The Beginning http://madatmba.blog.com/ en-US Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:59:28 +0200 Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:59:28 +0200 Blog.com http://madatmba.blog.com/3241752/ 470--->680 and still beaten :( http://madatmba.blog.com/3241752/ People who are weak in Verbal this might help.For those who are weak in quant this may not be helpful.
I took my GMAT exam finally after my 3 months preperation.Aimed at 700 but fell short of it by 20. So decided to take the test again sometime in august.Reconcileing my past preparation i am writing down my debrief 2 months after my exam is completed.
Got nothing to blame on.Everything went perfect as planned from starting of the preperation to end of Test.
Here goes my story.

November 2007- a sample quant and verbal test (800 tests)
Got 3 questions wrong in quant and solid 28 questions wrong in Verbal and hardly any right questions in verbal-SC.
From the day one i know that i dont need much preperation in quant and so never did I prepare.I was totally depressed at my verbal performance not just becasue of the score but becasue of lacking confidence while answering the questions that I am not sure that even a single question i answered is right.I gave up my Prep as i know I would need somemore time to pull my confidence up.


December 2007
Pulling up my socks,I started my GMAT preperation a month later.Attempted a princeton review test and scored 470.Depressed again,but i clearly know where i need to start my preperation.SC.
I started my SC preperation with manhatten SC guide. (Believe me for any one week in SC ,just reading this book ,understanding and applying it right will get you to a place where you can get 50-60% questions right .).


January 2008
After 20 days of preperation (SC mainly) I attempted another Princeton review test and scored 520.The best part of second test is I was really confident that some of the questions(20%-30%) in verbal were right for sure.This confidence is something that i lacked when i was taking the previous exams.This clearly is the impact of SC preperation using OG and Manhatten SC.
And second thing that i noticed is that both the times I took the test i only got 3 questions wrong and none of the wrong ones in first 10 in quant and engine reported raw score in quant as 43.

Dubious on the difficulty level and scoring pattern of PR tests i decided to take one GMAT800 test.Scored 620.Claps from audiance Smile.

Tests take aways:-

Test strategy 1:-After two exams I decided to break verbal into 2 parts.0-33 questions in first 60 mins and the rest in remaining 15 mins,as i read in some forum that there will always be a RC passage in last 7-8 questions.I have done this to reduce the time pressure on initial questions.

1)Endurance
I relalized that when i was taking tests before i found it tough to take 150 mins long test.This impacted directly Verbal section,as i was trying to finish the section with out much patience . This contributed a lot to reduced accuracy levels.For example,while practicing OG-10 CR , most of the questions were right(50 right of 60).However in exam the percentage of questions i got right is low ,generally 4-6 right of 12-14.This was clearly because of low endurance level and impatience to finish the exam fast ,especially when i feel that i am getting few questions wrong.

2)RC :I thought i was strong in RC.But i realized that I need more pratice becasue GMAT is altogether a different type of exam.The strategy was using in past in paper based tests is to look at the questions before reading the passage ,which would allow you to figure out the answers while reading the passage itself.This trick saves lot of time ,but when this is not allowed in GMAT exam i gotta find out other ways and the only way is to read passage faster.


Mid-jan to Mid-Feb :-
Gone for a toss.Release time and loads of work in office.

Mid Feb-End of Feb:-
Worked on Endurance and RC .Took PR3 and scored 660(30V 50Q).I know i am getting closer but I am still not close enough.Just one week befor the scheduled exam date I decided to take GMAT Prep 1 and scored bad GMAT Prep Test 1 :- 640(27V 50Q). So i rescheduled my exam for april 11th.

March:-
Spent more time on RC (1000RC) and longer streches(2-3 hours) of study for about a month.Completed OG10 and OG 11.However i dont think last month preperation with out much strategy did help me reach my target.Took another couple of tests.

GMATPrep2-660
PowerPrep1-700
Since i didnt want to postpone the test again.I prepared myself for the disaster and took my GMAT in 11th april.Scored 680(50Q and 31V).

How to best use Manhatten SC :-
Read and understand 9 error categories.I would even suggest to try and remember each common error explained under each category.
Be true to your self while doing the exercise below.
Pick up OG 10 ,look at each question of SC and try to list down the possible error categories the question would fit into.Your aim here should not be finding the right answer to the question,instead your aim should be finding the right error category of all the errors in the question.Do the similar task on all the answers.
Now cross check with the problem matrix if you have correctly figured out the errors in each question.
IMO if this task is done properly with both OG's you would get atleast 50-60% questions right there after.


Resources I used for my preperation:-
1)800 tests.
2)PR Tests
3)OG 10 and 11
4)Manhatten SC Guide
 Maddy Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:00:31 +0200 http://madatmba.blog.com/2805458/ Prison Break http://madatmba.blog.com/2805458/

Where the hell has prison break come into the picture in b/w GMAT preperation.This could be your first thought,after seeing the title.
I am talkin about the mental freedom i achieved.I was struggling at scores of 470 -600 in december.A bit more practice i am touching 670.
GMAT Prep Test 1 :- 640(27V 50Q)
Princeton Review 3 :-660(30V 50Q)
 
The reason I believe I pushed my score is becasue of the practice I invested in strategy i formulated in Jan.
I realized that there are 2 things that i needed to work on:-


1)Endurance ---I need to get the ability to sit continuously for 4 hours with out much stress.

I relalized that when i was talking tests before it was tough for me to sit for 150 mins at a strech as i lost touch.This problem impacted particulary on Verbal section,as i was trying to finish the section with out much patience which impacted directly on the accuracy.

2)RC :I thought i was strong on this.But i realized that I need more pratice becasue GMAT is altogether a different type of exam.The strategy i use is look at the questions before reading the passage ,which allow you to figure out the answers while reading the passage itself.This trick saves lot of time ,but when this is not allowed in GMAT exam i gotta find out other ways and the only way is to read passage faster.

 Maddy Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:46:11 +0100 http://madatmba.blog.com/2498677/ Must Read BLOG's http://madatmba.blog.com/2498677/

http://mbawire.blogspot.com

http://www.outbeat-the-gmat.blogspot.com/

will add more to it ...as and when i find some interesting stuff out there on web. Maddy Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:02:10 +0100 http://madatmba.blog.com/2498331/ OG 10 and OG 11 softcopies http://madatmba.blog.com/2498331/ OG 10 and OG 11

will post eventually all the the resources that i am using for my preperation.Can someone comment on how effective is Princeton Review??

Screwed up my preperation for last two weeks,blame it on new year parties,christmas parties,scorpions,friends visting my place and at last cold and fever.Lost the touch at the right time when i thougt i was picking up some pace in answering the questions.

Testing gonna start in another one week.So I guess that will keep me busy .However i still feel that lack of interest in preperation is whats turning me off from picking up the book and solving questions.
Feel like committing the first mistake of postponing the exam.

Good that i have come back after couple of weeks.I was able to get more resources(more i mean the ones i felt that i should be having life complete OG11 and Manhattan SC 200ed) online for my preperation.

By the way here is the link for the
Manhattan SC 2005 ed -OG11 Problem matrix  .

I guess these resources can help a person who is week in SC ,get started.Please let me know if any more resources need to be added. Maddy Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:01:17 +0100 http://madatmba.blog.com/2430427/ Analysis after 2 weeks of preparation http://madatmba.blog.com/2430427/

The first full-length test(Princeton review) i have taken i scored 470.Probably this is the reason why I was soo depressed to start my preperation.Some how I pused myself to book the date and started the preparation with sentance correction and critical reasoning.

Slightly confident i decided to take the test again and got a score of 520.What to do now is the question.No significant improvement of score.Depressed again. However i felt that verbal section was slightly under control.Some of the answers in SC I was damn sure they were right ,the second time i took the test.From what i observed,i lacked this confidence in answering atleast few questions ,the first time.

But one question nagging me at back of my mind mind.Is princeton review the right gauge of my score?Both the times I took the test i only got 3 questions wrong and none of them in first 10 in quant and my score in quant was 43 both the times and also the verbal questions are quite lengthy and answers options are ambiguous too(may be most of the questions are hard level questions).

So I decided to take GMAT800 test.And i got a score of 620.Now i felt really good as i am getting close to my target of 700.

When practicing OG-10 CR ,i am getting most of the questions right(50/60).However i never got soo many questions in exam (generally 4-6 right of 12-14).This may be because of the time pressure.Need to work a little bit on this.After taking two exams I decided to break verbal into 2 parts.0-33 questions  in first 60 mins and the rest in remaining 15 mins,as i read in some forum that there will always be a RC passage in last 7-8 questions.

 

 Maddy Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:56:10 +0100 http://madatmba.blog.com/2379398/ The Convergence http://madatmba.blog.com/2379398/ What ever might me the reason,I decided to take GMAT exam.Even here soo many questions circle around like when should i book the date and when should i start my preperation.Finally taking suggestion of experianced,with GMAT,that preperation wouldnt start with out booking the date ,I booked GMAT date.

There are a million resources online both on "How to start prep" and "What to study".However picking up one and start prepring is soo tought that i didnt realize till i tried.I decided to collect all possible material online and i did.Now what?
Where to start with is a question again.Soo many suggestions to start of with ,a sample test or OG.

I finally decided to take a sample test and horribly failed with only 3 mistakes in quant and got only 13 right in verbal with 80% questions wrong in SC.A total disaster it was and i was totally depressed.What to do next?It took me almost a month to comprahend the fact and started solid preparation couple of days before and here i am today.

Manhatten SC,one i picked up from esnips
(Manhattan SC 2003ed-10ed OG Problem matrix ),
came as light for my verbal preparation.After A couple of days of manhattan SC study ,i was able to get most of questions right in OG.The best part is prblem matrix and the way each question in OG is correlated.

Now looking for right guide to shed light on RC and CR. Maddy Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:58:38 +0100 http://madatmba.blog.com/2378672/ Prelude http://madatmba.blog.com/2378672/ Every one say that before doing MBA you should know exactly why you are doing.Everytime i think about this question a thousand questions popup in my head.Everytime I tried answering this question I am lost in dark space,I know I am going no where ,yet I try.

Am I born interested in doing MBA?
Is it the Money that drives me to pursue MBA or is it life after MBA where one would most probably be the center of attraction?Howmany wouldnt like to go to parties , or howmany would like to live a objective life like what Ayn Rand describes as heros?Is this feeling is what brings me closer to MBA?
Is it because of family pressure?
Is it my hatred for current job profile?
Is it my technical weekness that left me unsuccessful is what's pushing me for change in job profile?
Is it my true destiny?


I am sure everyone has these questions,the first time they think "why MBA?".

Probably I dont even know what a MBA means till undergraduation.I thought MBA is just a source of big bucks and who can deny the fact .How could i deny the fact that I started preparation for MBA entrance becasue of family pressure?



 Maddy Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:54:24 +0100