thanks guys for all the help...GMAT-760

[nikhil.sikri]

I have been more of a lurker at this site with infrequent postings but the stuff posted here has helped me a lot.
Just wanted to thank you all for great support.

Debrief: Well, what a relief!

Those last few seconds: When the computer said do you want to report your score? For once I thought that I should check the choice of cancel your score. But then canceling meant studying again. So I checked -report scores and oh boy that were one of the lengthiest 20 seconds. My heart was pounding as if it wanted to burst the chest wall and sit beside me. But finally the score was good so I guess my heart changed its plan. (Pardon me for some grammatical errors- focusing more on emotions)

Preparation:

I started around 40 days back when I took the date of GMAT. I had been planning to start the preparation before but I guess till the time you actually don’t fix a date and set a deadline, real preparation doesn’t begin. I first took the official guide and started doing sentence correction. I did it for the first time and studied explanation for the wrong answers and didn’t bother to read the explanation for the correct ones (although later I realized that it was a big mistake). OG is the bible of SC. Read explanation for every question and every choice as to why it’s wrong.

Although risking stating the obvious, I would say that sentence correction is the most important part of GMAT. If you are getting them right then there is very less chance that your score shall come very low. It would always be respectable. Clearly, I’m not undermining the importance of other sections.

Then I took Kaplan CAT - 640, I guess they intentionally give you a low score so that no matter what you get in real exam you won’t blame them as it would be generally more than the Kaplan’s one.

Then I thought of reviewing grammar and other GMAT notes on critical reasoning and RCs. So, downloaded some books from net and started reading them. I have taken some important notes from those books and have put on a blog.
GMAT Preparation
(Right now I have put only critical reasoning and reading comprehension, will try to keep updating it.)

Then I gave Princeton test 1 - it was little better scored 680. Then with successive tests it improved to 720 in 3rd and stayed the same in 4th tests.

Then I tried a lot of free practice questions on various sites. After all this I gave GMAT Prep 2 one week before the exam-710!!!! One month before it was 700 one month after-710. I was shocked then I rechecked where I have been wrong. The main point was I was looking for the right answer choice in the question but not looking for the reasons of the wrong answer choice. 6 days before the exam I just focused on OG, reading each and every question thoroughly and taking GMAT prep again and again daily(you will be surprised to see there are a lot of new questions rather very few question are repeated every time). It worked; I was improving day by day. And finally ......

if you have any queries do mail me at nikhilsikri@gmail.com or you can leave a comment on the blog ...

Regarding Quant: I would say that don't trust those easy tests in most of the preparation material . Real GMAT gives a lot tougher. I could not score 51( scored 50) although my quant. was supposedly good . It gets a lot tougher as you get questions right. But the type of questions were similar to GMAT prep. So if you prepare those types, and don't become complacent with your preparation as I did, then you have a good chance of scoring 51.

thanks guys for all your help....

[siobhan]

I had a very similar experience. During my practice tests I got:

GmatPrep 690, 710
Manhattan Gmat 700, 710, 720
Kaplan 720
Princeton Review 710

I took the real thing yesterday. Essays were fine, except with 5 minutes left I realized I accidentally deleted a paragraph so had to quickly rewrite it.

Then came math. I was so nervous. I knew I was doing well but about 2/3 in I realized I was running behind in time. I had to "sacrifice" many questions in order to catch up. For example, I got a hard Overlapping Sets question and knowing I perform poorly at those (thanks OG Study Guide) I just took a guess and moved on. At the end I had about 3 questions left and about 2 minutes left. I felt a pit in my stomach. If I remember correctly, I focused on one and guessed on the others.

After I completed the math section I thought I blew it. I took a short break and just focused on verbal. Felt pretty good about it.

At the end of the test I was hesitant to report my scores. I am trying to get into a top 3 school and my performance on the test "felt like" a 690 (which is a great score, but I was aiming for a 720 which is about the Stanford median).

I clicked "Report" because I really didn't want to study for another month.

To my surprise: 760. (Math = 50, Verbal = 42).

I think I got lucky in some guesses. I am still in shock. Much higher than any of my practices scores.

My advice:

You're ready when you can recognize the problem types. Eg: this is an overlapping sets problem, this is the "considered" idiom, this is a pronoun issue. Being able to quickly judge what type of question you are dealing with helps a lot.

Finish the problems, even if you have to guess on many to get to the end.

As prep I did tons of the advanced OG problems. Any time I got a problem wrong, I put it on a notecard to review later. Also the O.G. Problem Tracker (an Excel Worksheet that lets you see where you need to improved) helped a lot.

Thanks Manhattan Gmat

[jayant.apte]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I wanted to get an understanding of the difficulty level between the GMAT Prep exams and the official GMAT exam in quant and verbal. Did you think that the GMAT Prep quant and verbal were similar to the offical exam or is the official exam much harder? And did you see any surprises in quant (for e.g. a type of question you have not seen in the offical review 11th edition) or verbal?

Thanks for your reply. Any info on the differences between the the GMAT Prep and the offical exam will be much appreciated.

[sambhavverman]

hey nikhil ...
we wud be really thankful to u if u can provide some more inputs on how to prepare for the real GMAT... will OG bible be sufficient for the preparation or we hav to look for more books... Also suggest a few guides/books for RC.....

[TheoL816]

Anybody could explain to me what is "OG Bible"? Probably it is a Jewish Bible? Thanks.