More on my GMAT preparations

My dear blogger mates.....

It has sincerely been a very good weekend so far...
Took two computer based tests:
1. GMAT Prep -1 (again) [read somewhere that questions will be different and found them to be so]
2. Score top online - Quant 1

It has been quite a long time since i wrote anything other than my GMAT preps... So, amm... lemme just bore you all a bit by descrbing the kind of time (other than GMAT) i had during the last week....

There were three major things that happened to me during the last week. The first one was something that is not very unusual now... It was my desperation to go home!! As the day 25th May is coming closer, the excitement is increasing in inverse proportion to the time left before i land in Gujarat... It has been almost 2 months now that i am waiting for the day... For some reasons, my trip to home this time will be a lot more special than it has ever been... :) With just 3 and a half days to go before i fly, lemme make a promise to myself that i will uitilize all these days, fully dedicated to my GMAT preps, whenver i am away from office work....

The second major thing that has been happening is the new challange that i m facing w.r.t. my work in office... No no, it is not technical challange, anything technical has hardly ever tumbled me so far... But this time, it is the whole new drama of project allocation... Just when i thought i will have a peaceful life before i give my GMAT, i see IDI clouds building up over my head (IDI is the worst project my IBU has)!! :( You sometimes pay panelties for doing a good job! This is one those punishments... I know it will be tough to sneak out of this, but i will try a lot for sure... I havent been officially told anything about it so far. Just waiting for the moment when some PM comes to me and says me officially that i am supposed to work for IDI.. I will make sure that even if he eventually pulls me into it, i give him a tough time pulling me!!

And the third and the final major action that took place was that i accidently found a school friend of mine, called Shivangi Gajjar... We were class mates in 3rd - 4th standard and then she left the school and went to a girl's convent school, probably coz the boys in our school were just too troublesome!! :):):) She is presently doing her masters in New York..... It was wonderful to find a friend whom you havent met/talked since last 15 years!!! The credit goes to Mr. Orkut and his wonderful creation called 'orkut.com'...

Coming on to my GMAT preparations and the tests:

1. GMAT Prep1, the java application you can download from mba.com was pretty good this time.... Though i had atleast 10% questions that i thought were from GMAT or were a part of GMAT prep1 that i gave earlier, the overall confidence i had after giving the test was quite satisfactory. The one strange thing about these GMAT Prep software is their scoring pattern. I find it to be too very liberal when it comes to quant section. I made 11 wrong out of 37 in quant and then too landed up with a score of 50... Amazing, isnt it??? Out of these 11 mistakes, i got 6 wrong in PS and 5 in DS. I could have ceratinly done better, but even with just 5 incorrect i would have scored 50!!! I just hope that a similar scoring pattern is followed in actual GMAT. Verbal was OK this time... 6 wrong in RC, 7 in SC and just 1 in CR... 14 wrong overall with a sectional score of 38.. Something needs to be seriously done about my SC preps... SC and CR are the key to a 40... I cant bank on RC as it has never been my most comfortable area. Overall score was 730, but the figure is just a bit more than what i deserve with my present preparation.. and i know this!!
2. Early Sunday morning is always a time to relax and dream... But i will have to forget these pleasures atleast till June 26th.. Got up early, had a quick breakfast and off i was to office... Took the scoretop quant 1 test and found 2 questions out of 38 to be incomplete.. But the wonder was i got just 1 of them incorrect!! hahaha... Seems my guessing power is improving.. Amogst the questions which were fully visible, i got 3 wrong... Found the test to be very very easy... Had completed it with 45 mins left in my bank account... Hope the level is a bit tougher in the next 11 quant simulations in score-top.

Well... this is all about this week's stuff... I will be seeing the movie Gangster today with my roomies.... It will be a movie i will see in theatres after a gap of 2-3 months.... But i am more excited about the movie i will be seeing on 26th may and even more excited about the movie on 25th may as i will be the hero myself on 25th!! hahaah....

Chow folks...

My first realistic 700!!!!

I will remember today's day for many reasons...

1. Dipped my i card into a curry during lunch, and pasted it on my t shirt, just to find that i dint carry a hankerchief... :)
2. Crossed the 700 mark for the very first time with a 710, though dint see this figure reflecting on my screen, as the 800Score.com test that i gave just only gives sectional scores. I was able to zero on 710 after refering their site where they let you know your overall score if you give the test no. and your sectional scores.

Getting more than 700, i think is more of a physchological phenomena.... Your verbal and quant skills can get you upto 700, but anything about that has to come from your pshchy, your concentration power and above all your patience...

Today's experience was again satisfactory in general... More than reaching the 700 mark, i am much pleased with my graph so far... The positive slope of this graph is something that is boosting me a a lot, and today's 700 was just like icing over the cake!!

Speaking about cake, reminds me that i am getting very very hungry.. :) So, i try and rap up the test description and mistakes in short.

Started with Quant as usual... Got a question which i had seen almost a year back... And despite of this, i got is wrong!! Silly mistake again... Nways, the section was good... 50 overall for my effort in quant, even after getting 7 of out of 37 wrong... Dont know whats the logic behind such scoring... Had it been ETS paper tests, 7 wrong would have never given me a half-century in quant...

Verbal now.... Found the initial few question very simple, as was the case with quant.... My real tests were RCs this time... I guess mentioning 'this time' would lead to a conclusion that RCs are not always tough for me. So, i better check my sentence here, coz they indeed give me a tough time in each and every test... RCs this time were more related to finance, and one of them fully dedicated to investment banking... Luckily, i dont have any plans for doing IB coz if i had any such plans i would have had to change those after my miserable performance in this particular RC...

The concentration you can develop and the ease with which you can feel that you are doing great are directly dependent on your surroundings.... While i was on my 34 question in Verbal, which was again the first question of another RC, one of the house keeping guys of my office comes to me and asks, "Is your company a call centre or a software firm?" He must have regreted for asking me such a question coz the stare that i gave him after this question was too scary.. :)

Nways, the test ended smoothly with arond 5+ mins to spare... And the results were:

Q: 50
V: 39
Total: 710

My performance was quite satisfactory.... But still - i havent reached my zenith - is the feeling that i have....

Lets c if i again cross 700 in the next test, next weekend....
Chow!

Sorry... Sorry.. Sorry...

First of all.... My sincere apologise for not updating the status of my tests this weekend... The weekend infact proved to be one of the most happening weekends as far as my GMAT preps are concerned...

Saturday: 6th May, 2006

Landed in the office around 10:30 AM in the morning... And got very unpleased to see lot many folks on my floor.... No no... I am not a misanthrope.. :) Just that, many people -> many questions on GMAT -> many explanations from my side -> many questions again -> many explanations again... The sequence goes on... Newer mind i said, moved to a silent place in one of the corners of the floor where i could hide myself from all Derek O Brians... :)

Wished to take some new test this time... No ETS or Kaplan.. Luckily found a gmattest software which i had downloaded a year back... A time when i was never sure what i wanted in life... :) Started the test and sailed through it with great ease... Quant was complete before 10 mins and verbal was complete with 5 mins to spare... Whenever the test is easy, it sounds a bell in my mind and makes me all the more conscious about my answers... But luckily enough, i dint make too many mistakes this time with simple questions, and reached a mind-boggling score of 760!!! Whoo!!Whoo!!! Though it was great to see this figure on the monitor, it wasnt satisfactory, as i knew real GMAT was never going to be so very easy....

It was time now to come back to reality.... 760 had provided me with wings using which i was flying in the skies of over-confidence... So, thought lemme come back to ground realities.. decided to take another test on the same day....

Opted for Kaplan-2 this time... I knew it was going to be a sure shot landing to ground with Kaplan, but just hoped the landing to be a bit safer than Kaplan-1... :) Found many questions repeating in the quant section, which wasnt much encouraging and the verbal section was again tough as expected... Was easily able to complete both these sections in time and that was very pleasing... Scored 600 with 50 in quant and 29 in verbal... Verbal: 21 correct and 20 incorrect!! Dont know what happens with me when i give these full lenght tests... With sectional tests i usually sail with a better accuracy...

Sunday: 7th May, 2006

Had the hardcopies of ETS 25 with me today.... The day was too hot and it wasnt possible to sit for the test till it was evening... ETS tests though good, have some disadvanatages: 1. Their quant is very simple 2. There are no explanations for the verbal answers

The test neways was a good experience... Quant was simple as expected and it was tough to sit patiently for 1 hour 15 mins while solving verbal... :) Probably, my low accuracy has everything to do with the fact that Verbal is the last section is these full length tests.. Well, nothing can be done about it though.. I will have to train myself with this routine by giving more tests... The timing during the test was comfortable... Results: Poor accuracy in Verbal, Good in quant... Scores: V-38 Q-49 Overall: 690

Expected to reach 700 today atleast... But couldnt... :(:(:(:( Very very disappointed!!!
Something needs to be seriously done with respect to my verbal accuracy in full length tests...
Should i start with the OG now? Thats the question i am asking myself...

Tough ka baaappp!!!

The date today is 1st May, 2 006 and the day - Monday... This being a day so very important for all the laborers, we, the laborers here in Infy were given OFF... So, i thought why not to make the most of this holiday by writing a test??

The last time i wrote a test was on last saturday. The test i wrote was a pen-paper test and so i was in a mood of giving a Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) this time... Came to office after changing 2 autos and 2 buses... Was half exhaused by then.... Booted the PC and was disappointed to see the mailbox deprived of any mail from my CHARGER... :)

Nways, i thought.... Life goes on and i started with Kaplan GMAT CAT - 1. After skipping the AWA section, i was into the quant section and was hardly realizing that i a hell of a toughy in front of me!! The questions in the quant section were a bit tough, and so i had to do them with a bit more precaution. This resulted into poor time management and i was left with 2 mins and 4 questions unanswered. Completed 2 questions somehow and left the other two unseen... This was indeed bad!!! This is the last thing i can think of happening with me on the D day!!

Verbal started with some easy CRs... I was getting a lot of confidence on my Critical Reasoning abilities... The SCs were again tough, as expected and the RCs were also horrifying... All in all, they were so very time consuming, that i had no option but to guess most of the RC answers so that i can complete the entire section... Though i completed the section with a min to spare, i knew the accuracy was going to be real bad!!

These Kaplan people have indeed desinged a very good software for test analysis.. Quickly i was able to see the questions on which i had spent most of my time, the questions in which i had changed my answers... Not to mention, it also showed me the questions i answered incorrectly... :) Things were fine till now... But a real shocker was experienced when i clicked on View My Score.. Quant: 42 Verbal:33 with an overall score of 620!!! My Gossshhhhhhhh!!!

I was determined to hit a 700 this time, when i entered the office premises today... But dint realise that Kaplan GMAT CATs are certainly not recommendable if you are searching for a score of 700... If you get a 700 here, you are bound to get 770+ in actual GMATs!!!

Read PG's post then where he describes streching your limits!!!

Its time for me too to strech my limits!!!