How I scored 750 on GMAT (Q-48; V-46)

[abhasj386]

I wrote the GMAT yesterday and scored 750 with the following Split Q-48 ; V-46 .

How long I studied?
I studied about 4 weeks exclusive for GMAT. But right before this I studied for the GRE for about 1.5 months. So if you include this then total of 2.5 months.

What Material I used?
1. OG 13: Do I really have to talk about its importance
2. Manhattan SC: Since SC is unique to GMAT, I gave a thorough read to MGMAT’s SC guide. Manhattan’s SC guide is indispensable.
I think Manhattan is gold standard in the industry and your preparation is incomplete without its study guides. Having said that, I did not do many practice questions. I have a general dislike for any practice questions that are not from official sources.
3. CR Bible from power score .

I also use these forums apart from manhattan forum

(a) http://www.beatthegmat.com/
(b) http://gmatclub.com/

Towards the end of my preparation after i wrote my Gprep Twice i practiced around 80 GMAT sample questions from this website

http://gmatsamplequestions.net/

or

http://gmatsamplequestions.net/gmat-sample-questions/

These questions were from Gprep and a lot of them i have not encountered when i wrote my Gprep . This helped me a lot beacuse quite a few questions in my exam were close representation of what i saw on the above mentioned website . This saved my time and well as boosted my confidence .

Section Specific Tips:

RC: I never take notes for RC. I think it is a waste of time. What I do instead is – read the first paragraph and first couple of lines of each paragraph really carefully, sometimes even read multiple times. Once I’m finished reading I go back to passages only for specific details questions that too only to cross check my answer. I think this strategy saved a lot of time.

CR : When ever you encounter assumption questions . Go a bit slow . Look for all the traps . More often than not the difficulty level on assumption question is on the higher side . Bold face are not the only types that you need to worry about .

SC: Read as many explanation from Ron on GPrep questions as you can and try to understand how he solves even the most difficult ones with ease . The other tutor whose explanation i am very found of is Mitch Hunt (he posts frequently on beat the GMAT)

Test Day Experience :

I treated Analytical writing section and IR section as warm up thing before the battle began . The purpose was to get a score in these section that does not raise eyebrow of adcom. Don't exhaust your self by solving all the questions .

Quant : began with a easy question on trinagles and around question number 8 i was stumped .... a DS question where some graph was given and area need to be calulated .... I had no idea on how to proceed .... i left it after thinking for may be 90 seconds .... thereafter the test was never so easy for me I completed the section with a minute to spare

Verabal section : Began with SC and after few of them few CR questions, from question number 7-10 an easy RC ... and level of diffuculty increased from this point onwards so much so that when second RC paragraph came .. to my surprise it was a 5 paragraph RC passage and add to all this a super difficult one to comprehend

I looked at the clock and sensed that should i complete this passage then i will never be able to complete my test on time .... after solving two questions with confidence i sacrificed 3 questions that followed and even after that i was a minute behind my original benchmark in terms of timing . This whole part of sacrificing questions (only and only when I was short on time ) was a home prepared strategy should i fall short of time ..... I was able to complete the section with 20 seconds to spare . My intution said may be I would score 35- 38 range in the verbal section but when the results came i was surprised and I was elated to see such a high score in the verbal section.

My suggestion to Future test takers- think how would you react should you fall short of time ? would you sacrifice few tough ones or may be when falling short of time in verbal questions would you pick a option as soon as every thing looks good about it rather than eliminating all four wrong ones ? This strategy only to be adopted when falling short of time .... If you have worked on this aspect while you write your practice tests then you will definitely have a upper hand .

I would like to thank you all for taking out time to read such a long debreif and I wish you all a the best in your future endeavours .

[EricaS221]

Hello,

Thank you for the wonderful debrief, reading it alone has given me a huge boost of confidence. I must say your preparation is similar to mine but would like to make some comments.

1) I am finding it extremely difficult to understand the powerscore CR bible, I started with Veritas Prep and the Manhattan Guide but the bible messed up my thinking. I heard it is the best material out there so what do you advice?
2) Assumption questions is my most dreaded set of questions and I don’t think it is advisable to negate all the choices, so would like to know your preferred method of tackling them.
3) Finally I agree with your questions from official sources only, I noticed that some other preparation questions are dodgy especially the ones in the various forums. Do you think 10 weeks is enough to get 700+ in GMAT?

Thank you for the kind response.

Regards