Inblue's MBA story

Yeah I know I have been a lot more irregular both at the tests and blogging.

I booked the date.. G-Day is August 3 2006. Since I would not be able to take any prep leaves with office work, it didnt matter what weekday i wrote the test on.

I'd taken the GMATprep last to last sunday and ended up 680.( Q 46, V 38) It goes without saying, ithat was a big-big-big setback. I thought I was doing well but somehow couldn't hold my nerve on the test and went in to a couple of silly errors on the Quant as well. The test was a good learning though. I understood that its most important to be at peace with one's self when cracking the GMAT.

Sure, it took me a day or two ( and a whole lot of phone calls from friends) to get out of the shock and hit the books again. Through out the last week,I stuck to the OG and saw it to the end. Took my learnings from the Kaplan 800 and the practice questions where I erred. Most important of all, I gave myself time and peace to understand the little nuances . It was a difficut week indeed to battle with fears and still push on with the preps.

That has passed and after the last whole week of prep, took the Princeton 4 on Sunday. That gave me hope of a some good score. The test was good and I found myslef keeping the concentration levels throughout the test . 710 ( Q 46 V 41) was what the score read.

Now that I am done with most of the prep material, I am just planning to keep my cool. Believe ! and go hit it on Thursday. After today's break, i am planning the GMAT prep2 Tomorrow and that should be it.

With the OG behind me and 710 in my bag, it feels a lot better today but GMAT always creates apprenhensions and If's. Guess that It how it is in the last week.

Long time no blog !

The last two weeks have been gruelling at office and that has slowed down the GMAT a bit. However, I've manged to keep some pace. Took the Kaplan 2 test last week but did not do well on it so just opted to forget it as one of those test that didnt matter.

Its been long that I posted something comprehensive on the preps. Sofar, I have just been analysing the tests and optimizing on them.

So where am I with the preps ?

I am done with the OG Math Review and the OG Verbal Review. I was good at Quant, On the verbal, I was relatively better at RC and CR. SC is my strength any day. I should be reviewing all the questions where I erred on the Verbal.

Besides, I spent some quality time with the Kaplan 800 last week end and found it useful. I still have the SC section to complete there.I enjoyed working with that book.Its just amazing.

I also completed the Sectional Tests on the Kaplan CD. They where helpful as well. I would recommed that to everyone. Its convinent ( shot times ) and helps you pace yourself. The beneift is - you relaise how much time you take for a specific question type and helps you time your sections on the tests effectively. I realised that i was able to hit the SC's in less than 1 mins but it took me 1.5 mins to tacke a RC . Helped me a lot to time my verbal section.

Got a head start with AWA while sitting idle in office in the wee hours of the day( read 7.30 am ). Analysing arguments is fun but certain issues are too abstract to comment on. I am not bothering too much on the AWA for now. Will brush up a little towards the end.


I have come to know this about myself -

There are times when I do exceptionally well on my practice sets and the tests. Those sessions are satisfying, but there are times when I perform poorly. The only reason I can think of is, over working, anxiety and the pressure of performance. This is when i give way to silly mistakes. So since the last week I have tried to chill my preps and work with the books when my mind is fresh and active.

At the fag ends of each section on the test, i seem to get nervous with the clock ticking away, On both my Kaplan tests i could not concentrate on well on my last 5 questions on each section becuause I was left with 'a question per min'. I dont not recollect well, but i think i did not face this on the PowerPrep tests, so I am not too worried of it. I know i'll overcome this pressure.

Analysis of my 4 full length tests,

(Princeton 1 - 630,PowerPrep1 -690,PowerPrep2 -710,Kaplan 1 -620)

I was really bad at Math on test1, now I have a considrable improvement in the Hit ratio 42, 44, 46, 50 . What i need is consistent 50's on the Quant ( not 50's - the aim is < 6 questions incorrect ). I hope i will be able to nail 32+ correct questions. The comming Kaplan and GMAT preps will tell me.

On the Verbal section, my confidence is still shaky. The score ladder reads 34 ,32,41,31. I am not able to realise whether i improved or degraded.

The Silliest mistakes I committed on Math- Mis-reading the questions, reading half the question, forgetting to convert to appropriate measurements.

The Silliest mistakes on Verbal - not reading the answer choices back into the question (for the SC ). Interpreting too far on RC and CR, failing to understand the scope.

What are the plans ahead ?
I am planning to spend some time with the OG 11 and review my mistakes from Kaplan 800,OG 11 Quant and Verbal Guides. Take a couple of more tests and finally hit the AWA for a day or two and look out for a decent date to write the GMAT when I am relatively less burdened at office.

BOY!!!! That was my first expresssion when the test ended. Call it the GMAT roller coaster ride.

Before I bore everyone with the ubiquotus scores, I want to confess that the test was the most interesting and most enjoyable i have written till now ( PP kept throwing silly OG questions at me. this one was way too far.

For the honours, the score says 620 ( Q50,V31 )
for both the scores I want to say - Hello ! was that me ?

In the disection of the the test

Verbal ( # incorrect 17 ).. That number itself is too great to demand a listing of the questions.


It was out of this world. I thought I was excellent at SC, nah ! i flunked 4 of them of this test. RC - better not say anything about them. What do you do when people discuss impressionism and theories of justice etc etc. Needeless to say I got a big chunk of the RC's wrong. All in all a though one there. I was not able to time it well either. I was in dying by the 30 question. Guessed the last 7 questions. Again needless to say I got 6 of them worng and 3 of them were RC

i could feel that the questios were getting tougher as i advanced. I saw the first RC at 10.

I found all the verbal questions too abstruse and the passages to long and to boring and the the CRs too complex as well. Somehow Kaplan has a weird writing style. Things will be non negative rather than positive.Most CR's were worded in a hopelessley complex manner.

Humm SC - got to catch up the kaplan 800. There were little nuance and sutble difference in the answers i chose and the correct ones.

Quant ( #incorrect 9) .
(9,11,13,14,16,19,32,33,36)
Yeah i never expected this on Kaplan ! Come on now, I have never been good at Math.
There I go and all through the Quant I though I was having my worst quant ever. 4 silly mistakes again. ( or i guess its silly because when you are writing the damn test you are so pressed for time, you rush and then in leisure you sit with that question and you know the right things). As iday said its concentration i guess.

Now I am beinnning to wonder, how good is good enough and how complex is complex ?

I guess by Kaplan standards, i did ok-ish. Not too happy though
There is a lot to be worked on with the Kaplan 800 and the Big Fat OG11 now.