I am blogging now in the middle of the day, as a break between my gmat preparation. I took the diaganostic test from OGR,11th edition and scored 40 out of 48 maths questions and 34 out of 52 verbal questions. The results reflected my performance as excellent in maths and average in verbal.
I took my first full lenght test today, online from pricenton review.com. My score is little above average, i.e. 550 out of 800. I hope my performances will definitely improve to 650 with practise on sample questions from different books and more full lenght tests. But the amount of hardwork i put in in the next 2 months will decide whether i can get more than 700.
Reviewing today's full lenght tests, I have to admit that i need to take more full lenght tests, inorder to get my concetration for a longtime that the test needs. Also i have to be more cautious while answering the initial questions. I realised that a slightest of error in the beginning will cost more. Though i got 32 questions correct in maths, i made 3 errors in the first 15 questions which resulted in a poor total score.
On verbal, i better make no comments as there were 4 incorrect answers among the first 10 questions. On the whole i could get only 22 questions correct on the verbal. Of the 19 incorrect answers, 17 were among the first 29 questions. I feel that due to the fear of running of time, I hurried in the initial questions.
Its very clear that I have to concentrate more on verbal compared to maths. I will start working on the sample questions from verbal section in the OGR,11th edition today. After completing these questions, I will take another full lenght test and review my performance.
Hope I will be back in this page after my next full lenght test with a better verbal score.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Day 9 to 16 - 30Jun to 7July
Its better to mention the last 7 days as a lean phase in my study period as I did not spend more time for GMAT. Though I cite some valid reasons like late working hours and sickness for this lean phase, I feel that I could have utilised the time more efficiently. However I will describe the activities that was carried out in the last week.
I have completed all the sample questions (bins) in the PR book. There were 4 bins in Maths and 3 bins in Verbal. My scores on the maths bins in the order of increasing difficulty are 24,20,19 and 18 out of 26, respectively. I am confident that this will increase with more practise during the coming days. On the other hand, my verbal scores suggest that I have to work vvery hard on my English. The scores in the order of difficulty are 21/25,17/27 and 12/26.
The comments of different GMAT high scorers is that the questions on PR are not difficult when compared to the difficult questions on actual GMAT and the OGR. Considering their comments, I am well behind an average score in verbal. With more books on the way, I have to complete the sample questions OGR 11th edition by sunday apart from a full length computer test.
I have completed all the sample questions (bins) in the PR book. There were 4 bins in Maths and 3 bins in Verbal. My scores on the maths bins in the order of increasing difficulty are 24,20,19 and 18 out of 26, respectively. I am confident that this will increase with more practise during the coming days. On the other hand, my verbal scores suggest that I have to work vvery hard on my English. The scores in the order of difficulty are 21/25,17/27 and 12/26.
The comments of different GMAT high scorers is that the questions on PR are not difficult when compared to the difficult questions on actual GMAT and the OGR. Considering their comments, I am well behind an average score in verbal. With more books on the way, I have to complete the sample questions OGR 11th edition by sunday apart from a full length computer test.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Day 7 and 8 - 28 and 29 June 09
I have mentioned earlier that i am going to take a test on 28thJune09. It appeared to be a warmup test from princeton review and not a full simulated test. However I am able to analyze myself with the warmup test.
The test consists of 40 questions, 20 each from maths and verbal. The time alloted for each section is 30 minutes, i.e. 1.5 minutes per question which is less than the actual time given per question in the gmat. I took the test in two different sessions, first being maths and then verbal.
While working on the Maths questions, I felt more comfortable that I could categorize the questions as medium difficulty only. I scored 16 out of 20. Of the 4 questions i missed, 3 were careless mistakes which i will eventually overcome. I had no problems with the concepts that were tested. I doubt that the real gmat questions are as easy as these.
On the verbal section, I found it very hard to answer these medium difficuly questions itself. Though I have not answered confidently, I got 15 questions correct out of 20. On the sentence correction questions I could not identify the actual grammatical error, but in most of the questions the options that appeared as best to me were correct. On all the 3 sections of verbal, I have to practise a lot.
I have placed online orders for kaplan series books and official guide 12th edition. I will get these books only by 11th of July, which is the 19th day of my sudy plan. By the time, I should complete the practise questions and tests in priceton review and all the questions in the official guide 11th edition.
The summary of my warm up test result is as follows.
Total - 31 out of 40
Maths - 16/20 : Data Sufficiency - 7/8 and Problem solving - 9/12
Verbal - 15/20 : Sentence correction - 6/7; Reading comprehension- 6/8 and Logical Reasoning - 3/5
Ranking as per PR: My standings in both the sections separately is among the top 1/3rd of test takers. But the combined standing is of an average score of 450-550.
I am happy that I am not at a below average level, but I have to work hard to move upto the level of high scorer in another 93 days. Its going to be practise and test sessions for the next 10 days. I will have a detailed analysis of the areas that i have to improve and those in which i have enough competency.
The test consists of 40 questions, 20 each from maths and verbal. The time alloted for each section is 30 minutes, i.e. 1.5 minutes per question which is less than the actual time given per question in the gmat. I took the test in two different sessions, first being maths and then verbal.
While working on the Maths questions, I felt more comfortable that I could categorize the questions as medium difficulty only. I scored 16 out of 20. Of the 4 questions i missed, 3 were careless mistakes which i will eventually overcome. I had no problems with the concepts that were tested. I doubt that the real gmat questions are as easy as these.
On the verbal section, I found it very hard to answer these medium difficuly questions itself. Though I have not answered confidently, I got 15 questions correct out of 20. On the sentence correction questions I could not identify the actual grammatical error, but in most of the questions the options that appeared as best to me were correct. On all the 3 sections of verbal, I have to practise a lot.
I have placed online orders for kaplan series books and official guide 12th edition. I will get these books only by 11th of July, which is the 19th day of my sudy plan. By the time, I should complete the practise questions and tests in priceton review and all the questions in the official guide 11th edition.
The summary of my warm up test result is as follows.
Total - 31 out of 40
Maths - 16/20 : Data Sufficiency - 7/8 and Problem solving - 9/12
Verbal - 15/20 : Sentence correction - 6/7; Reading comprehension- 6/8 and Logical Reasoning - 3/5
Ranking as per PR: My standings in both the sections separately is among the top 1/3rd of test takers. But the combined standing is of an average score of 450-550.
I am happy that I am not at a below average level, but I have to work hard to move upto the level of high scorer in another 93 days. Its going to be practise and test sessions for the next 10 days. I will have a detailed analysis of the areas that i have to improve and those in which i have enough competency.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Day 4 to Day 6 - 25 to 27June09
This is the first weekend after i have started my preparation for gmat. I am consolidating my study over the 3 days of the weekend.
On thursday, 25thJune09, I have completed the logical reasoning and AWA chapters from princeton review. I could spend only 2 hrs on thursday and had enough distractions in terms of billiards and bowling. I was totally away from gmat on the friday, in which day i could have done a lot towards gmat prep. I am not worried abt the time lost on friday, reason being: i will get 2 full days in a week for gmat prep and my family friends, who are great hurdle for gmat prep on weekends will be out of the city for next two months. Hope I will have least disturbances to my plan during the coming weekends.
My study on saturday is more worthier when compared to other days. I have completed the maths chapters from the princeton review. I have finished the concepts provided in the princeton review for all the 3 sections, maths, verbal and awa. Its time to move on. On sunday, I will be taking my first test from princeton review, and have to plan my further preparation based on the score in this test.
As mentioned in many blogs and by my friend who got 730 in 2008, I too feel that princeton review do not deal with either concepts or questions belonging to the difficult category. It is more apt for the average scorer than a high scorer who aims at a score of 700plus. It may be too early for me to comment on the book without even taking any test from the book or anyother source. However I got into above conclusion based on the comments read from various sources. Also I have placed online orders for 3 gmat books from Kaplan, which my friend had recommended a lot.
I am looking forward for sunday evening when I will be taking my first test. Next time I will blog a lot with my results.
On thursday, 25thJune09, I have completed the logical reasoning and AWA chapters from princeton review. I could spend only 2 hrs on thursday and had enough distractions in terms of billiards and bowling. I was totally away from gmat on the friday, in which day i could have done a lot towards gmat prep. I am not worried abt the time lost on friday, reason being: i will get 2 full days in a week for gmat prep and my family friends, who are great hurdle for gmat prep on weekends will be out of the city for next two months. Hope I will have least disturbances to my plan during the coming weekends.
My study on saturday is more worthier when compared to other days. I have completed the maths chapters from the princeton review. I have finished the concepts provided in the princeton review for all the 3 sections, maths, verbal and awa. Its time to move on. On sunday, I will be taking my first test from princeton review, and have to plan my further preparation based on the score in this test.
As mentioned in many blogs and by my friend who got 730 in 2008, I too feel that princeton review do not deal with either concepts or questions belonging to the difficult category. It is more apt for the average scorer than a high scorer who aims at a score of 700plus. It may be too early for me to comment on the book without even taking any test from the book or anyother source. However I got into above conclusion based on the comments read from various sources. Also I have placed online orders for 3 gmat books from Kaplan, which my friend had recommended a lot.
I am looking forward for sunday evening when I will be taking my first test. Next time I will blog a lot with my results.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Day 3 - 24June09
Today I continued with the sentence correction techniques in princeton review (PR). The initial chapters on sc, had mentioned that these techniques will be enough to crack the gmat. But the last chapter had made it clear that these are the common errors found in gmat and i have to practise a lot and refresh the high school grammar to get good score. This has slightly lowered my confidence that i gained on the previous day. However i continued with the reading comprehension chapter in PR and completed it. To check my level of comfort, i have tried 10 sentence correction questions from official guide to gmat. can you guess how much i got correct?
5 out of 10. the performance sounds very bad to a person aiming for 700. but i am not that worried because there is careless error on 2 questions, which would have made it 7 out of 10. with continuous practise, i hope i will get more correct answers in the future. i will dedicate some time for wrenn and martyn high school grammar, the book that i got from a grade4 student.
i wrote to my friend this morning that till date my career is like a stream, changing directions whenever there is an obstacle. for the first time i have seriously decided to overcome the obstacle and look into the other side, instead of changing the direction. i will update my daily comfort/confidence level in this blog so that i can show how effective am i in proving the proverb - Practice makes man perfect.
Summary of the Day:
-Finshed Sentence correction and REading comprehension in princeton review.
-Planned to complete logical reasoning on day 4
-Keep reading and writing in English to improve the general grammar which will help in the sentence correction and AWA section.
5 out of 10. the performance sounds very bad to a person aiming for 700. but i am not that worried because there is careless error on 2 questions, which would have made it 7 out of 10. with continuous practise, i hope i will get more correct answers in the future. i will dedicate some time for wrenn and martyn high school grammar, the book that i got from a grade4 student.
i wrote to my friend this morning that till date my career is like a stream, changing directions whenever there is an obstacle. for the first time i have seriously decided to overcome the obstacle and look into the other side, instead of changing the direction. i will update my daily comfort/confidence level in this blog so that i can show how effective am i in proving the proverb - Practice makes man perfect.
Summary of the Day:
-Finshed Sentence correction and REading comprehension in princeton review.
-Planned to complete logical reasoning on day 4
-Keep reading and writing in English to improve the general grammar which will help in the sentence correction and AWA section.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Day 2 - 23June09
I have given the heading for the blog as My GMAT Struggles, as I think that the preparation for GMAT is going to be one of the most difficult period in my life.
I have planned a lot for MBA and GMAT, never turned the plans into actions. This time I have decided to take GMAT seriously. Since my school days, for the last 10 years, I have not decided to be discpline at any time. Now I have planned to prepare for 100 days starting 22June09. I have to make these 100 days as the most purposeful days of my life.
As a first step, I have bought the princeton review - cracking the gmat 2010 edition yesterday. But my plans haven't kicked off on 22ndJune. Though the start have been delayed, i hope it will be steady.
I studied for 4 hours, going through the techniques to be used for sentence correction questions. Considering the command I have on English, I am very much scared about the verbal section of GMAT. However the cracking techniques that I have learned today gave me a lot of confidence. As the book states that it is enough to have strong command over GMAT English, than English, I am sure that I will perform well at the end of 100 days.
I have planned a lot for MBA and GMAT, never turned the plans into actions. This time I have decided to take GMAT seriously. Since my school days, for the last 10 years, I have not decided to be discpline at any time. Now I have planned to prepare for 100 days starting 22June09. I have to make these 100 days as the most purposeful days of my life.
As a first step, I have bought the princeton review - cracking the gmat 2010 edition yesterday. But my plans haven't kicked off on 22ndJune. Though the start have been delayed, i hope it will be steady.
I studied for 4 hours, going through the techniques to be used for sentence correction questions. Considering the command I have on English, I am very much scared about the verbal section of GMAT. However the cracking techniques that I have learned today gave me a lot of confidence. As the book states that it is enough to have strong command over GMAT English, than English, I am sure that I will perform well at the end of 100 days.
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