How I prepared for 770 (q:50 v:45)

crossmoon

Here is a summary of my scores in various tests:

Actual GMAT: 770 (q 50, v 45)

Practise tests:
Powerprep 1 : 770 (q 50, v 45)
Powerprep 2 : 770 (q 51, v 42)

i do not remember the split between quant and verbal for most of the tests but it was always in the 42-47 range in quant and 36 - 40 range for verbal.
Kaplan:
diag (one month ago) : 660
test 1: 650 !
test 2: 660
test 3: 680
test 4: did not have the guts to take as the exam was nearing!

Princeton online tests:

diagnostic: 660
test 1: 680
test 2: 720
test 3: 650 !!!
test 1: 700

well, this was the summary of the test performance.

crossmoon

Details of Test Preparation:

I hope this will help everyone and especially those test takers who have already taken GRE since my test preparation was focussed on those aspects of the test that are not covered in GRE but in GMAT. Will be a miles long mail, so read it when you have the time.......

Okay, first things first: I started preparation by taking some diagnostic tests which I feel is the best way to assess your strengths and weaknesses. The details of my diagnostic scores are given in my previous mail. There are various diagnostics tests available for free:

1. Princeton (PR) free diagnostic (660) (from www.princetonreview.com)
2. Kaplan (KP) (go to www.kaptest.com and register which will take you to the free test) (660)
3. Barrons Diagnostic (does not give a score and is very different from actual GMAT since it has 7 sections!)

Though i did not take Powerprep (PP) right away in the beginning, i would advice other test takers to take one PP test right before beginning preparation or even in the early stages of preparation after you are familiar with the question pattern. This is because as it has been repeated earlier in the forum, the questions in the PP tests are drawn from the Official Guide (OG) hence, there is no point taking PP after finishing the OG.

I found that while taking PP after partially finishing OG not only did I remember the questions, the memory of the questions actually interfered with my normal problem solving ability. So, folks, take atleast one PP before doing any questions in OG. this will help you to judge where you stand. Leave the last PP for the day before the test so that you can develop some confidence going into the exam. so, that it about powerprep.

Actually, the scores from the other diagnostics showed that i was weak in the Sentence Correction (SC) area since i am a non native speaker. Also, I was making mistakes in the Data sufficiency questions because i was not following a systematic approach to solving the DS questions. Another area was critical reasoning(CR). Although fairly easy, it was a new question format and thus i definitely needed practise in CR.

I decided to finish OG first and then look at any other material available. so, i drew up the following schedule for the remaining 28 days:

crossmoon

First 3 Days: Read about the various sections from Barrons and Princeton Cracking the GMAT.... This helped me to get the hang of the question types (especially CR and DS). Actually, Barrons is quite good in explaining flaws in logic that can come in CR (though a lot of lating terms) and also the systematic strategy for DS questions given is good. Princeton is good in the sense that the book (Cracking the ....) is like a novel: highly interactive and very easily read. Also, Kaplan's Cd's lessions on various sections proved to be invaluable. Everybody must go thru them to improve their understanding of the various questions and the type of things asked. I did all the questions in OG in a timed manner. found that i was actually faster than was required (~ 1.5 min per question) CR from OG: 4 days (~60 Q per day) DS from OG: 3 days (~80 Q per day) After i finished DS and CR, i decided to write a few tests and see the improvement. So, took 2 of the PR online tests which come free with the book (you have to register on the website). I could already see the improvement in the CR and DS sections (though the overall score did not improve much) I realised that I was very weak in SC with about 60% mistakes. Hence, i referred to "High School English Grammer and Composition" by Wren and Martin to improve my grammatical skills. the section explaining the relative pronouns part, the case (subjective and objective), the section where it talks abou modifiers and the section where it lists the common errors in usage are especially useful. So , i finished the book in about 5 days by working out all the exercises from the relevant chapters mentioned above. After this i attacked the SC in OG. I did around 50 questions per day and finished this in about 6 days. Meanwhile i also started taking full-tests while doing SC preparation. I found it really exhausting to take more than one full-test per day. so i restricted myself to one test per day. Took all of the Kaplan tests (scores given in previous mail) and the remaining PR tests. The section wise practise tests in Kaplan also give good practise and a sense of time. After finishing the Kaplan Practise tests, i took the Powerprep tests and scored 770 in both the tests. but i was not confident of my performance since most of the questions i had done before. then i did some of the remaining sections: 1.Brushed up on my probability and statistics skills 2. Did all the long and winding art, culture and history RC's. i have always been comfortable with science RC's and hence did not prepare for them. A note on RC's: While reading RC's , please read it from an objective viewpoint rather than being involved in the RC. this means, always be on the lookout for how the author is trying to argue his point. It would help if you read the RC with a critical perspective. This will help you in the more difficult questions which deal with the organisation, implicit ideas that are not mentioned etc.. Go thru Kaplan lesson on RC's in the Cd accompanying the book. Very helpful points mentioned there. Analyse your mistakes: An important thing i did was mark all my mistakes in OG and analyse why i had done those mistakes. I had a notebook in which i wrote down all the conceptual errors (especially in SC) . I revised all the concepts on the day before the exam so that i did not repeat the same mistakes in the actual GMAT. Thus, to summarise: 1. Identify your weak areas 2. Work on weak areas more and use reference material (like Grammer books etc to improve your basic skills) 3. Practise your strong areas by writing various tests. try to maximise your score in your strong areas: dont commit careless mistakes 4. List all your mistakes and note the conceptual errors especially 5. Revise before the exam and avoid repeating your mistakes in the actual GMAT with this 5 point algo and sufficient practise, i think everyone can score a high score in GMAT. After all, its no big deal and nothing to be afraid of! Regarding the actual exam, only thing i have to say is: DO NOT PANIC. Even if you are a little behind on the time, relax. try not waste time by rereading the answer and the question etc. and you will easily make up the lost time. For eg. I had 10 minutes left with 8 questions to go in Verbal Section. And i saw a Huge 80 line RC in front of me which had 4 of the 8 questions! But i did not panic and tried to skim thru the RC. Tried to get hte global idea questions quickly. Read the 80 line RC in record 1.5 minutes while still retaining the overall sense in it. This helped me save a lot of time for the later more specific questions which i could answer in 1 min each. After than i got easy sentence corrections which took seconds to complete. Hence, even after such a stiff ask, i could finish with 45 seconds to spare!!! Best of luck to all preparing for GMAT and i am indebted to this forum for all my "preparation fundaes". Thanks for your patient reading ..

braveheart

Dear Crossmoon
If you don't mind, Can you give the what %of questions you did correctly from each of the section in OG. It would give me a fair idea about where i stand after completing OG. i am planning to take GMAT in dec first week

I have almost completed OG and here are my %'s

PS : 370/403 (92%)
DS: 217/257 (84%)
RC: 204/264 (77%)
SC: 159/258 (62%)  
CR: 149/193 (77%)
I am also in the same boat as you are (rather were) when it comes to SC (I am also a non-native speaker). But you did exceedingly well when it matterred most. Other than reading the book you suggested in this thread, did you refer to any webbase material for improving on SC.

One more question, i observed that in OG the percentage of questions i did correctly dropped significantly as i am nearing the end of each section, esp. in DS and RC. Is it that the questions tend to get bit more difficult as we near to the completion or is it that i am losing the momentum. What does your experience say?

Thank you

crossmoon

以下是引用braveheart在2005-4-2 21:59:00的发言： Dear Crossmoon If you don't mind, Can you give the what %of questions you did correctly from each of the section in OG. It would give me a fair idea about where i stand after completing OG. i am planning to take GMAT in dec first week I have almost completed OG and here are my %'s PS : 370/403 (92%) DS: 217/257 (84%) RC: 204/264 (77%) SC: 159/258 (62%) CR: 149/193 (77%) I am also in the same boat as you are (rather were) when it comes to SC (I am also a non-native speaker). But you did exceedingly well when it matterred most. Other than reading the book you suggested in this thread, did you refer to any webbase material for improving on SC. One more question, i observed that in OG the percentage of questions i did correctly dropped significantly as i am nearing the end of each section, esp. in DS and RC. Is it that the questions tend to get bit more difficult as we near to the completion or is it that i am losing the momentum. What does your experience say? Thank you

my percentages were roughly (i dont remember the exact nos.) as follows: 1. PS: 99% (I had previous practise for GRE and thus was easy for me) 2. DS: 95% (the first 100-150 questions were quite easy i thought... but the last 50-100 questions were a lot more difficult and needed some effort) 3. SC 75% (Initially i did a lot of mistakes (strike rate of about 50%). Wasnt able to see the reason why the answer choices which were wrong were actualy wrong. Then i when thru the Kaplan material and the Grammer book. This helped me a lot and was able to improve and reach upto 85% strike rate. Thus, the overall roughly 75%. 4. CR 95% (I think in CR, the reasoning comes naturally to me. I found no difficulty in getting the CR question right from day 1. But again the questions are much tougher towards the end where the answer choices get trickier) The important thing to keep in mind is: to concentrate on what is actually asked, and define a very narrow scope for the question. For eg. if the question is about how to strengthen or weaken the conclusion, one should have a very good idea of the scope of the conclusion: i mean do not generalise outside the scope..... be very very specific and do not assume anything on your part!!! strictly take what the passage says as right, i am sure it will be a piece of cake then. 5. RC 95% (Again i had practise in this section because of GRE. But for a beginner, anything around 65-70% is good. so you are doing well!!) And i have mentioned before, the questions in the end of each section are tougher and actually more representative of the actual GMAT questions! so, be careful... and practise more. hope this helps, bye

Errick

a big OX!

sammen

thanks for share