Thank you Ron Purewal and manhattangmat crew of moderators

[alibafzal]

I m a silent reader at this forum and this is my first post. I have not posted primarily because most of the questions i have had regarding OG questions have been answered by people here. Ron Purewal has been a diligent teacher for a lot of people and i m no exception. I think i have learnt less from the strategy books than i have from Ron. Perhaps his posts only crystalized my lessons and take aways.

In any case, i wanted to share my gmat journey and acknowledge that Ron was an ever present guide on this rollercoaster of a ride. I appreciate how you have been so diligent in answering every question with sometimes more detail than most people would have the patience for.

When i first took the test almost a year ago after studying on my own for three weeks i got 590. I was gutted and felt like throwing away my books. I put them away and didn't look at them till 2 months ago when i got back in gear and started using the forums and the books together. The practice test on this site have also been a constant help. My weakest area was SC and i was getting 5/10 questions right. I spent time internalizing Ron's teaching and it was not until 3 days ago when i suddenly started scoring 8/10 700-800 level SC questions correctly. I suck at grammer and formal prose so i focused purely on verbal section. The weird thing is (or maybe its not surprising but) i got more on verbal this time around than on quant.

I didn't really follow a steady approach or anything just studied the OG questions with Ron's explainations and ended with a 730. I still cant get over it.

My advice to people that want to break the 700 mark and are dumb like me: focus on questions from OG one at a time and identify theory that is being tested. Then go to the strategy guides and learn everything there is to know about that particular theory (perhaps even try related problems). The approach of linearly going through the books just for the sake of finishing them is what i did the first time around and couldnt even break 600.

Ron lets meet up if you are around east coast at any point and i'll buy you a drink buddy. Keep up the good work...you rock!

[rohit801]

I agree with you. Two things:

1. The way to score better/higher is to understan "what" is being tested by quickly looking at the questions. After practice with good material, one should be able to figure out - ah! this is a comparison test or smellslike run-on sentence etc. They test the same pattern (since gmat is a standardized test). Ex: 2 is the only even prime; this concept is tested all the time but obviously, in a disguised manner.

2. About Ron - what can you say? i think it should almost be required by law that one go through all his explanations! If Ron teaches basket weaving, i will attend that class and learn some amazing stuff.

In the light of coming elections, i Propose Ron for President.
I am thinking of how to engage Ron to educate my 5 yr old daughter on how to learn. Working on keeping some money aside; once i am on my way, then i will each out to him for advice.

Manhattan Gmat does a real good job at teaching.