Alakshama-760 [Q50,V42]

Preparation:
G-Day:

Bachelors in EE in India (BITS, Pilani), Masters in Comp Engg in the US and 3.5 years work experience in microprocessor design in one of the well known semiconductor companies in the Bay Area.

Preparation

Two years ago, I wanted to give the GMAT and started studying vaguely. Tried to improve my verbal but without much success. My diagnostic was 690 and my PP practice tests were 710 and 730. Most importantly I had no confidence in the scores and felt that on a bad day I could end up with a 690 or so. I just gave it up at that time as I did not have any immediate requirement to give the GMAT.

Recently, I had a quite period at work and finally decided to take another stab at the GMAT. This time I had an invaluable resource that I did not have the first time, the forums. I would attribute a 30-40 point jump to the forums and most importantly it ensured the consistency I was so lacking the first time.

Diagnostics: First off, I took the diagnostics. The Kaplan and Princeton ones online. I found that my quant was pretty strong and identified that I was rusty in P&C in quant. Verbal was definitely weaker and I felt very uncomfortable with SC's and RC's especially. CR's seems much easier. These were my diagnostic scores.

Week Test Q NumberWrong V NumberWrong (SC/RC/CR) Score
1 Princeton Diagnostic 48 2 39 7(2,4,1) 730
3 Kaplan Diagnostic 47 2 40 9 (6/2/1) 720

Weeks 1 and 2 were spent mostly in trying to identify resources, scrouge the forums, read a few Just Finished the test posts and formulated general strategy for preparation. From the third week onwards I started full scale preparation. It involved atleast 2 hours every night and 5-6 hours every weekend day. First I concentrated on SC and P&C.

P&C: I had done similar problems a long time back, so I knew I could start doing them well. I just needed practice. For this purpose the Math forum is excellent. I started solving questions from there and over time gained immense confidence. Doing problems like counting number of words that can be formed by rearranging letters of a word (and variations like vowels need to be together) strengthens the basics tremendously. After you start understanding the basic concepts the rest follow pretty intiutively. I was never weak in probability but I still did some for practice.

Other math: I found that I was strong in geometry, algebra, measurements, work problems etc and relied on the practice tests for practice on these. One method to find interesting problems is to sort the math forum by number of replies. The hardest and trickiest problems in the archives show up on top. I found that I was making mistakes in number theory and then fixed that by substituing [-2,-1,-0.5,0,0.5,1,2]. I never relied on backsolving, plugging in answers etc since I could solve the problem by multiple ways and doing so increased my confidence on the correctness of the solution. I typically found that I never made too many careless mistakes since I solved each problem in atleast 2 different methods. This practice helped me blaze through questions in the real test when I had time pressure with relatively good confidence on the solution. Surprisingly, I never made silly mistakes in conversion etc since I was always on the lookout for the tricks.

Sentence correction: Here comes the biggest focus in my entire preparation. I knew that I had to master this section if I wanted to get the 99 percentile range. There is simply no way to crack the GMAT by having a glaring weakness in one of the sections. I knew that the SC questions showed up a lot in the earlier questions in verbal and would be key in determining my range. I started by reading Grammar Smart by Princeton. Believe it or not, when I started my preperation I did not know what an adverb was. I meticulously did all the exercises and slowly the difference between a participle, gerund, infinitve, subordinating conjunction and independent clause dawned on me. Though these concepts are not tested in the GMAT it is imprtant to understand what each means when the OG talks about them in the solutions. Also, in general it increases your confidence on sentence structures and subconciously helps you identify mistakes faster.

The next step was to start from the oldest posts in sentencecorrection.com and work my way backwards in the archives. Here is where I gained the most in terms of what is being tested on the GMAT. For example, here is where I learnt when to use "that" and when to use "which", what is the difference between "like" and "as", when can "one" take a plural verb, when is "each" singular and when is it plural. These are all subtle concepts that you will be definitely tested on if you are above the 85 percentile. Make no mistake. This process is long, painful and a very hard route. But as far as I can see this is the surest way to crack this section. I did about 500 questions, before I started seeing repetitions and my ROI was much lower and I stopped. If you are focussed you can do 50 posts a day and you can get this done in 10 days. Does not seem very unreasonable, does it? The key here is not to move on if you got the question right. It is to read explanations written by various people and understand the concepts.

Reading Comprehension: Surprisingly, I got 7 RC questions out of the first 10 questions in the real test. Q 2-5(business) and Q7-10(native American) were RC's and I cracked both. This was where I probably lifted my level even though I had missed the second question. This section looks to be increasingly important nowadays. When I started prep I was very weak on this one too. I used to skim the passage not understand it well, look at it with hatred and muffed up the questions.

Then I changed my attitude. I started to read the RC's with relish. I looked forward to reading RC's as a way to improve my knowledge on different subjects. I started taking an active and curious interest in the passage. Consider the caffeine example in the OG. As soon as I see the passage, I tell myself that it is a good way to understand why people are addicted to caffeine and how does it really stimulate the body. As I keep reading I get excited by the information the passages and by the time I an done I have a clear picture of the passage. This improved my RC hit rate and timing tremendously. For most questions I did not have to go back to the passage and I could easily sense the answer. Maintaining scope is very important in RC's and you cannot add your views on top of what the author says. It is good to do about 20 passages from the OG. Once I understood the concepts I did not have to spend much time preparing for the RC's.

Critical Reasoning: I never had much trouble with this from the begining. Basic strategies like reading the stem first work here. If you practice from the OG and if you fell comfortable you are good to go. It is important to have a clear mind for this section. One thing I found useful was to make an answer grid and score out choices that are totally out of scope. This helped me prevents re-reading the choices just to be "sure" after you find the right choice. This saves a lot of time. In the real exam I did not have time to read all choices in many questions and relied on my mental map of what should be the right choice. You can try to make similar mental maps.

Practice Tests: As I kept preparing, I took the practice tests though I never cared much about the scores except for the powerprep ones. The practice tests are only good for stimulating a 4 hour mental marathon. None, except the PP mimic the GMAT. I would recommend not trying to estimate your final score based on the practice tests and focus on concepts you missed in the tests. Here are my practice test scores.
Week Test Q NumberWrong V NumberWrong (SC/RC/CR) Score

4 PP1(before OG) 51 0 42 7(2/3/2) 770
5 Kaplan1 50 3 37 12 670
6 Peterson1 50 3 57 7(2/3/2) 790
6 Kaplan2 50 3 36 12(2/5/5) 650
7 Kaplan3 50 1 35 13 650
7 Peterson2 50 3 39 7 690
8 PP2(after OG) 51 0 45 3(2/1/0) 780

Kaplan: Excellent for math. Terrible for verbal. I sleepwalked the verbal sections
Peterson: Math was good again though had some wrong answers. Verbal is OK for practice.
PP: Math is much easier than real test. Verbal is pretty similar to real test. After PP1 I felt pretty good. After PP2 I did not feel so confident as I was not solving most of the questions as I remembered them. Still it was good to get a feel of the real test just before the test. Another good thing is that the lack of confidence in the verbal just before the test, kills even the smallest overconfidence you might have!

Preparation Material:
- Forums are the best for Math and SC
- OG is best for RC and CR.
- Kaplan is good for math
- I cannot stress the importance of OG enough. I recommend doing the OG in the last 2-3 weeks if you are already scoring well. You remember the last material the best. lf you are not doing that great, you may want to do the OG in the very early stages once and do it again towards the end.

Some random notes

- You will do yourself a favor if you do not underestimate the psychological nature of the test. It is more of a mental marathon than anything.
- Use a practice answer grid and keep reviewing the questions you made mistakes on (especially in the OG). Staple all the sheets so you do not lose them.
- If you burn yourself out with overpreparation you will not peak at the right time.
- There is NO shortcut to the GMAT. You have to practice, practice and practice your weak points. Learning the concepts rather than shortcut strategies is the best way for a 700 plus score. Over time these concepts are embedded in your mind and this is very important when racing through the sections. If your aim is less than 650 the basic books like Kaplan, Princeton may be good enough.