The path to MBA-The journey begins

Mgmat VS Gprep

se4rch — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:31:06 +0000

Took the final 2 MGMAT tests last week and the 2nd GPrep test today. Here are the results
MGMAT-5– 730 (49,41)
MGMAT-5–740(49,42)
GPREP2-680(49,31)

I have been getting 700+ is all my tests and with just 15 more days to go, getting a 670 is quite disheartening. If you look at the score, MGMAT quant and Gprep quant reflected similar scores. But the verbal is way off. I never got less than 38 in MGMAT verbal but in gprep I got a 33 and a 31. This was a let down. As I have mentioned, I managed a decent 34 in the real GMAT last time. I was kind of overconfident and assumed that I would score more than 34 this time. But this is scary. I laid too much emphasis on quant and ignored verbal in the process. Quant is a big deal for me coz I seem to miss out on the easy questions by making silly errors( which I repeated again in today’s exam. I took 1/3 to be smaller than 1/4. Can u beat that). With 15 more days to go, I think I can get a decent score in quant. All I need to do is be careful and double check my answers. I have to approach verbal in a different way. Here is the analysis of the answers which I got wrong in verbal.
SC-4, RC-4, CR-5
I was overconfident about CR and I hardly practiced any CR questions. I know I cant get 100% right ans in RC and SC so CR is my best bet. I have to nail all of them.

Gmat Grammer Online

se4rch — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:11:09 +0000

Came across this site while googling. Quite impressed with the contents
http://gmat-grammar.blogspot.com

1st GmatPrep test

se4rch — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:31:55 +0000

Took the first GPrep test on Sunday . Scored a 700(49,33). This is the lowest verbal score I ever got. Even in my last GMAT endeavor I scored 35 in verbal.
I got 12 wrong answers both in Q&V. On the quant side I found a couple of questions which I had already solved in TestMagic forums. That’s what I was scared of. I will not refer to the forum anymore till I am done with my 2nd test.
Anyways on analyzing the results I found that out of 12 quant questions which I got wrong, 4 were stupid mistakes. Verbal was a shocker . I was always scared of RC but it seems I am better off in RC than in SC. I got 3 passages and got just 1 question wrong. In CR I got around 2 questions wrong. SC, most of it was wrong. So I know what to concentrate on next. CR and RC can be tamed and if you are bad at those then there’s little you can do about that. SC is a different ball game. I think practice makes all the differences in SC.
Let’s see how the 2nd test goes next week.
Btw I was able to improve on the speed issue . Finished maths with 1 min to spare and finished verbal with 8 mins spare.

So where do I stand

se4rch — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:02:12 +0000

Took a break from this blog for sometime. What ve I been doing during this time? Practicing and whatelse. What I ve been working on is my Quant speed. I know given an extra 10 mins I can score a 51 but I can’t convince gmac to do that for me. So the only option I am left with is work faster and smarter. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the GMAT timer by walker has been a life saver. So these days no matter what problems I am working on , I always time them. Apart from that I wrote my own timer app which I use to create a test out of the sets paper tests and any other non timed test that I come across. This is helping me in a big way. Another aspect I need to work on is the mentality that I ve to solve each and every problem. That’s what killed me last time and I am trying to get over this mentality this time. From what I ve heard from other people, the first 10 to 15 questions are very important . So guessing wouldn’t be a wise idea for those questions. But then I don’t want to spend more than 3 mins on a question no matter how tough it is.
So I ve to work on making educated guesses. Apart from that what I ve read is never guess on 2 consecutive questions. Getting 2 or more consecutive questions wrong is BAD for your score. So if I guess I ll make sure I try to solve the next question and if required guess on the 3rd.
Timing in verbal has never been an issue for me. Somehow I manage to finish this section on time. Rc scares me but I found that my accuracy in rc questions is the best of the lot. I read a lot of articles online so maybe it helps .

I have around 4 weeks to go. My strategy is to take as many tests as possible so that on the GDay I remain calm throughout . Planning to put in 10 hrs over the weekend going forward and 3 hrs on weekdays. Hope I will be able to stick to the schedule.

GMAT Timer

se4rch — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:07:19 +0000

This is exactly what I needed.

http://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-timer-56014.html

Progress so far

se4rch — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:42:52 +0000

Took the MGMAT CAT-4 yesterday. Scored a 700(Q 49,V 36). I was too slow in quant and had to pause a lot of times.So ideally thats not the actual score. I really need to work on speed now . As far as verbal is concerned, I got 13 wrong out of 41 and out of those 13 I would say atleast 4 were careless errors.

I have the basics in place , and all I need to do is to improve my reaction time. The problem with me yesterday was I was finding it difficult to concentrate. May be because I was taking the test just after getting out of the bed and with an empty stomach. Initially I too more than 2 mins to solve even the easy questions. I was just not able to concentrate. Ended up solving the 1st 10 questions in 35 mins( my target is 25 mins). I didn’t pause the test till I was onto the last 15. I had around 7 mins for the last 10 questions, so I had to pause the test.

As far as verbal is concerned, I have no issues with time. All I need to do is increase my accuracy and work on RC. RC kills me.

Back after a short hiatus

se4rch — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:23:34 +0000

Took a short break. Last week I finished the 800 score tests. The highest score I got in quant was 47. It strange though as I got around 7 answers wrong. In mgmat I scored a 51 after getting 12 answers wrong. I think it has to do with the difficulty level. So here’s what I found out. I am more likely to get the easy ones wrong. I did a couple of PR tests too where the quant is so easy that u can finish it within 60 mins. I still got a 46(4 wrong ans). All these 4 errors were careless mistakes. Answering without reading what the question is asking . So before I move on to the much harder MGMAT I need to score a 51 in verbal.
Apart from that, I have decided to apply to atleast 10 schools. Some would be in the top 15 and some in the top 30 s. Don’t want to take chances.

All work and no play makes me a dull boy

se4rch — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:30:40 +0000

Well thats how the saying goes. As for the new routine, it bombed. You cant expect to be active on some energy drink after having 4 hrs of sleep. I had a shot of the energy drink yesterday and set down to solve the 800score maths section. I was so fuckin tired that I could hardly concentrate. Ended up solving 30 problems in 75 mins. Moral of the story , energy drinks don’t help. U need sleep.
Today I took a Jack and Coke break , so no studies.

Last and but not the least, thank you all for the comments. Afterall , as they say u r as old as I think u are .

New Routine

se4rch — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:26:27 +0000

I tried out something new today. I have been reading about the 5 hour energy drink for sometime now. There was an article on CNN a few days back. I have tried different energy drinks with mixed response. Ok here’s the context. I generally try to devout 2 hrs daily for the prep. So most of the times I end up going to bed after 1 am. But with my new boss sitting on my head , I have to make it to the office by 9 am. The result ,I get around 6 1/2 hrs of sleep. So when I get back home, I am usually half asleep. So today I tried out the drink. Believe me, as soon as I downed one bottle(2 oz), I got an instant kick. Drinking Redbull never had this effect on me. So I ended up studying for 2 hrs , starting 15 mins after I reached home. Man it did work.

I think till the D-day, I would stick to this routine and might even carry a bottle to the examination center.

By the way, I spent 2 hours solving verbal questions on the TestMagic website. This site has been my bible since the day I started the journey.

Speed Vs Accuracy

se4rch — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:26:44 +0000

Yesterday I took the MGMAT CAT-3. As usual the quant was pretty tough and I wanted to get as many correct answers as possible. So paused a lot of times in between. The verbal wasn’t difficult and I was able to finish it off in time. The end result, 710( Q-48 V-39). I am happy with the verbal score but need to increase the Q score. In the last test I got a 51 in quant but with a lot of pauses in between. So now my sole target is to increase speed in quant and improve on the accuracy in verbal.

Another aspect I have to work on is cutting down on silly mistakes. After reviewing the results of the MGMAT test I found that in quant atleast 50% of the questions that I got wrong were careless mistakes. Careless mistakes have been my weakpoint since I was a kid and it’s still haunting me.

I had taken a 800 score verbal in the morning and got a similar score( 39).

My strategy for quant would be to break up the time into 4 different sections

Questions 1-10………25 mins……………….after the 10th problem I should see 50 mins on the screen

Questions 10-20…….20 mins………………after the 20th problem I should see 30 mins remaining

Questions 20-30…….15 mins……………….after the 30th problem I should see 15 mins remaining

So in the end I would have 15 mins for the last 7 questions. Any suggestions on the timings would be highly recommended.