T-2 hours and counting...

Yup. Its the big day. I will be heading off to the test center as soon as I post this.

My prep has been good and I feel confident, yet a little nervous. I have been getting good and bad scores throughout my prep, but I can see that there is improvement in my understanding of concepts today than when I had started off.

This will be the first 'action' step toward achieving my goal of getting an MBA. All the thought and preparation that has gone in will be in action starting today. And I hope it takes off well. Like they say, well begun is half-done.

But I know that its only half-done. And I still will have a long way to go after today. Yet, a good score will be just the right way to start off.

So there you are. I don't think anyone is reading this blog, but I'll be back tonight to report on what happened. It's still worth it.

Ciao!

Swinging between extremes

That's right. I am swinging between extremes.

I took two tests today. One from Powerprep and another from Cambridge. I scored 720 and 630 respectively. Yes 100 plus point margin in a single day.

I have to admit that the Powerprep had some questions that I had previously answered. In effect my score would be sub-700(sigh). Add insult to injury by getting a 630.

I was reviewing the Cambridge test and I could have gotten atleast 10 more problems right by just reading the question aloud. I am terribly disappointed. I have no words. The cambridge was an easy 48 plus in quant, and I messed up big time.

I have not even looked at the verbal section.

Its really sad that I am not getting any encouraging scores in any of my prep tests. Maybe something is wrong with my prep. I just dont know.

Guess I'll take a break now and get back to my books later. Hope that things go well. I can't imagine getting a lousy score. A lot of things are hanging on that score. A lot of things.

Its a 660 in Cambridge

Yep. Another test.

Raw scores:

QA: 25/37
VA: 31/41

Scaled Scores:

QA: 46-48
VA: 38-39
Overall: 640 to 660

To be honest the test was tough. Still have to analyse in detail, but its clear that verbal let me down.

Here's where I failed:

PS: 7 wrong
DS: 5 wrong
RC: 5 wrong
CR: 6 wrong
SC: 4 wrong

The overall quant score looks ok, think I'll take that, but the verbal was truly disappointing. On RC screwed me. CR had logical reasoning questions, which I had not expected. Silver Lining - SC had only 4 wrong.

So there it is. Another day. Another test. It would have been so much better it I hit 700. I'll bet on next time :)

More tomorrow. So Long

Its a 720 in PowerPrep

Not too happy though.

The good news: Didnt mess up in RC

The bad news: PS and SC saw ridiculuous mistakes. Still analysing mistakes in CR.

Not too happy because the test had many questions that I had previously encountered during my prep. So, still a 720 means my real score is below 700. :(

Think I'll take another test tomorrow.

Tiiiiiiired

Gawd.

I just finished doing PS from OG and boy the session was revealing. For the last few days, I was obsessed with DS and had structured my time table around it. So today, after doing some more DS I decide to take a PS section test.

And I blew it.

Damn. There's another section that needs more attention. Just when I thought that things were falling in place. And only 20 more days to go.

Hell I can't stop time, so might as well make some use of it. I am going to make more time to devote to PS from now on.

What I have realized while prepping is that PS and SC are the only two sections that need some technical grounding in GMAT. You WILL need to know the basics of Arithmetic/Algebra/Geometry and you WILL need to know grammar to crack PS and SC. The other sections - DS, RC and CR are just offshoots of these two core sections.

You chances of working DS better increase with better understanding of basic concepts on which PS is founded. And with a good understanding of sentence construction and LOADS of concentration, you can crack RC and CR.

It's funny how these things strike so late into any game :) but no point cribbing I guess.

I am planning to take a full-length test tomorrow and until then I will be bouncing from PS to SC.

More tomorrow....Ciao!

Phew!

Its been a long day today. Me is taking a break.

I started off by working on some DS problems and then switched over to OG-RC which turned out to be a good exercise. My accuracy rates when I practice RC are pretty good. But each time I have taken a test, I have messed up. Much of it is due to a lack of concentration.

Strategy-wise I have come to realize that reading the passage thoroughly once, and absorbing it completely works for me. At peak concentration, I can get all questions right without looking back at the passage. So, I have decided to back myself and go with this strategy.

Leaving the prep aside, I spend some time on the web looking a different forums, scanning for useful information on schools and looking through blogs. I have pretty much zeroed in on the schools that I plan to send my GMAT scores after the test. Here goes:

1. Wharton
2. Chigaco-GSB
3. Fuqua
4. ISB
5. Stern

Wharton is really something of a 'reach' school. Much depends on the score too. But the ones that I am really keen on are GSB and Fuqua - both programs that I have come to reallylike. ISB, besides being a real good school, gives me the option of staying back home and Stern is just because of NY :)

I had to leave out Tuck and INSEAD after much thought, but I may still apply depending on my score. And yeah, I sure as hell will apply to HBS/Stanford if I get that super score(read 760+)

As days go by, and especially after my GMAT, I plan to spend more and more time on researching these schools and their programs. As with everyone else, the scholarships will matter most, closely followed by the school location.......all this if I get to the schools I apply to!

Until next time, ciao!

MyGMAT, Vacation et all

My much anticipated vacation time has finally begun! Yeay!


Its not going to be much of a vacation though. I have three weeks and think its the right amount of time to peak in my GMAT prep.


I started off the vacation in quite an unusual manner. I had completed a sectional test for each of the 5 GMAT sections and just so that I could look at my performances collectively, I put the scores together in a spreadsheet. One thing lead to another, and with my excelmania, I have now come up with my own way of analysing my perrformance and relate that to what I call a 'MyGMAT' score. It's not E=mc2, but hell it's fun. And having fun while preparing for a good fight is not just a ubiquitious truth, its actually cool(ever watched the movie '300'? The Spartans pile up bodies of Persian soldiers as they awaited another huge Persian battalion to show up for the battle. Not to mention, when the Persians did show up, they freaked out!)


Getting back to the arithmetic I was talking about, I found a way to relate all my sectional test scores so that I could scale them up to a mock GMAT score. Here's what I did and you could do too:


1. Choose a section(say Problem Solving) for which you have completed a test. Get the scores.


2. Order the score by Total Questions, Attempted Questions, Correctly Answered and Incorrectly Answered - each becomes a column in the spreadsheet


Eg: T=16, A=13, C=11, I=2


3. Add two more columns to the above. Call them Speed and Accuracy. Get values for them as below(both expressed in percentages)


Speed=Attempts/Total
Accuracy=Correct/Attempts


Eg: From the above scores, S = 13/16 = 81.25% and A=11/13=84.62%


4. Get the cumulative score which is (Speed+Accuracy)/2


Eg: Cumulative score for Problem Solving= (81.25+84.62)/2 = 82.93


5. Repeat the above for the other sections DS, RC, CR and SC


6. Once you have the Cumulative sectional scores, the next step is to get the 'Ability scores', which is quite simple as indicated below:


Quant Ability(QA) Score: (PS+DS)/2
Verbal Ability(VA) Score: (RC+CR+SC)/3


7. To arrive at your GMAT score average out the 'Ability scores' and scale it to 800 as shown below:


MyGMAT = 800*(QA+VA)/2


Once you have a spreadsheet ready with the columns and the formulae, you are ready to score yourself. And since Speed and Accuracy weigh equally on the final score, the MyGMAT will only reach towards the magical 800 score only if you manage to finish both sections with high accuracy.


So here were my individual sectional scores(from each of the 5 tests I have taken)

With my sectionals, it was evident that I sucked in DS and RC, but I was wondering how this would affect my overall score. That can be seen by the Cumulative scores.

DS pulled down my Quant ability score to 75% a and RC did the same to my Verbal score, bringing it down to 87%. And my overall score stood at 649.



The good thing about this is that one can scale up sectional test scores to a overall score without having to take a full length test. It's very useful to track progress on individual sections. You can plug in your latest DS score inplace of your old score and see how your prep has affected your overall score without having to take a complete test.

One can use this when one is running out of study material too. Do 20 problems from each section and plug in the values to see if you are on track.

So, there it is! my two cents to anyone who cares to read.

And I will keep up the Blogging Spirit(or BS, no pun intended ;) ), by regularly posting my scores.

So Long!!