GMAT 780[Q51 V46]- Escape To Victory

MBA
21
wov
780!! man.!!!

r u the first one ?
i mean do we hv anybody else, crossed 770+
vets?

yeah,

our very own Senapati has a score of 790 and yeah there was someone on his thread who also had the same score, dont remember his name now.
But anyways, 790, 780 or 770, all are gr8 score!! 😃
22
yeah,

our very own Senapati has a score of 790 and yeah there was someone on his thread who also had the same score, dont remember his name now.
But anyways, 790, 780 or 770, all are gr8 score!! :)


oh ya how can i forget him...
i infact posted an article about him & his thread in my blog too.

but correct me if i am wrong... Senapati ji was not the member when he hd taken the GMAT right>?
so he didnt share his GMAT experience with us.:neutral:

ya you are right. 770+ all are great n outstanding scores
23
oh ya how can i forget him...
i infact posted an article about him & his thread in my blog too.

but correct me if i am wrong... Senapati ji was not the member when he hd taken the GMAT right>?
so he didnt share his GMAT experience with us.:neutral:

ya you are right. 770+ all are great n outstanding scores

yeah he didn't post his GMAT experience.....and i m waiting for razind to post his experience
24

Thank you all for your wishes and kind words and please excuse me for the delay in writing this debrief.I wanted to take my time while writing this debrief as I wanted it to be as comprehensive as possible. My only hope while writing this debrief is that this debrief would prove to be as helpful to some aspiring GMATer just as those of others proved to be for me.


First some background
I am an Indian engineer with IT background, deputed in US since the past year in a project in the Supply Chain domain.
I have attempted to nail the CAT twice in the duration of my career and on both occassions by some strange quirk of fate, I managed to commit hara kiri, not managing to sleep even a second on the nights before the exams. It might have been my intense desperation and nervousness that cause my downfall but once the onsite posting happened, i realised ruefully that appearing for CAT was no longer possible for me given my constant requirements of travel. It was then that one of my friends asked me to look beyond CAT to extend my horizons to the GMAT.

The GMAT
The GMAT had always been a sort of mystery for me all these years, my first memory of it being a news article on somebody who had managed an 800 in the exam. I remember feeling jealous of that person and thinking to myself that I should do something like that in my life too. Years later when I finally decided to write the exam, my first guide was my friend who
had already written the exam and knew where to get all the resources from. It was through him that I was first introduced to the various sites as well as the books one should refer. I soon found out that the GMAT is decidedly partial towards verbal and one cannot master GMAT without mastering the verbal portions. The quant portion is pretty easy and could easily be conquered with disciplined effort, but verbal is a different ball game altogether. It seems difficult to start with, especially for non-natives the nuances take time in mastering. The quant section is usually the strength area of a lot of non natives and verbal prove to be their achilles heel, on the other hand the intrinsic verbal
aptitude that natives possess help them sail through this section but they find the quant a bit more difficult.

Starting off
Having decided to go for the GMAT, starting off the preparations presents the greatest difficulty. Procrastination became my middle name as i kept postponing my preparations. I seriously believe that on such occassions, when your inner urge is not
sufficient to wake you from the bliss of complacence, you need someone who can needle you, provoke you and incite you to make that start. In my case one of my college buddies, who has been my mentor through the whole process, was the person who kept pushing me to get over my starting trouble. What also worked for me was that I also had a room-mate who was also serious about the exams and we kept pushing each other through the course of our preps.
Once you decide to start off, you start accumulating all the information you can find before you plunge headlong into study.
I soon found out that there is deluge of information and material on GMAT in the net, there is so much material that if one planned to complete all good ones, it would take years to go through all of them. But the whole idea is to sift through the
information and make the most effective use of these resources to achieve the score that you have in mind.Before devising a plan and schedule for one's preparations, one must realize that each person is unique and one must keep ones strengths and weaknesses in mind while making one's plan. This is where debriefings of the masters help a lot, you can read through some good debriefings and choose one of them representing the closest to what your personal characteristics are.
Thus the moot point is to inclucate those aspects that work from you, from the experiences of the stalwarts.

Prep Material
After having read the debriefs a number of times, I had devised a plan to nail the GMAT in 3 months.It is a tendency of most people to collect all the resources possible from all sources before embarking on the journey, but it is also necessary not to go for an overkill and devote most of your time to hunt for resources rather than actually use
them. There is certainly no limit on the amount of excellent resources available but at one point one has to take a call and decide that one has to stop collecting more and make the best use of what one has.I was afflicted by the same tendency and decided to buy all the resources available in the market and collect all the free ones from the net. These books are no doubt expensive but what worked for me was that the cost was shared by myself and my
room-mate
As for prep books I bought
1) OG 11
2) Kaplan Math Workbook
3) Kaplan GMAT Guide
4) Princeton GMAT guide
5) Manhattan Sentence Correction
6) Kaplan GMAT 800
At that point I had decided that my preparations should not suffer for lack of material, but in hindsight I would not advocate all the books
OG 11 is an absolute necessity and supplemented with the free online OG 10 this should be your starting point into the world of GMAT. It should be also used for constant reference at every point in one's preparation as the standard to be used.
Kaplan Math workbook is certainly useful for people with non-engineering or non-quant oriented background, but for others I would not recommend it as being too useful. I personally bought it because some stalwarts has spoken highly of this book.
Kaplan GMAT guide is one of those books which I have mixed feelings about. It is certainly true that the maths questions in Kaplan are the best among all the prep books including OG and they are good practise for the final test. On the other hand the verbal portions leave a lot to be desired and some of the questions are ambiguous and confuse one's understanding.
The tests of Kaplan are guaranteed to give you low scores which certainly provide much needed jolt to one's confidence.Why such a jolt is needed is because I believe that even though GMAT is a game of confidence, it is also necessary not to be over-confident. The other tests like Powerprep, Princeton or Manhattan are not representative of the actual hardness of the questions and this coupled with the fact that you might encounter several known questions in the practice tests, can lull you into a sense of false over-confidence which can prove to be your undoing in the real exam. The key is to be confident but also to identify one's weaknesses and work on those. Kaplans tests seriously damage ones confidence but they also test your time management techniques and provoke you to work to improve on these aspects.

Princeton's GMAT guide cannot be taken seriously as a guide but its best point is that it treats GMAT in an almost casual manner and inculcates a feeling that GMAT is not all that difficult to crack. Providing shortcuts and tricks,this book is certainly one that you could use for introduction to the world of GMAT, but not really something you use at any point once you are completely into serious preps.

Manhattan Sentence Correction is perhaps the best material available in the market today for Sentence Correction and I would recommend it highly to any test taker.

Kaplan 800 - I bought this book because it was supposed to have the hardest questions available anywhere, and I would agree that this proved to be very useful in the fag end of my preps. I would agree that it could be useful to a person already in the 700's to elevate his score by a 10-20 points.

Other than these the materials most popular in the net are
1000SC
1000CR ( also known as LSAT CR )
3000RC
2004-09-02_160638_800scoreAWAGuide.pdf ( for AWA )

Headlong Into Preps
Once all these material are available its time to stop collecting more and start working on the ones you have.The approach of working one aspect at a time seemed the best suited for myself but each one has to find the method that works best for him/her.

Before starting on the preparations in all swing it is necessary to assess one's actual level and one's weaknesses.That is the reason it is advisable to take the first test of Powerprep before you start. I did not do this because I thought I already knew what my weaknesses were.

Maths
As I started my maths preps I realised that I had grown a bit rusty but soon got into the groove. I attacked maths first because I knew it was my strength and decided that I shold consolidate my strengths before working on my weaker aspects.In order to stir up my dormant brain I used to practise multiplications of two digit and three digit numbers in my mind now
and then whenever I got some free time. This helps because it keeps the mind alert and fresh because there is a tendency of the mind to get dull if maths is not practised for some days.
I went through entire Maths workbook of Kaplan but did not find questions to be challenging enough. But inspite of not being challenged by the questions I was dismayed to see that I was committing mistakes too. Ursula's excel is one of the best tools to be used in practise tests. By classifying your errors as Concept Errors or Careless Errors one can easily identify the
areas in quant which are problem areas and also the usual silly mistakes that one makes. As one gives more and more pratice exams one can be proactively alert for the usual suspects ( silly mistakes ) and prevent these from happening. At the same time practise more and more questions from your problem areas so that you are absolutely confident in them.

Verbal
CR
Critical Reasoning is one area where practising hundreds of questions helps a lot to train one's mind.In my case I pratised OG completely to get a feel of what they expected and subsequently I practised a lot of LSAT stuff.I believe that LSAT is way tougher than GMAT and is the best way to train one's mind.There might be times when one might answer less than half of the questions correctly but as one progresses one starts getting better and better at these. In my case even after I got better I could harldly ever get more than 20 out of 25 correct.It used to hover around 18 and occassional dips and elevations. But the important thing was that I was quick to understand why I made the mistakes because I had got used to their style of thinking. After practsing LSAT for around a month, wounded and bruised but nevertheless stronger, one can start off with the GMAT material and it should seem like a cakewalk. As one practises more one realises that the answer starts striking almost immediately as one reads the question.The key to CR is to read the question stem first and then to read the passage and try to predict the answer before looking at the choices.
RC
There are different techniques in handling RC as suggested by different people, but the important thing is try out different techniques and adopt that works best for you. Some people might prefer to skim through the passage wheras others prefer to read through the whole passage. Reading togh editorials from WSJ, Economist and other sources are the best ways to spruce up one's RC skills combined with practising the toughest ones from 3000 RC. Kaplan's tough RCs are also useful but one should not be bothered if some of the explanations seem absurd.In my case I used to read the passages carefully and write down key points of each paragraph on a sheet of paper and go back to the passages if I could not recall something. Even if I could recall the answer I would go back just to make sure.
It is also important not to practise too much because after a point one starts getting bored with these tough passages and concentration factor is exremely important, one should never let one's attention waver.

SC
SC is perhaps the problem area of a majority of test takers, especially ones who are not much into reading. While it is true that being a reader helps, it also fallacious to construe that a non-reader cannot do well in SC.Reading the editorials of well known newspapers is a necessary part of verbal preparations, but GMAT SC is more about
identifying patterns and this is where practise really helps. Manhattan sentence correction is perhaps the best place to start and regular practice in OG, 1000SC and regular perusal of notes made by Spidey, Sahil and Rohith (all available in the net ) should see anyone through. It is also important to make notes on all the mistakes one made because at the end of the
day these notes could be a treasure trove for you. Practise makes one so perfect that one can identify the errors almost by instinct and this saves a lot of valuable time in the exam.

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Scheduling the exam.
After a month's preparation one would be able to assess how one stands in the general scheme of things. At this point it is necessary to schedule the exam because, without doubt, it provides a focus to your preparations. It could be after 2 months or later. If you feel at anytime that you wouldnt be able to make it by then, there is always the option to postpone the exam. The first month of preparation always tends to be hapazhard but after the date is set there is a sense of urgency that is necessary. Though some people might decide to schedule the exam when they feel they are ready, this may not be advisable since this inevitably leads to procrastination. It is important to schedule the date only after careful consideration because both too little and too much of preparations can be harmful. If you feel your preparation is not sufficient then postponing the exam is an option but too much of preparations can lead to burnout which is beyond redemption. The date should be planned in such a way that one can reach one's peak around that time.

Balancing Work and studies
Most of us who give the exam have to shuffle the studies with the work, work that can get hectic at times. Motivation can vacillate on various occassions especially when one has to study after a tough day's work or when one is just not getting things correct in the tests. There are times also when one is flush with confidence on one day only to fall to depressing
lows the next day. These are normal stages that any test taker has to go through. What can sustain you though these periods is the courage of your convictions and a strong urge to do well. While selecting a place to study it is always beneficial to chose a place where one would encounter the least disturbance,in my case I used to go back to my office by around 7 and not a soul would i ever encounter. It is necessary to commit at least two hours everyday, whatever be the case and to devote maximum time during the weekends. The best way to spruce oneself up when one gets demotivated is to read the debriefings of the greats and to inspire oneself to be like them, to think of the beautiful victory that comes at the end of it all.

Practice exams

Contrary to the tradition, my first exam was PP1 and i gave this exam after I was done with OG11. There are some questions from OG11 (most of the questions in PP1 are common to OG10). I managed a 750 in this one and that gave me a confidence that continued till the end.
My other scores were
GMATPREP1 -770
GMATPREP2 -760
Kaplan1-650
Kaplan2-590 ( This one almost shattered me )
kaplan3-640
GMATPREP1 (after reinstalling) -770
GMATPREP2 (after reinstalling) -760
GMATPREP1 (after again reinstalling) -760
Powerprep2 ( 2 days before the exam ) 770



My GMAT - First Blood
I had scheduled my exam on the 17th of July, but due to work pressure I decided to postpone it to Aug 3, I felt I had clicked the appropriate buttons, but apparently I blundered and the exam did not actually get rescheduled. I realised my blunder only on 15th morning when I was just cross checking to make sure. Shocked and taken completely off guard, I decided to go for the exam. But I went with a negative attitude for the exam, having already decided in my mind that I would not perform well since I had so much material untouched. It proved to be a self realizing prophecy and I ran short of time in both verbal and maths and ended up scoring, what was possibly my worst score if I discounted the Kaplan fiascos. I immediately rescheduled it for the 17th of August as I thought that a one month gap was necessary. I am still not sure about this aspect.
For me the 720 brought about a serious dip in confidence but it was also a time for serious introspection,,what went wrong ? How could I correct that ? One thing I was confident of was that I could never go lower.
I realised my weakness was in managing time and I proceeded to give all the remaining practise tests in 1 hr instead of the customary 1 hr 15 mins. This really helped me pick up speed especially in verbal. A serious problem I had noted was that I found the quant section so easy that I could mechanically do the problems while my mind kept wandering. This resulted in silly mistakes which I had to avoid at any cost. Around August first week I reached a burnout stage, no longer did I want to lock myself in my room while the world was enjoying the bright summer days. I did only GMAT sets during this time and GMATPREP too, and these were more than sufficient as they are very representative of the actual tests. Finally 2 days before the final exam I gave the second Powerprep and got a 770 which boosted me no end. On the penultimate day I looked through all my mistakes once again and the morning of the D-Day I revised using some notes and flash cards that I had compiled from the net.

G-DAY Escape To Victory
Sleeping well on the night before the exam is a really crucial factor for success in the examination, and following some person's advice I had stocked some Nyquil for emergency situations. But I had conditioned myself to sleep early for some days and so I went off to sleep without any issues. Had a good 8 hours of sleep and that was half the battle won for me, looking back at my history of sleep deprival on nights when it really mattered.
My exam was scheduled at 3 o clock - a timing I had to take because I couldnt get the morning slot, but I guess the timing also worked for me. While your brain might be fresh in the morning, it is also a bit lethargic and taking it in the afternoon perhaps provides some time to really warm up the brain before going for the real thing. I am sure that it works differently for different people and it is upto you to choose the timing most appropriate for you.
I reached the center ( Pearson Center in Berwyn PA ) with ample time to spare and the music that I had played in my car had relaxed me almost completely. The man at the reception was one of the friendliest I have ever seen and he gave me some pep talk that helped ease the remaining tension.
AWA was easy and I got some nice topics and punched away 5-6 paragraphs for each of them following the template obtained from the net with some modifications. The first one hour is the time to rev up ones engines annd get ready for the final assault.
Out I came and the receptionist said - 1/3rd done 2/3rd to go and gave me a reassuring smile. I shared some joke with him and then moved out, emptied my bladders and washed my eyes with some water. Munched down a bar of chocolate and drank some water and went back in.
Maths started with a tough one but I was able to get the solution confidently and for the next twenty questions, the toughness kept increasing, I could feel it. Around the 21st question I got a weird data interpretation problem which I solved without much ado. Thereafter I got easier questions and I somehow felt alarmed by the decrease in the hardness level.
But I knew I was doing nothing wrong so far, and had even managed to catch some tricky ones, so I continued to feel confident. After the maths I went out and went through the same motions. This time instead of chocolate I guzzled a full can of Red Bull and felt my stomach become full. Therefater I went back and gave the verbal exam in spectacular state of concentration. I faced no problems whatsoever in any question except for a couple which I marked wrongly even though I was fully aware that the other choice was more likely to be correct. But other than that I had a smooth sailing.However I did not encounter any bold face during the entire exam and this left me puzzled and concerned. Even in my last fiasco I had got a BF around the 8th question.
As I filled up the questionnaire , I was imagining what my score would be. The figure that came to my mind was 750-760 but suddenly a the fear of notching a 710 quickened my heart beat. Finally I clicked on the button and waited for what seemed like a lifetime.
When it came up I was dumbstuck for a few seconds. The results were as follows
Q51 (99 percentile)
V46 (99 percentile)
Total 780 (99 percentile)
This was my highest score ever and it could not have come at a better time. This was perhaps the happiest day of my life.
I quicly left the room, thanked the receptionist profusely and rushed out of the building to call all my well wishers,
Victory was swwet after such a long struggle.

Looking Back
Looking back I would say that to achieve such a dream score one needs ones share of luck but luck can only make a difference of 10-20 points maximum. The rest depends on one's preparation and dedication, for even luck shines on those who are prepared to make the best use of it. One needn't be a genius to nail the GMAT, hard work and a methodical approach are what counts in the end. Just like an athlete who spends countless hours in loneliness practising harder and harder for that one moment of glory in the olympics, so also a GMATer has to spend a large amount of time locked in rooms away from friends, away from the pleasures of life. What can sustain him during those lonely hours is just the dream of the day of glory and the satisfaction of a job well done. GMAt is an exam that demands one's complete dedication. During the period of preparation one would have to take the call countless times, on whether one wants to party out with friends or to lock oneslf up on Friday nights and keep practising. There are lots of sacrifices to be made, lot of pleasures to be shun but one should not do it because one has to but because one wants to.As some GMAT stalwart has said, that one should never view the GMAT as a problem that stands in the way of your getting your MBA, it is in fact an opportunity to show off your stuff to the world. When one realises this ,one does not look at the preparations with dread but with excitement, and would enjoy the journey as much as one would enjoy the destination. GMAT is a journey, lonesome and distressful at times, enjoyable and exciting at others, but at the end of it all lies glory and victory.
26

Nice! All the best dude! 😃

27
The double dose was simply :grab: zakaas :)

we share similar thinking & approach for GMAT...i think i am going in the right direction that means

Practise makes one so perfect that one can identify the errors almost by instinct and this saves a lot of valuable time in the exam.

instict
right.
i agree.

thanks buddy.
great posts.
28

Great post dude!!...
All the very best for ur MBA...
can u also write abt applying to Bschools...
ur experiences....
it wuld be helpful for starters like me...

29

Hi!


Elaborative & Enlightening Post.It will always be a great inspiration for all PGites persuing the GMAT dream.

Cheers
Seemant

30
some one rightly said hard work never goes waste here is the best example in front of us...
From couple of days i was running out from studies but after inspirational and enlightening post....even i want to do something good...


Thank you very much dude
and best of luck


Regards

Sky

31

hey,
congrats for your score.It's an awesome score. .

i read your post and i guess my decision to prepare for gmat in one month time was inappropriate with no CAT background.I got a sad score in powerprep today and then decided to postpone my test by a month.My verbal scores were really bad and i was always short of time though i managed a decent 49 in quant.
Can you guide me in verbal and standard deviation ,inequalities,data sufficiency in quant.

Thanks

32

Excellent briefing, very motivating.
Good to have more details as number of years of experience and schools aspiring for.

33

Thanks Guys.

Meanwhile I got my AWA and its a 6, pretty relieved to see that since I didnt want any blemish to my score.

Thanks

34

Hi Shilpa,

I would definitely say that 1 month is too little for a person with no CAT background.
I would have said that two months was enough for me, but that is in hindsight, at that point I decided to commit three months to the task and I did exceed that by a few days.
So decide what score you would like and decide appropriately.

About the various topics I will be helping you all with some methods that worked for me.
Please hold on.

Thanks













hey,
congrats for your score.It's an awesome score. .

i read your post and i guess my decision to prepare for gmat in one month time was inappropriate with no CAT background.I got a sad score in powerprep today and then decided to postpone my test by a month.My verbal scores were really bad and i was always short of time though i managed a decent 49 in quant.
Can you guide me in verbal and standard deviation ,inequalities,data sufficiency in quant.

Thanks

35
Thanks Guys.

Meanwhile I got my AWA and its a 6, pretty relieved to see that since I didnt want any blemish to my score.

Thanks


Razind, you know what man...you are awesome!! Perfect score on the AWA too...man, if I were on the adcom, I would BLINDLY admit you...regardless of your background! Awesome job. Where in the US are you? I'm in Boston.
GL in future...
-Amit
36

AWESOME is all I can say. Dude...I plan to give my GMAT next jan if things don't go well in CAT. The final speech. The 'Looking back' speech moved me. I am facing the same situation currently. (I wouldn't call lack of parties and friends a crisis...it's a necessity)

You will be an inspiration. Thanks a lot for sharing ur experiences.

37

Razind,
Thanks for your reply.I am looking forward to methods and techniques you are going to share.

38
Congratulations Razind! Awesome score!
Youre an inspiring example of how patience, practice, persistence & perseverance pinnacle par pohcha detey hai. ( Mental note : sleep deprivation = babbling)

Thank you for the debriefing. I feel so much better after reading your post. Its hearting to identify with it. Only, maths is my Everest and I cant seem to develop a liking for it:(
Will bother you with my numerous queries if thats ok.
My best for new journeys. May the best school win:)
39

Thanks Guys for your good wishes. I am going through the even more difficult stage of writing essays and believe me its tough !!!
Meanwhile please post your specific doubts and questions and I shall do my best to answer them.

Thanks

40

congrats ... and all the best for the apping