My GMAT journey began in July, when I finally took a GMAT appointment (I knew that my prep wouldn’t start in the earnest until I knew how many days I had :) Affectionately known as the ‘Danda theory’).
I had no clue from where to begin, so I searched the net for some basic info. Luckily, I stumbled upon some pretty useful blogs. To tell you the truth, a major part of my study plan was based on the info from these blogs. That’s when I decided that once I give GMAT, I’ll write my own blog. Hopefully at least someone will find it useful :) Well here goes nothing!
I have used a lot of abbreviations, so here is a list: SC - Sentence Correction. RC - Reading Comprehension. CR - Critical Reasoning. AWA - Analytical Writing Assesment. OG - Official Guide. OGVR - Official Guide Verbal Review.
Time for Prep: Well this is something that you have to decide for yourself. I took about 70 days to prepare. Unfortunately, that was 25 days too many. I think I was peaking around the 45 day mark. But this is just my experience. I have heard people give GMAT with 30 days prep to 6 months prep.
Coaching Classes: Are they really useful? In my opinion, they're only useful in that they'll help you get serious about GMAT. If you are paying 15k and spending 10 hrs a week in a closed room, you are bound to get serious :) But other than that, I don't think coaching classes are necessary. All the prep is based on strategies, which you can find in any good book.
One area that they can probably help you in is AWA. It’s very difficult to judge on your own how good you are at writing passages. So maybe AWA is one area where you can take classes.
What I studied, what I didn't:
OG11 and OG Verbal Review: If you want to crack GMAT, these books are absolutely essential. Solve each and every question. Another piece of advice, save OG's for last. That’s because your mistakes will be fresh in your mind and you wont repeat them again.
Manhattan SC: I started my SC preparation with this book. This is THE book for SC strategies. It has all the things that are required to do well on the SC. It’s a good idea to solve the 'In Action' questions at the end of each chapter. They give a fairly decent idea of how one is doing. There are a couple of other materials flying around too, such as Spideys notes etc. But Manhattan more or less covers it all.
Kaplan: Kaplan is a decent book. The questions on the Kaplan 800 are a little harder than on the ones on Kaplan Premier Program book. Strategies are decent too.
Princeton: Another ok book. But the questions are very few and the strategies aren't that useful. If you're looking for a score of over 720, there is no point buying this book. But if your aim is a little lower, maybe you can have a read through. The bundled DVD is a load of crap. It just has some demo classes.
1000's: 1000's is compilation of 1000 questions each of CR, SC and RC . The first time I heard about it, I got really excited (mainly because there isn’t an unlimited supply of GMAT questions). But the excitement soon wore off. The reason was that although 1000's provides answers, it doesn’t give any explanations. So for the questions I was getting wrong, I wasn't sure where exactly I was going wrong. Wasn't much help so gave it up after a week. If you look hard, you can find a few sites where online forums discussing 1000’s answers. But then the guys who post answers and explanations are preppers just like you, nobody is sure of the right answer.
Manhattan Math, RC and CR: Not in the same league as Manhattan SC. Give the CR section a try, you just might find a thing or two that is useful. The RC part didn’t work for me. The strategies listed didn’t help at all. If anything, they were lowering my accuracy.
Barrons: Probably my least touched book. Ironically, this was the first book I purchased. But then I read so many bad reviews about this book that I never touched it again. The one good thing about this book is that it lists all the math concepts. That’s probably worth going through.
Answers to the real Essay questions: Must buy book. This book really gives a decent idea of how one is actually you are supposed to write GMAT essays. Advice- once you have written an essay, compare from the sample responses and judge for how well you have done. That way you can also pick up points that you missed out. Another advantage is that some questions are vague and a little bit abstract. Questions like, 'How do buildings shape us?' or 'Should employees be allowed to decorate their own workspace?'. When you just have 30 min time to think of points and type the response, topics like these can be a real pain in the butt. So I would advise everyone to do their homework well, and try and read all the essays from the book. If you don’t have that much time, just go through all the essay questions and mark all the difficult topics. Then read the sample response to those questions.
800Score AWA Guide: This is actually a pretty decent material for AWA strategies. Gives a good template to develop essay around, and has other good tips. I particularly liked the E-rater section, cause it gives a good idea how of essays are going to be graded. There is also a list of common fallacies. I believe you can really impress the examiner by pointing out the exact fallacy made the author makes in the analysis of argument.
Tests I gave:
While giving tests, it's very important that you give the whole thing in one sitting, under a controlled environment. The sooner you start giving essays with your tests, the better it is. Get used to the four hour environment. And spend a respectable amount of time analyzing your results .
One idea that worked really well for me- For all the tests, instead of writing the essay for the question given in the test, pick up an issue and argument from OG. That way you can be sure that the passage you are writing is a part of the official list.
Kaplan CD tests: Way to tough to be anywhere near the actual GMAT. The RC's are mega tough, and SC and CR's aint a walk in the park either. But the math part in these tests is good. It’s harder than the actual GMAT questions, but the difference in level isn't much. So if you get low scores in Kaplan Tests, don’t sweat about it :) I gave 2 test and my scores were 640 and 700.
Princeton Tests: Good tests, but the software sucks. These tests can indeed be very frustrating. The problem is that the tests are only accessible through the net, and their server seems to have a problem. So after every other question, you have to hit the refresh button. So basically you can do all the questions, but your timing goes out the window. The verbal part is GMAT like, but I thought the Math was way too easy.
ARCO: I just gave one test, didn’t touch it after that. I didn’t like the questions. I mean I am no expert, but the questions seemed different from what I had been doing from other books.
GMATPrep: Must do. If you want to do well on the GMAT, do well on this. This is the most accurate representation of the actual GMAT. The SC level is a notch higher than on the actual GMAT, but everything else is pretty similar. The math part may seem a little tough, but that’s the kind of questions that come on test day. But to tell you the truth, the software is very crappy. Firstly, you can’t review your AWA responses from the test. Then, your score is flashed only once, after you finish the test. Once you click 'OK' on the screen with the score, you can't retrieve it again. Also, there are no explanations for the test questions. But there are a few questions in the section test with explanations, so be sure to do those. One more thing, I found the font used hard to read, but get used to it, because this is exactly the same screen you will be getting on test day.
PowerPrep: This is GMATPrep's predecessor. This is not officially available, so you will have to download off some site (When I last checked, this one was working - http://www.gorillatestprep.com/gmat_resources.html) . It’s a little easier than GMATPrep, and a good confidence booster J. The best part about this software is that it gives explanation for every question.
Section by section strategy:
SC: Ahhh. My favorite :) Actually I spent about 40% of my time on SC's. I knew I would be able to handle everything else the in verbal section with ease, but SC's were iffy. I started with Manhattan SC. Probably the best material on SC around. Like I said earlier, there are some other materials too, but Manhattan is probably the best. The thing I noticed about SC's is that a lot of idioms are tested. And mugging up idioms is not such a great idea. If you have time (I mean couple of months), read some articles on Wall street journal etc. They give a good idea of the idioms used in American English. The most important topics tested on SC are: Subject Verb agreement, Parallelism, Comparison and Idioms. Near the end of my preparation, my accuracy in SC's from OG and OGVR was close to 90% (just so that you have a benchmark). When doing SC questions, I made sure I went through the explanation of each question. Not just the ones I got wrong, but also the ones I got right.
CR: Well this was the easy part. I don’t think any strategy is needed to crack these questions. The only thing I studies was how to identify a premise, assumption and conclusion. One piece of advice, don’t get ahead of yourself by assuming too much in any question. I mean the questions are pretty straightforward, and rely only on the information given in the question. Initially I had this problem where whenever I used to read a question, and my mind used to go into overdrive. I used to assume stuff not given in the question. But after a little bit of practice, this was rectified. Another thing, in my experience, if you don’t get a CR question right and don’t agree with the explanation given, don’t worry too much. Happened with me sometimes too J.
RC: I gave GRE sometime ago, and the RC's on GMAT are nothing compared to the ones on GRE. GRE usually has those ‘writers-true feelings’ mumbo-jumbo passages. But the ones on GMAT are pretty simple. My only advise, don’t look to far for the answer. The answer is either directly contained in the passage, or in easily inferred. You don’t have to do any heavy duty thinking to get arrive at the correct answer (specially applicable for the CAT aspirants!). And again, like in the CR's, don’t assume too much. I've heard how people say that breaking a RC into skeletal structure and skim reading is the best way to tackle an RC. But I personally don’t agree. With so much time on your hands, you can actually read the entire passage with ease (and make sense of it too!). At least that’s what I did.
The passages on test day were pretty similar to the ones (topic and structure) in OG and GMATPrep. So do all the passages from there.
AWA: Firstly, read the 800Score AWA guide. That gives a decent idea of how to write essays. Also read the Answers to the real Essay questions, for reasons explained above. I found this site on the internet where you can write your essay online and then submit for others to grade. The best part is that the essay response is timed, so you when exactly to stop. You can also read others' responses.
Here are the links:
Argument: http://www.chudnovsky.org/mba/awa/list.cgi?type=a
Issue: http://www.chudnovsky.org/mba/awa/list.cgi?type=i
I would also advise everyone to write at least 10 essays of each type before giving the exam.
Math: This section was the big surprise. I have an engineering background, so I thought the quant part would be a cakewalk. The questions in OG are way simpler than the ones on the actual GMAT. I just wasn't prepared for the kind of questions GMATPrep and Kaplan threw at me (Btw, these are the questions you can expect on test day). So I finally sat down and reviewed all math concepts again, just to make sure I remember everything. The hardest questions were probably the DS ones. My accuracy was usually around 85-90% in these. My strategy was simple, first try and solve the question completely with only the info from A. Then with B. Then combine the info from both, and try solving. This was a lengthy procedure, but my accuracy improved with this method. Another thing, don’t think arcane concepts like Harmonic progression, variance, etc. won't be tested on the GMAT. Here is a list of topics you should definitely study, other than your usual quant stuff:
Co-ordinate geometry, especially equations of lines: I got about 3-4 quant questions from this. Learn things like the point-slope equation of the line, 2 point form, the x-y intercepts of lines, slopes etc. Also expect questions like - does this line pass through this quadrant etc.
Statistics: Don’t limit your study to median, mode etc. Read about variance, range, standard deviation and normal distribution. Try and learn all the formulae, though these are not really necessary for the GMAT (but they do help). Also understand the practical meaning of these things. Like variance gives you how widely the values are distributed around the mean. These kind of facts really help you on the GMAT.
AP, GP, HP: Yup, you read it right, HP (Harmonic Progression!). Everyone learns the sum to N terms in AP, GP and also how to find the Nth term. Do the same for HP. I actually got a question on test day from HP. That really surprised me. I didn’t remember the formula, but was able to solve it with a little bit of manipulation. But if I had known the formula, I could have saved at least 2 min. And while you are at it, also learn the sum of first N squares and first N cubes.
In GMAT it is not a good idea to try out the process of elimination in Quant. If you've got your basics right, you've got more than enough time to actually solve each and every question. Use your scratch pad generously. Don't be shy to write down the process.
Scores:
Here is a list of all tests that I gave and the scores.
Kaplan Book: 670
Kaplan CD Test 1: 640
Kaplan CD Test 3: 700
ARCO: 690
Princeton Online Test 1: 760 (V:44 Q:51)
GMATPrep Test 1: 750 (V:42 Q:49)
GMATPrep Test 2: 760 (V:41 Q:50)
PowerPrep Test 1: 780 (V: 47 Q:51)
Miscellaneous Study Tips:
Time all the questions you solve. Don’t be too fast, and don’t be too slow. Actually I was way too quick on test day and had over 10 min left on both the sections. If I would have timed myself properly, I could’ve increased my quant score.
Don’t try and study too much one in a single day. GMAT is not the kind of exam where you need to mug up things. So learn a little each day and apply it. In my opinion, don’t spend more than 3 hours studying everyday.
Give a lot of practice tests. Not only do you get to know where you stand, you can also practice timing. If you don’t give practice tests, the test day can be tiring and you can lose focus in between. Sitting for 4 hours in a room with just 20 min breaks can be very stressful. So build up your stamina :)
Make a note of all the questions that you get wrong, especially from OG and OGVR SC. You should read these questions just before test day so that you don’t commit the same mistakes again.
Learn all the math formulae. No shortcut here.
Test Day:
Got up early in the morning, watched the 20-20 highlights (remember that awesome match, India vs. England, T20 world cup?) Reached the test center a good hour before the test. Completed the formalities and was in the hot seat by 1 p.m.
AWA: The passages that came were bad for me. In hind sight, I was probably a little under-prepared for the AWA part. Issue was: Teaching science vs. arts. The argument didn’t have many points, so that one wasn’t good either.
Quant: Started off with a stats question that took about 3 min to solve. Then the questions just kept on increasing in difficultly. But around the 20 question, things started to ease up, as I had over 3 minutes left for each question left. I was surprised with the number of co-ordinate geometry questions I was getting. Finally, I finished the section with 10 minutes to spare.
Verbal: Started off with a couple of easy SC’s. After doing them, I picked up speed and around the 20 question, I had about 2 minutes per question left. The passages were all pretty straightforward. 3 were between 40-50 lines and the fourth one had about 80 lines. I felt as if all the passages were similar to the ones I had done earlier in my preparation. When 10 questions were left, it suddenly struck me. In about 20 minutes time, my score would flash on the screen. I really froze up. I took a breather, calmed myself down and finished the section as well as I could. Even so, I had over 10 minutes left on the clock.
The worst part is the personal questions you get at the end of the exam. You know your score is on the other side, and you can’t wait to see it, but you still have to answer those silly questions.
Finally, the score flashed on the screen. 770. Verbal: 44, Quant: 50. I said a little prayer and silently punched the air :) As I was leaving the center, I couldn’t help but smile. Came out of the center, called everyone and just heaved a sigh of relief.
As it turns out, my AWA wasn’t that bad. Got my score via e-mail in 3 days (5.0). The percentile was screwed up, 61%, but that’s ok, considering how badly I had done on the AWA part.
Whew! GMAT over. On to apping. My work experience isn’t that great, (1.5 years I.T. job), so I don’t know whether I will be applying this year or the next. Wish me luck!!!
Hey, if you guys have any queries, I’d be glad to help you out!
