GMat done

[kartik1979]

hi people, i gave the GMAT yesterday . I scored a 640( Q42,V35). i would like to thank Stacy and RON for all their useful tips and advice. I had given the GMAT previously and scored a 560 , my timing was off in both the sections and especially off on verbal part in which i had only 10 minutes left for last 10 questions which included a RC . i had posted my timing issue in this forum where Stacy had advised that it is useful to guess and move forward in certain questions so that later on it doesn't effect my overall score in a very bad way

I had taken this advice very seriously and also practiced a lot of verbal questions. I practiced a lot of SC ( 183 gmat prep SC'S), LSAT RC and CR . Even when i did get the answer right to the SC questions i came to this site and went through Ron's and Stacy's explaination of the problem to get a more clear understanding or any rule i had missed out on . I also practiced one thing in RC - i do not advice anybody to follow this path unless one has a timing issue in GMAT- Try practicing a few RC's by not reading the whole RC's but just by going through the part of the RC which mentions the question and guessing the ans . After a few practices you would be able to get around 70% of the questions right . This is a useful weapon in your armory if you face timing issue in the GMAT

I do agree that GMAT Verbal is tough , the OG and GMAT Prep problems come no way near the level of difficulty of questions that you face when you are doing well. I do not believe that RC or CR were any tougher than those in my last exam. You just have to prep CR and RC with tougher questions (LSAT CR AND RC - MEDIUM AND HARD LEVEL QUESTIONS are good exercise for anyone) but SC was a different story i have done around 183 gmat prep sc's . 600 questions in 1000 SC ( its a bad source but you can use the questions to take note of any rules that you have never come across) my average time for a SC question was around 45 secs with 80-90% hit rate but in the exam i found the questions very difficult initially the first 5/6 i believe . Later on I got the standardized questions that you see in GMAT prep .

CR was ok . I got a lot of assumptions questions with close ans which didnt help much .so anybody thinking about a high score please practice high level assumptions questions only one bold faced question -



RC - my nemesis , always knew that the passage was going to be very crooked :) you get these odd information laden science passages or social upheaval passages in the 3rd and 4th passage, which is to be expected . Please practice a lot of these passages to get good at them and believe me most of the questions will be inference questions and this makes it a lot tougher

To motivate myself during each sections , I would just remember the speech of mel gibson in braveheart " run and you will live, fight and you may die but lying in your beds some years from now if you were given once chance , one chance to come back and say to our enemies that you may take our lives but you may never take our freedom " - something like that,It worked to take away any jitters that i felt before the section

please take the gmat seriously but remember that it isn't the end of the world . Many times during the exam I would just laugh at the questions thrown at me by GMAt ( not because it was easy it was freaking tough ). Take one question at a time and do not worry about the questions gone by , Just focus at the question in front of you .

I kinda miss studying for gmat , i find that odd as i was waiting for the day for it to end


I would like to end by saying "A BIG THANK YOU TO RON AND STACY " .I could only get so far because of your excellent replies to all queries posted in thsi forum

I would have definitely taken Manhattan classes but they do not have any center in Mumbai, India but those of you who have the opportunity should avail of it

thank you
kartik

[sanyalpritish]

Congrats