CAT debacles flashed through my mind , as I moved across the next few screens , quivering ever so slightly . But any doubt left in my mind was laid to rest when I saw my scores .
Moral of the Story: Studying for CAT (Common Admissions test ) helped me bell the other CAT(Computer Adaptive Test/ GMAT)......a case of misplaced identities ...but I will accept it with glee
hey Subrata,
Congrats for the wonderful performance and thanks for the write up. I am writing my GMAT on 25th july,
just wanted to know if the pattern of Gmat wrt toughness has changed?
Any advices ?
Thanks
Radhika
hey Subrata,
Congrats for the wonderful performance and thanks for the write up. I am writing my GMAT on 25th july,
just wanted to know if the pattern of Gmat wrt toughness has changed?
Any advices ?
Thanks
Radhika
Hi Radhika
The pattern of GMAT toughness depends on how good you are doing in the test.....If you ask me GMAT prep software is the the best simulation of the actual GMAT ...the maths in GMAT does not depend on formula ...instead it focuses more on your understanding of the concepts ...mainly that of number theory .....As for English ...what can I say .....As long as you solve OG and analyze it thoroughly , you r good to go ......btw keep the Manhattan GMAT sentence correction book in hand .....that one helped me a lot in SC
atb:cheerio:
Hi Subrata..
I have brought the Manhattan GMAT sentence correction book but not able to understand how to go about it as not able to find enough practice questions. Did u refer the latest edition or the 2002 edition. Was the difficulty level of Quants section tougher than that of OG?
Hi Subrata..
I have brought the Manhattan GMAT sentence correction book but not able to understand how to go about it as not able to find enough practice questions. Did u refer the latest edition or the 2002 edition. Was the difficulty level of Quants section tougher than that of OG?
If you have bought the book , after each chapter in the book you will find some questions from the book itself ...the book also lists the questions in OG and the Verbal supplement which are corresponding to that chapter
Also you will get access to a set of 40 questions from the Manhattan GMAT site by logging in to your account ....The fact is that this book is not important for the number of questions it provides for practice .....but for the clear cut rules it mentions for solving the sentence correction ...try not to mug up those rules but to implement those rules in the questions you get
Subrata,
Thanks for the reply, Does the GMAT quants (PS and DS) is tougher than what u see in OG or of the same level.
Subrata,
Thanks for the reply, Does the GMAT quants (PS and DS) is tougher than what u see in OG or of the same level.
The GMAT quant is tricky ...it is tough but not tough as in CAT tough ..it will not ask of you to know vague formulae .........but rather it focuses more on application of known formulae...especially number theory .....mod values ....whether 0 is even etc .....the questions become tougher progressively as you do better......questions in OG in general are a good estimator of the toughness in GMAT ...especially the last few ...however try to solve OG from top to bottom ......:cheerio:
Hi Subrata,
First of all a BIG Congratulations to you for your BIG Convert :).
Pls let us know your your total work experience and the sector of your experience. That will be of great hekp for the other aspirants like me in doing a self evaluation of our profiles.
Thanks in advance!!
Hi Subrata,
First of all a BIG Congratulations to you for your BIG Convert :).
Pls let us know your your total work experience and the sector of your experience. That will be of great hekp for the other aspirants like me in doing a self evaluation of our profiles.
Thanks in advance!!
Hi
My total experience is 6 years 8 months in technical consultancy in Database Tuning and Analytics
Regards
Subrata Dass
Hi Subrata, Congratulations for the BIG convert !! Please let us know about your total work experience and the sector of experience. That will surely help other aspirants like me in doing a quick evaluation of there profiles . thanks in advance!!
please let me know books for doing studies of GMAT
HI PUYS
I am looking for links or pdf versions of
1.CR Bible
2.Ultimate one minute explanations to OG 12 (now since the one for OG 13 has been launched too, preferably this one).
3The SC Grail
4.Please refer something for IR
YELPING for HELP my saviors
Gareebon ke suno, woh 750+dega
@[584391:puneetgupt],
I can share SC grail and CR bible, i am also searching for ultimate explanation book.
If you want PM me your e'id.
@[233779:subrata.dass]
whic school did you apply to?
@mbajamesbond
@mbajamesbond said: @subrata.dasswhic school did you apply to?
IIM C , IIM A and ISB ...got through IIM C
Hi all,
I am pretty new to this forum.I just started my gmat preparation.I scored 610 in the diagnostic test.But I am aiming at 700+.Can someone suggest a study plan?
I want to write both CAT(2 attempts till now) and GMAT .I want to join some coaching institute.Which one should i join for GMAT or for CAT.?Please reply to me.
TIA
@PallavSingh said:I want to write both CAT(2 attempts till now) and GMAT .I want to join some coaching institute.Which one should i join for GMAT or for CAT.?Please reply to me.TIA
Keep Solving the test papers for both GMAT and CAT ......coaching instis are usually not much help....but the mocks they provide for CAT are good