GMAT FAQs

Note: I had created this post as a document shortly after I took my GMAT last year in November. I thought it would be better read/shared if its here.

GMAT FAQs is conversation between Arun (AJ) and his alter-ego Psychodementia (PD)

PD: Firstly, tell us you claim to fame. Why would anyone want to read the crap you throw at us?

AJ: I agree that I am unlike a Twinsplitter who got a 790 but I feel that I am an average guy who struggled through college math and is a non-native speaker of English. I am, what Princeton Review, would call a “Joe Bloggs”. However, unlike Joe who would have got a 600 in this test, I ended up with a 700 (Q-49/V-38) in Nov 2005. I had taken this test 3 years ago - with far less prep (around 3 weeks with no OG ) and ended up with a 640 (Q-47/V-31). This clearly shows that with proper prep you can beat the system.


PD: We love numbers, so gives us some statistical pizzazz.

AJ:

Okay, Number of weeks of prep = 8 weeks
Number of weeks of “solid” prep = 4weeks
Number of hours of study = 180hours (appox)
Number of tests taken = 13 full-length GMAT-CATs
The Joy of reaching the 7-mark = Priceless !


PD: Quit kidding, you studied all those hours and just got a 700?

AJ: I have mentioned this before and shall repeat it again. I am just an average guy who performs below average on the test day. I had to raise the bar as much as possible for me to reach this. There could be people who will read for a few weeks and get a 770 and a few who slog for six months and end up with a 610. This brings me to my philosophy- everyone has a range within which he/she will perform. What needs to be seen through the preparation is how consistently you are able to reach the top end of the range. So on the day of the test you are able to reach the maximum of your potential.


PD: What is the “range” of a person? Can’t you increase this “range” by preparing more, studying harder and taking more tests; in short doing the Full Monty?

AJ: Here is the good news: You can easily increase your GMAT scores by a few hundred points from the time you start your prep. The bad news is there is no way you can improve it beyond a certain point. This is, to quote the Peterson’s principle, your GMAT point of incompetence. Let me explain:

(1) The golden rule of GMAT: I think anything that has to do with such kind of aptitude is calibrated on a scale. The scale itself is never wrong just that the calibrations at times a bit blurred. So though it safe to predict ranges it is never easy to predict exact scores. For that reason, I think every one taking GMAT should know their "range". The range of scores with the worst-day score as a lower boundary point and best-day score as the upper boundary point. I would like to think of my range as 670-750, which means on the worst day I could end up with score a 670 (anything below that I should shoot myself) and up to 80points more depending on which side of the bed I get up in the morning. Also this is a bell-shaped curve peaking at around the 710 mark. Which means that is my median score. I ended up pretty close to it. Pretty dangerously close, I might add. Having said that, I feel that one should realize this as soon as they start their prep. Possibly within the first few weeks. And once that is done, should hone to make this median their mode rather than mean. I know this is statistical hocuspocus which I am dishing out after my own GMAT. In simple words it means focus on getting a 710 in each test rather than pushing the upper boundary point of my score towards the 800 mark (and consequently in that effort, fall below the 700 mark). The reason being there is only so much one can do from a preparation point of view. So, consistency is the key. I desperately tried to cross the 700 mark each time. I succeeded in 10 out of the 13 efforts which is not too bad. I kept this going till the 22nd November. Its not the best prepared who wins the war, it is the guy who is tougher on that day.

(2) Prep v/s Scores: We are fed with this idea that "practise makes a man perfect" right from the time we are knee-high. And miraculously this is actually true. Most of the toppers we have known right through our childhood have been of the geeky varieties who have been sitting in secluded corners of their rooms mugging up all their waking hours. Our belief is just confirmed when that odd-ball genius comes up and licks the field clean. If a majority is like me, we convince ourselves that our genius does not lie in the cognitive field. So the only recourse is to work harder to see better results. Then once in a while in life we meet exams like the CAT and GMAT when this entire philosophy goes out of the window. I strongly believe that once the basics are in place, then no amount of prep can actually help your transcend a particular barrier. The sad fact is that a lot of us from say vernacular medium might never cross the 99th percentile in verbal or the 40 raw score in GMAT verbal. But then that is the truth. A quantitatively challenged guy like me has got 90.xx twice in CAT but can never equal a Phillip Jacob, a TDubey , Vikuboss or a Pendyal EVER. Give me a month, a year, a decade. I just cannot do it. That is the truth. So the first thing that I told myself getting into this prep is choose the best material available out there and stick with it


PD: Okay smart guy you talk too much. The readers now want you get to the dirty details. What is the “best material” out there?

AJ: Again this is a very subjective thing as my natural levels in quant and verbal might be more/less than what the other person might have. But according to me following is the best out there, and for a reason. Let me bucket in the various categories.

PROBLEM SOLVING:
Kaplan Higher Score CD CBT: Went through the basics from here. Did the 4/5 practice exercises (22 questions and about 25minutes). Helped develop a basic approach of plugging in values, back-solving, re-reading the question stem etc.

OG 10th / 11th Edition: I went through the 10th and don’t know if the 11th had things any different. I did questions from 1-100 and got 0 mistakes. Then started from 200-441. I ended up with around 15% mistakes in all. Many of which were silly errors. I had taken a printout of this OG Answer Sheet

I would then use different colors of highlighting for questions that I got wrong and questions I found tough. In the end, I reviewed only these questions. Rather the concepts underlying these questions.

Kaplan800. The best book for harder questions. To take an example from Xbox’s Halo, if others are “normal” this is “legendary” J My advice is to invest in this book for sure.

DATA SUFFICIENCY:

Kaplan Higher Score CD CBT: Went through the basics from here. Did the 3 practice exercises (22 questions and about 25minutes).

OG 10th/ 11th Edition: I would advice you to go through the last 100. And if required all the questions. I went through all. The concepts tested are the same as problem solving but the hitch here is that the answers might be tricky. Used same technique as mentioned in PS.

Kaplan800. Did it thoroughly.

SENTENCE CORRECTION:

Started off with the Kaplan Higher Score CD. After the basics, I was getting barely 12/13 rights out of 22/25 questions. Utterly frustrating because I was not able to keep a tab on ALL the damn rules in grammar that were being tested.

OG 10th/ 11th Edition: I cannot emphasize the importance of this book enough. I spent close to 22hours reviewing each question and the answers provided in the end. This is the best bet you have for SC in the actual GMAT. I would advice everyone to make notes, flashcards, whatever that helps them retain the information. And more importantly, revise all the 268 questions a week before the test. I felt I missed slightly by not doing this.

Manhattan SC Guide: Yes, the book that everyone talks about but few have seen J. This is indeed a valuable resource because it clearly elucidates concepts in GMAT-Land not found elsewhere. Also, it categorizes the OG questions into 8 clean buckets. I would study the concept and then tackle the questions involved. Again the printout-highlighter method mentioned above.
Internet Notes: Spidey’s and Saahil’s SC Notes. Actually Sumeet Thakur had collated all the notes in one place so had gone through that. But essentially it was a compilation of these and other stuff on the net.
Princeton Review: I used to go through it for fun. Like reading a comic book. Especially the verbal concept. It helps explain stuff in a fun manner. But this is for questions in the 30-range in verbal. Does not equip you for the 40+ range. But fun reading all the same.

Kaplan Verbal Workbook: Though I would have loved to proclaim that I have been through it completely, I profess I did not. Primarily because a lot of questions from the Kaplan Higher Score CD were repeated here. Just went through the concepts.

CRITICAL REASONING:

OG: I got a remarkable accuracy in the first 172 questions – almost 95%+. But from that point I made a huge number of mistakes. I don’t know if my mental makeup while taking it was poor or the questions were genuinely difficult. Still, remember 172. Again, important to go through it with the printout-highlighter method.

Kaplan Higher Score CD/Kaplan Verbal Workbook: Went through this during the initial week of my prep. It would hold you in good stead to go through the basics. I consider myself strong in CR so didn’t worry too much about the basics. But incase you do need to go through stuff, you won’t need to look beyond it.

Kaplan800. Anything I say here would be redundant.

READING COMPREHENSION:

OG: Don’t try this at home. I did about 5 passages in all. Quickly figured that there was little I could do with isolated practice. My CAT prep was enough.
Kaplan800. Went through 2-3 passages. That’s it.

Princeton Review: Niet.

Kaplan Higher Score CD/Verbal Workbook: Nix

PD: Whoa! Are you a Shakespeare-reborn? Do you read voraciously?

AJ: Far from it. I have completed only 10 books in my life. My entire life!! In fact each of them took me over a month to complete. There are only 2 books that I have read cover to cover – “The 10-minute manager” and “Who moved my cheese?” in one sitting.

This is exactly my point. Different strokes for different folks. What worked for me might not necessarily work for you. So remember to take my (or anyone’s) advice with a pinch of reality salt. My take on RC is that everyone knows the rule. I had high focus on easier passages. For the denser ones I relied on the process of elimination and regression (reverting to the passage to cross-check the answers). A majority of my practice was through the full-length tests that I took.


PD: Finally you blabbered less. Okay now tell us – what’s the deal with the tests?

AJ: I would like to underline the importance to test-taking. Realize that when you do a particular concept from say the Manhattan book and immediately solve a bunch of questions from OG your accuracy is inflated. In an actual test, you are at the fag end of your concentration while you are tackling the questions from 25-41 in the test. A hard SC over there will be infinitely more difficult than taking it in the cool confines of your house. Take as many practice tests as possible. I took just 13. But you can take as many as 20.

Both Powerprep and GMATprep give 2 full-length CATs. The scoring algorithm, the difficulty of questions and more importantly the adaptability of the test is as close to the real GMAT as possible. Coming from the same company (ETS) you cannot go wrong. I really don’t see this situation getting different with Pearsons Education taking over the GMAT administration. The swell thing about them is that you can uninstall and re-install the software to take the tests again. So in all you have around 8 tests here. Unfortunately the questions from OG get repeated here. Which means you should aim to get a lot more in these tests. Maybe you can take 1 AFTER you finish the Kaplan material and BEFORE starting the OG. But even if you finish OG the focus should be on getting all the OG questions right. My scores were:

Powerprep1: 640 (Before any prep and with less than 3hours of sleep the previous nightJ)
Powerprep2: 740 (after OG)
GMATprep1: 710 (Half OG done)
GMATprep1: 700 (OG revision remaining)
GMATprep1: 740 (OG revised)

I was not particularly happy with my performance as after each test I would review and find I had made a lot of silly mistakes. According to me, the key to maximizing ones performance will come only if one can eliminate the errors through oversight. The only errors should be due to lack of conceptual clarity OR improper approach in solving.

I have an old Kaplan CD, dating back to 2002. It is totally different than the ones Kaplan produced after 2004. Here even having a high number of mistakes yielded very high scores. I remember getting a 42 in verbal after making 15 mistakes. I took a total of 3 tests:

Kaplan Test 1: 710
Kaplan Test 2: 700
Kaplan Test 3: 760

Princeton Review really let me down. The tests had an irritating ID number coming up on each question. The higher the ID numbers the more difficult the question. Also, it gave progressively difficult questions till you finally made a mistake. Also, according to PR the only way to nail a test-taker is by giving questions which are ambiguous, un-ETS-like and calculation intensive. Also, the scoring algorithm was weird to say the least. I took all the 4 tests:

Princeton Review 1: 650 (My first sub-700 score, this was during the initial days. Maybe around the 2nd week of prep)
Princeton Review 2: 640 (It was thoroughly frustrating. The lowest I ever scored after starting my prep.)
Princeton Review 3: 690 (This was a farce. I had prepped hard to cross the 700-mark. 4 mistakes in Quant gave me a raw score of 44 :( )
Princeton Review 4: 730 (Took it in the last 10 days. I had no hopes of crossing 700. Surprise)

I also took a one-off test from Cambridge Review. I though the test was extremely good. It very closely simulates the actual test. I ended up with a range (not a score) of 710-750.


PD: 13 tests and an average of about 703. Wow you are a real joker -- that’s real close to the actual scores. What were your key take-aways from the test?

AJ: Save one of them, I took all the tests without attempting the AWA section. On hindsight, though I saved precious time I was not able to stress myself as much as I should have. But I took it pretty much with as much sincerity as the actual test - taking it without breaks. Except the odd phone calls which have messed up some of my scores. But it has been compensated by the fact that I was in a comfortable environment at home. But I think I pretty much built up some stamina to take two consecutive sections of 37 and 41 questions. I also built an ability to estimate the pace at which I should answer the questions (which eventually I screwed up on the day of the test). No amount of practice can compensate for taking tests.

Secondly, there is another aspect to it. I used to analyze pretty thoroughly. I used to build up patterns of my mistakes and try categorizing it into different buckets. I also used to kick myself in the butt for getting a question wrong if it were a silly mistake. I remember being extremely harsh on myself even on getting a 760 because there were questions which I could have definitely avoided. This is a sense of aggressiveness you should have while taking the test. You should not be complacent or get unduly scared on seeing the 3-digit number. What matters at the end of the day is what you have learned from it and how effectively you can utilize that information. The more mistakes you make, remember, the wiser you get.


PD: Given you knew you had a range [680-750]; did you set any standards of dunce for yourself before each test? Did you meet them?

AJ: My only challenge for each test was, as I have mentioned above, to get atleast a 700. But my more important challenges, which came through in the last week or so were:

(A) No silly mistakes in Quant. Which means re-read the question stem and backsolve once to confirm the answer choice.

(B) If you know the right answer in Verbal, you should also be confident why the rest of the 4 is wrong.

As long as I was not making these mistakes I was happy. I obviously didn’t meet the target each time but I progressively improved. Towards the end I was making fewer mistakes then when I started off. The whole process is a culmination of what you have learned over a period of time. It just cannot be improved unless you identify mistakes, rectify them and ensure you don’t repeat it in future.


PD: Okay you have spoken enough. Now give us a short and sweet preparation plan. We don’t have time to waste on figuring through the large volumes of crap you just threw.

AJ: Unfortunately, GMAT is a lot to do with perseverance and dedication. There are times when the days might seem long but you need to be consistent in your prep. Put in at least 2 hours everyday, come rain, hail or high waters (or whatever the original phrase was). This is absolutely essential. I don’t think GMAT is cracked by someone who slogs for 12hours a day for a week. Rather a guy who puts in a couple of hours everyday for a month.

Though there is no cookie-cutter solutions for anything in life, I would propose the following 2-month plan for someone who gets around the 600-mark in the GMAT diagnostic.

Take GMAT Powerprep – as a diagnostic test. Give yourself a feel of GMAT, type of questions, importance of mental stamina, how it gets adaptive – essentially a kind of SWOT analysis.

Week 1: Do basics of Maths/Verbal from the Kaplan prep material. I used the software, you may use the book.

Week 2: Same as above. Take any test to gauge your performance.

Week 3: Buffer

Week 4/5/6/7/8: Basics over. Now do OG and Kaplan800 in each of the areas.

There would be a total of 1500 questions you might end up doing (considering you don’t do around 300 easy questions in OG). Intersperse your prep with visits to various sites http://www.gmatclub.com/, http://www.sentencecorrection.com/, http://www.pagalguy.com/ and various other sites like http://www.beatthegmat.com/, links from http://daveformba.blogspot.com/ and yes of course http://www.google.com/
Also, take at least 3-4 full-length tests during this period. It’s crucial to keep your eye on the larger goal. Not to miss the forest for the trees.

Week9/10/11: Revise OG. Take at least 3-4 more tests.

Week12: Analyze and focus on areas you are making the maximum errors. Chill and prepare yourself mentally. Read GMAT 700 stories

Obviously many have studied for 2 weeks using OG and cracked a 750. But this is under the presumption the test-taker is someone like me.

PD: We are getting to the end of this. Most of the folks have long stopped reading this. In case no one has told you yet, let me break the news: You are extremely boring. Let’s keep this short and simple. Walk us through each key section and tell us what your focus areas were.

AJ: Okay. Let me try putting down the key aspect of each section according to me. The intention is not to give a huge set of links or to replicate the information you can find in any book.

Problem Solving: I am good at algebra and arithmetic. I analyzed my tests and figured that I sucked big time at Permutation-Combination, Probability, Set Theory, Progressions, Geometry and Inequalities using modulus. Key is to know all the concepts and practice like hell. The actual test you should be able to get all the easy and medium level questions correct. The problem was with the tougher questions. This is where miscellaneous resources on the Internet helped me:
GMAT Club’s notes on P&C. Simply the best!!! Within 1hour of reading this I was more confident then ever before.
Bell-curve’s P&C/SetTheory/Probability: This is an amazing resource. Though not all of it is free. I have no clue how good the paid part is. But the trailer surely makes it look like a great deal.
There were some miscellaneous documents that I downloaded from the internet. I will put it up here soon

I also used some old CAT material to brush up concepts. But would not be more than a couple of hours efforts. Realize that CAT and GMAT are 2 different ball games.

Data Sufficiency: There is a link on testmagic (http://www.urch.com/) which contains links to a thread where a guy has posted some really tough DS problems. Those were real good. Apart from that nothing else.

Critical Reasoning: At some point I realized the importance of knowing how to work out the assumption. For example, say you are told that Einstein was a genius because he scored a 150 on the Stanford-Binet scale. The only way to break this argument is to attack the assumption. The assumption here is NOT if Einstein scored that much or if he was a genius or not. The assumption is that anyone scoring above a particular score in that scale is a genius. Even for questions on other areas I used to find the underlying assumption and this greatly helped me. The moment you know the assumption you can strengthen/weaken almost anything. Second point is to remember that most of the answers choices would be “out of scope”. The moment there is some talk about something the passage does not mention; chuck it out of the window. Kaplan800 is invaluable.

Reading Comprehension: Three things to remember (a) Regress to find the actual answers EVEN if you know it (b) Use POE for extremely dense passages (c) Immediately eliminate answer choices which look harsh.

Sentence Correction: OG till you die :P


PD: One last question and be quick answering this: How did you manage to type out this whole stuff?

AJ: The key is that my thinking and typing are totally in sync J. Hence, I have typed this document in less than 2 hours. All the best !!