GMAT 750 Q49 V44

Took it this morning. And scored a 750 . I am happy. Expected a 50 in quant though but I guess have to keep some margin for error.

Really really happy to hear that Niladri! Congratulations!

Thanks Gowri. Here is my GMAT exam
taking experience starting right from the inception. I seriously started contemplating
for GMAT only in APRIL this year. I actually did not even know what was exam
all about before that. Didn’t know what’s CR,SC or DS was. That was in April
starting. Once I had decided to write GMAT I started going through the net to
find some good material for studies  or a
good coaching institute. Read through pagalGuy and GMATClub and everyone
unanimously prescribed CV there. I saw it was based out of Bangalore, so
decided to get started.

              First
day I took the demo class Arun was taking Modifier session in SC. I just
instantly loved the way he was being thorough and straight forward at the same
time. There was so sugar coating saying it will all be easy.  He mentioned, to get a good result you have to
understand the basics, the logic and apply them.   Just blind
practicing will not help. In his words, by practicing blindly you just get ‘better
at being bad’. That line stuck by me during all my preparation.

                I gave
my first mock test 9^th of May 2013. Went to CV center and casually
wrote the test. To my surprise I actually got a half decent score for a first
timer. 660 – Q45 V35. I got a little confidence and told myself ‘Ok, this a
start, let’s do it’. Came back and booked a test date on that day. 3 months is
all I gave myself.  I wanted to give it
the best possible chance and I realized if I gave myself too long time to
prepare I wouldn’t/couldn’t keep up the intensity.

                Then
started my verbal classes. The starting classes of CR were the toughest classes
according to me. Just to get into the mindset of questions that come in GMAT.
But slowly but surely I completed all the classes in Verbal. And it was already
mid-June !

                At this time I gave another mock. 16^th
of June. Downloaded the GMATPrep SW and wrote the whole 4 hours exam. Got a
700. Q46 V39. At this point I was a bit satisfied with the verbal score but not
with the quant one. But I told myself quant is easy, (I am computer science grad
and had a good math grasp in school days) so if I brush up the basics I will be
fine. (In hindsight this kind of complacency is exactly what kills your
preparation, which I was to realize very soon!)

                So,
with the logic of brushing up my basics in quant I gave myself a window of 15
days . Decided that I would write the second official mock on 30^Th June.
The day came and I tried the mock again. But this time it was a real eye opener
for me. Even with the so called quant brush up I did I faired fairly poorly in
the test. Spent a long time in a inequality question and finally messed up a
lot of easy questions.  After the exam I
sat through the analyzing all the questions. I realized knowing the basics in
one thing. Being able to use them in 2 minutes to solve questions is quite another.
Now I realized I’d better pay more attention to quant.

                First thing on agenda was better
time management. And nothing gives you more experience than actual tests. For
me, I might try to solve OG questions or from any source by keeping a
stopwatch. But somehow that was never the same as writing an actual 75 minute
test as part of a 4 hour test. To that end I started to utilize the free tests
CV had sent us. Kaplan, Princeton review, Veritas , Manhattan. Over a period of
2 weeks I wrote all of them one by one. 
This helps you get accustomed to not get nervous when you see you have
10 minutes and 6 questions. You know you have been there before and have done
it.

Second thing was getting better at
the solving itself. Formulas and theorem never come to mind when you are writing
a test. So best way to make them muscle memory. To that end I went online and
downloaded the Manhattan series of quant books . I read, solved the questions
in the book . Just like back in the school days J
 I know lot of people say that questions from
 other nonofficial sources are not that reliable
and do not represent the GMAT test standards. Although I agree with that, I
think in the initial stages of preparation they are might useful.  To this end I will also mention that Veritas
prep has a online free question bank . Unlimited questions online. I found them
really useful. I used to take chunks of 5 questions at a time and solve. The
more you do such questions the more your intuitions grow for solving faster  .

Until this point I hadn’t even
thought of taking the quant classes at CV. But then came the booster class and
I got 50% of the questions wrong that day . That thoroughly scared me ( which I
think now was a good thing J)
and  I immediately spoke to Akshay and he
mentioned that I could be just in time for the test (actually the classes
finished just yesterday !). So I jumped in.  The CV quant class is the best collection of high
level GMAT questions according to me. And as Akshay started taking the classes
I slowly realized that may be it was a good thing that I took the classes by
the end of the preparations. These questions are advanced and are far  more helpful if you already know the basics.

By now I was well  into my last month of preparation. I made a
pact with myself that come what may I had to prepare every day. Not breaks in
preparation. And I also had whole of verbal advanced documents to start. For a while
my verbal score was stuck at 39 – 40 . I told myself I am going to finish these
advanced documents and they should get me to 42 – 43 levels. I made a routine
of getting up 5:30 everyday morning and studying till 8:30 – 9 am. Also I tried
to finish work as soon as possible and get back from by 8 to study till 10.  At this period my main focus was quant 2 hours
in the morning , 1 hour verbal. Evening 1 hour verbal and 1 hour with veritas
prep/more quant.

While I was doing the verbal
advanced books I kept a tab on which questions I was getting wrong and in total
how many did I get wrong. By the end of July I was almost done with 90% of the
books and to my pleasant surprise had only about 30 odd mistakes in the SC , 14
in CR and some 20 odd in RC. I was pretty confident I was OK with verbal cause
more than what your accuracy is what is more important is to gain that accuracy
on valid questions. For verbal I would everyone to always stick to official
questions ONLY.

Then finally came this morning.
Exam day. I was a quietly confident and but also nervous. I have a little
paranoia always that I might have forgotten everything J, and so this morning I sat
throught 1.5 hours to do 10 each SC,CR and qunat questions. I reached the exam
20 minutes in advance and the place was quiet and peaceful. They gave earplugs
. I used them from the right go and got on with it.  AWA and IR is everyone says, just enough
attention to get pass them by.

The quant questions were not that
hard but I have an inkling I might have got the first question wrongL.  But I made sure I dint fall back on time and kept
going at a healthy pace. Last 8 minutes I had 3 questions and I completed them
just in time (30 seconds remaining). I was actually expecting a 50 in this but
somehow missed it. I feel in quant one very important thing is read the
question, there is always some twist. Earlier in the preparation I was always
in a hurry to get started with the question. But that isn’t useful. SoI started reading the questions and writting down what it asks . Takes 2 seconds extra and I made
myself do it deliberately earlier in the preparation and found it immensely
helpful.

Took the second break, Nibbled on a
Snicker and a Tropicana juice and 8 minutes were over. Started the verbal
section. The SC were actually pretty easy compared to everything there in the
advanced documents . CR on the other hand was a little tricky and once the
middle of the exam I was feeling a little overwhelmed with them . I closed my
eyes for 30 seconds and then restarted the question. I had never gotten to 44
even in my mocks so I guess they questions did get a bit heavyJ. Also if you are doing
well in you RC chances are the 3^rd or 4^th RC will be monster
 one, like mine (6 paragraphs L) Make sure you make
time for that. But all said and done the except a few CR questions I was pretty
confident I had done pretty well. Submitted 1 minute in advance and delight I
had a 750 . That feeling that moment is unexplainable J

Hope this helps anyone who is
preparing. I am glad mine is over. And thanks CV wholeheartedly for their
direction and teaching. This (especially 44 in verbal) would never have
possible without you guys. You guys rock!

Thanks for the detailed debrief Niladri – we’ll miss you here on the forum! 🙂

Hey Gowri, yeah I am applying this year . Will always reach out to you if I need any help 🙂

Congrats Niladri!! Great score!

 660- 750.. whao! It’s truly an achievement…

Congratulations Niladtri!!! All the best with your applications.