GMAT 740 (M 50, V 40)

[ayushrastogi82]

It's over with 740, making me go ga-ga. I always used to visit this section and always dreamt of typing in one day. Finally, the day has come...yipppieee :)

This was my thrid attempt. 2 years back I wrote GMAT for the first time. I took coaching which I later realized taught me just a tip of this iceberg. I prepared for 3 months then and scored 660. Pretty bad and demotivating for me. But soon I realised that i wasn't prepared enough. I wasn't able to study for an year and earlier this year I decided to prepare again, but unfortunately just 10 days before my exam date, typhoid hit me. I wasn't able to study for those 10 days and wrote paper in high fever. Ended up with 640. I was broken but I decided to give my last shot. I again studied for 3.5 months and here I'm with 740 (M50, V40). I'm flying high right now, so so excited :)



Preperation for maths: Being a computer engineer, I was always been pretty comfortable with Maths. I didn't do much of preperation as well.

I studied:
1. OG 10/11/12 (though i realise that OG alone is not at all suffice to score high in maths)
2. GMATPrep questions posted at manhattan forum
3. A collection of 175 questions from manhattan forum - awesome collection

Off late, I've been hearing and reading that Maths level has gone tough and a few questions are reaching manhattan level, but frankly speaking I didn't find so. I would say it is gone a bit tough but it is still more or less gmatPrep level. Just be careful about DS traps as I saw a lot of DS questions back to back.

Preperation for Verbal: This was the real nightmare and thus I concentrated on this section like anything.

CR:
1. CR Bible - Understanding each and every concept is not enough. Try to implement it while making questions. This is the major difference in my prep this time.
2. Practice LSAT questions - They are tough, brutal but help amazingly to make you think critically. Atleast they helped me. I did around 500 LSAT questions.
3. Maintained log of each question in an excel file explaning what I was thinking while making this question and what i was suppose to think to make a question correct.
4. OG 10/11/12 - Start with OG and end with OG. I completed OG questions except the last 40 questions, which are relatively tougher than earlier questions. Then I practised LSAT question regularly for 3 months every alternate day, and then towards the end I practised those 40 OG questions. Compare the accuracy against that of the earlier OG questions.
5. Forums (Manhattan and testmagic) - After saturating everything.
6. Keep tracking logs and the highlighted points in them.

My accuracy reached almost 90-95% in CR.

RC (My weakest area):
RC Bible - This is a nice book, but what matters in RC is practice, practice and practice

My accuracy reached almost 80% in RC.

SC (My strongest area):
1. Manhattan 3rd edition: Revise it as many times as you can. I revised it atleast 10 times and everytime i learned something new.
2. OG: I practiced it 2-3 times. But what helped me more is to familiarize myself with correct and incorrect style used my GMAT. For this I just read all the OG questions several times. Just reading no practising.
3. Manhattan GmatPrep Forum: Must do. Here i would like take an opportunity to thanks Manhattan tutors (esp. Ron) for their crisp and clear explanations. My accuracy reached almost 95-100% in SC and i owe this to manhattan tutors.
4. Testmagic forum
5. Adhamjons SC notes
6. PSahil notes
7. Erin's notes
8. I prepared a log of all the questions which I found different or tough from various sources, and revised them many times. This really helped.

To sumup, I observed that two things are very important for CR and SC :
1. Rules
2. Pattern recognition (this is more important).

Tests:
Manhattan test 1: 670
Manhattan test 2: 680
Manhattan test 3: 710
Manhattan test 4: 770
GMAT prep 1: 770 (a few repeated questions)
GMAT prep 2: 760 (a few repeated questions)
Manhattan test 5: 770
Manhattan test 6: 740

By manhattan test 6, I was confident enought to slay the beast ;)

Last but not the least, I would like to thanks two important persons without whom I would not have achived this. My bro Divyang, who supported me at every moment and my friend Abhas Jha, who guided me at every moment and much more :)

I'm already running late with my applications. I've 5+ years of experience and have an average curricular activities in my profile.
Do you think I can make it to London Business School (my dream school)?

I'll be more than happy to reply any questions. Never loose hope. Keep fighting :)

[abhasjha]

Congrats Ayush ! Success tastes sweetest to them who have encountered failure and made amendments to acheive the desired result . I am elated to hear this good news.

I can clearly remember my first conversation with you when i said that scoring 40 in verbal section of the GMAT is easy and your reply was you are finding it diifcult to score even in 30 's at that point in time. I am pretty sure that now you would agree that GMAT is very predictable exam and any one who studies the right book and has an average intelligence will at least cross the 700 barrier !

Yes I am sure you can make it Into LBS . Like GMAT , The B- schools are too predictable in what kind of students they would admit into their class (Yes do not beleive ad com guys !) . We will talk in details over phone on this .

Right now is the time to enjoy and clebrate the feat that you have achevied ! I wish you all the best in your future endeavours !

[rahul9395]

Congratulations for your score..
Can you please post your scaled scores of your mock test...

[ayushrastogi82]

Congratulations for your score..
Can you please post your scaled scores of your mock test...

Thanks rahul9395.

Manhattan test 1: 670 (M 46, V 36)
Manhattan test 2: 680 (M 46, V 36)
Manhattan test 3: 710 (M 47, V 40)
Manhattan test 4: 770 (M 51, V 44)
GMAT prep 1: 770 (a few repeated questions) (M 51, V 46)
GMAT prep 2: 760 (a few repeated questions) (M 51, V 44)
Manhattan test 5: 770 (M 51, V 44)
Manhattan test 6: 740 (M 51, V 40)

[jigar24]

Hi, firstly Congratulations!!

Does taking 3 attempts on GMAT reflect poorly on one's application in any way?? Especially since you are targeting top schools like LSB?

Drop in a line.

Jigar

[ayushrastogi82]

Hi, firstly Congratulations!!

Does taking 3 attempts on GMAT reflect poorly on one's application in any way?? Especially since you are targeting top schools like LSB?

Drop in a line.

Jigar

Thanks!!
As per my admission counsel, def its not as good as first attempt but since the jump is from 660 to 740, which is a huge gap, the negative aspect of it would be cover up.

[itzdeepika]

Hi,
Congratulations for your achievement. I want to know where is the collection of 175 questions in the manhattan forum?
Also where is the Psahil's notes and Erin's notes?

Please let me know.

Regards,
Deepika

[GauravS745]

A collection of 175 questions from manhattan forum - awesome collection

Can someone point me to these 175 questions..
:)