一个美国哥们的考G心经--710(q47,v40)

vagrant

Though a bit disappointed at not getting 20 more, I am still feeling it ok to have scored above 700. One thing I am sure about is that if I could make it to 710 then all of you have the ability to take it beyond 720. If you see my practice scores, they seem like crap. I scored less even in princeton tests that are considered easy. The only time I scored well (700 and above) in practice tests was during the three days before my exam when I got 700 in Online Kaplan test, 710 in Crack-GMAT and 740 in PP2.

All I have to say is whatever was already said in this forum by Ursula, Vingmat,ALakshma and other top scorers. But I will still put them here to stress once more,the importance of a few things.
OG IS THE BIBLE FOR VERBAL. You need to do it atleast twice to be able to appreciate the explanations and remember the explanations. The questions in verbal part of main exam are similiar to the questions in OG. They test the same concepts.
CONFIDENCE IS THE KEY. This has been stressed very much by Ursula in her post and I understood it only during the last days of my preparation. This test is all about how much you can carry yourself with confidence. Answer the questions confidently with positiveness and you will do good.
KAPLAN IS THE BEST FOR QUANT. Though they are very tricky, the Kaplan questions prepare you really well for the quant section in main exam.
LOG ON to TESTMAGIC.COM DAILY and you will end up learning something new almost everytime. You should understand that the questions posted on testmagic.com are the ones that most of us do wrong the first time. I mean, there are some questions that stick to the normal patterns of errors which we all recognize and do right the first time. There are other questions that are tricky and with some twist and most of us end up doing them wrong the first time. In this site you will find such tricky questions and hence you need to pay some time on this forum to benefit from the work already done by others.
DO AS MANY TESTS AS YOU CAN. Do all the 4 KCATs, Free Online exams, Paper Tests, PP tests, etc. as many as you can. That will help you in gauging your speed on the exam as well as improve your ability to guess the right answer when are constrained for time.
Though some people may disagree about quantity, for someone with average skills, I suggest quantity. Do as many questions as you can. Solve as many problems as you can.I believe,it improves your ability to immediately recognise errors in SC,CR and Quant questions.
Above all, staying cool and physically fit is important for the exam. Its a good idea for you to go for a 1 mile jog on the day before the exam to bring some freshness into your mind and body.

Now about the exam -
1. The essays were as good as they are on OG. Nothing much to write about them.
2. The quant section started off with an inequality question. From then on it started increasing the difficulty of the questions. There was a question on standard deviation that I may have done wrong. I got one question on probability and two on questions on perm-combination. Good number of questions centered on number-theory. You can score 45 plus on quant with modest preparation. To get a score of 50 or so, I guess you have to be really alert and attentive to the questions. The questions are not that difficult in quant section. Only thing is all of them come with a slight twist that an alert mind can recognize. If you are tensed at this moment, chances are that you will end up missing the nuances of the question.
3. The sentence correction started off with a SC. I had 2 SC's, then a RC, then SCs and again a RC. So in the first 10 questions I had 2 RCs(6 qtns.) and 4 SCs. Then started CR, and SCs and a RC at 20th question. I was fairly relieved once I completed the third RC at 23rd question as I knew that I had only 1 RC to face in my lifetime . I had only 30 minutes when I completed 23rd question. From 23-33, I went very fast in 10 minutes. Then took 8 minutes to answer another RC. And finished the last 10 questions in 9 minutes. Never felt any pressure though. The questions in verbal section did not throw any surprises at all. I felt that they were very much like the ones in OG. The no. of SC,CR and RC is pretty much like how they are given in all standard books on GMAT,SC-14,CR-13,RC-14.

I advise you to read http://www.scientificamerican.com/ once before the exam day so that your mind will be ready to accept new Science passages related to astronomy or Biology.

When I gave Kaplan CAT1 and Kaplan CAT2, I observed that in an attempt at finishing the test within time, I am making so many mistakes. After seeing how VinGMAT and ALakshma and others have managed time in their tests, I have decided to allot more time to first 20 questions and take it real easy about maintaining time in the exam for first 20 questions. And for me it has worked superbly. I feel that the last 10 questions in quant and verbal are so easy that you can finish them off in 10 minutes. Because at that time the computer pretty much narrows down on your approx. score, it throws at you some easy questions.

Looking back, I feel that I could have scored better if I had spent more time on quant. I had focussed extensively on verbal much to the detriment of quant.

I read Kaplan GMAT 2003 edition, Kaplan GMAT Verbal Workbook, Princeton GMAT Verbal workbook, GMAT Kaplan 800( the day before exam sitting in Barnes & Noble) and OG.

And regarding me, I have always been a 'just there' guy. That is why I love this exam. Shows things the way they are

Hope I have put information that is helpful to you.

Finally, MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL. I have drawn a lot of motivation from the posts put by successful scorers like Ursula, VinGMAT and ALakshma. I have taken printouts of those posts and used to read them daily to keep my juices flowing.

THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-4-1 22:54:46编辑过]