A deal at Knewton!

Hey everyone! I got this information from a blogger friend Shilpa. Thanks, Shilpa! 

If you're looking for more quality GMAT practice, Knewton has a great offer. This offer is for Indian Residents only and Indian students can get a three month access to Knewton for just $300. As you may have known, their online classroom with one year access is $690. Here's the link to this offer.

Manhattan GMAT - Free Test (600, 39Q, 34V)

I took my Manhattan GMAT practice test yesterday and here's my score. There's no improvement over last week and something seems to be seriously wrong. Any suggestions to improve my score?

Verbal Total: 41 Q - 22 correct, 19 wrong, 0 unanswered - 53%

I made so many mistakes in RC, and in CR, even in the 600-700 range. RC was my worst performance. I scored only 33% in RC, 57% in CR and 67% in SC.

Quant Total: 37 Q - 18 correct, 19 wrong, 0 unanswered - 48%

 In  Quant, I performed the worst on Number Properties. I scored only 17% in Number Properties, 40% in Word Translations, 50% in Fractions, Decimals and Percentages, 60% in Geometry and 75% in Algebra.

Progress in week 6

Well, well, well. I'm still buried under Kaplan 800. Great book. I'm hoping to complete it this weekend. Also, I'll be giving the Knewton and Manhattan free tests this week, so stay tuned!

Some disturbing statistics

A week ago, Adekku sent me this link on Evaluating Practice Tests. Thanks Adekku!
I found some disturbing statistics from my last test.

1. Correct plus timing within the expected timeframe (otherwise known as strengths) - 16 Qns
2. Wrong plus timing in the expected timeframe (possible weaknesses) - 0 Qns
3. Wrong plus timing way too fast (an average more than 30 seconds faster than it should be) - 3 Qns
4. Correct plus timing way too slow (an average more than 30 seconds slower than it should be) - 7 Qns
5. Wrong plus timing way too slow (an average more than 30 seconds slower than it should be) - 6 Qns
6. Unanswered questions

My analysis is as follows:

• Category 1 - On 16 Qns, I spent a total of 21 minutes - 28% of my time on 43% Qns
• Category 2 - no questions that fall in this category
• Category 3 - On 3 Qns, I spent a total of 3 minutes 40 secs - About 5% of my time on 8% Qns
• Category 4 - On 7 Qns, I spent a total of 27 minutes 10 secs - About 36% of my time on 19% Qns
• Category 5 - On 6 Qns, I spent a total of  23 minutes 27 secs - About 30% of my time on 16% Qns
• Category 6 - 4 Questions unattempted - 10% unattempted.

Princeton Review - Free Test (600, 36Q, 37V)

I took the Princeton Review free practice test today. Scored only 600 (36Q, 37V). I completed verbal 30 minutes ahead of time. Speed doesn't pay, does it? Unfortunately, I made 7 mistakes on verbal. Didn't help that I was taking the test at 1:00 am in the morning. Here's the break-up for verbal:

Verbal Total: 41 Q - 34 correct, 7 wrong, 0 unanswered - 83%

As for Quant, I ran out of time, as usual. This time, by 4 questions. I also made a couple of guesses on questions that I had no clue about.

Quant Total: 37 Q - 23 correct, 10 wrong, 4 unanswered - 64%

 If you're wondering how I completed the verbal section 30 minutes ahead of time, I've been practicing like mad on Grockit Verbal games. I've decided to put in that effort towards Quant. Though I'm disappointed with 600, it sure looks like an improvement over last week's 590.

Progress in week 7

Completed the Kaplan Premier Program, except for the test. I've also taken a standard membership for Grockit, which is fun! Well spent eighty dollars!

I have to start with Kaplan 800 from tomorrow. I've also put all the topics and the number of questions Grockit has in an excel sheet and plan to systematically work out on every area. Those who are interested, can download from this link

Break-up of Grockit Topics

Grouped the questions by topics and divided them into:
Easy, Easy Completed, Mistake Level
Moderate, Moderate Completed, Mistake Level
Difficult, Difficult Completed, Mistake Level.
Total, Total Completed, Mistake Level, Percentage and Total Remaining

Who has time for this?

Dear readers and fellow bloggers who are bored to death by reading mundane details of my GMAT preparation, read on for entertainment...

Phone Call From the Census

Relax, people, it's Friday!

Hooked on Grockit !

I'm kicking myself for not having visited this site earlier. It has really improved my timing problem with questions and I'm truly motivated when I'm working with others. Currently, I'm slow at Quant, but I have no doubt that I will improve in a week or two. I find that people are helpful in explaining something I didn't get. Also, you get points awarded for the right answer or points deducted for the wrong answer. You also get points for helping others out. 

It's exactly the kind of study environment needed for people like me (who are unable to stay in one place and study without getting distracted). While using Grockit, you have no other go except to concentrate, or you get the answer wrong and lose points.

I think it has something to do with the name. The name Grockit never really appealed to me. To quote from pbs.org that explains what the name is about in a cute way,

First, let’s talk about that name of theirs. For those of you who are assuming that they chose the name simply because domain names are becoming scarce, fret not. Grockit is a play on the hacker word “grok,” a verb coined by sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein in 1961 that means “to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed.” The word has become so commonplace in Internet slang that the Oxford English Dictionary even has an entry for it, defining it as “to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.” In other words, when you say “I grok it,” it’s like saying you really, really get it - that you’ve learned a concept in a way that you’ve completely absorbed and made an instinctive part of your core knowledge.

I'm in awe of the founder Farbood Nivi and immensely grateful to him for creating such a novel and unique site, which I'm sure will help thousands of students get into their dream schools. You rock!

Grockit

People, check out http://grockit.com/gmat. A live test enviroment with study groups.

1000 SC, CR and RC - Mistake Level

I've completed 300 questions from the 1000 series so far, and here is my mistake level for SC, CR and RC. I'm going to do further exercises from OG-10, as I'm not finding sufficient explanations for the mistakes I've made on the 1000 series.

1000 SC - 5M, CR - 5M, RC - 8M - Set 1 
1000 SC - 4M, CR - 6M, RC - 2M - Set 2
1000 SC - 9M, CR - 7M, RC - 3M - Set 3
1000 SC - 6M, CR - 5M, RC - 1M- Set 4
1000 SC - 5M, CR - 7M, RC - 2M- Set 5
1000 SC - 7M, CR - 7M, RC - 1M- Set 6

Mistake Level
SC - 36 mistakes which translates to 64%
CR -  37 mistakes which translates to 63%
RC -  17 mistakes which translates to 83%

Plan for the coming 7 weeks

Week 1 - Kaplan Premier Program (Maths) + Manhattan GMAT Advanced
Week 2 - Kaplan 800 + Peterson's ARCO
Week 3 - Kapan Verbal Work Book + Kaplan Math Work Book
Week 4 - OG - 12 - Revision
Week 5 - OG Quant Review + OG Verbal Review - Revision
Week 6 - Princeton Review + 4GMAT - Revision
Week 7 - Error Logs + Manhattan GMAT Review + OG Review

I would be taking 3 practice tests every week.

Week 1 - Princeton Review + Kaplan + Manhattan GMAT Free Tests
Week 2 - Princeton Review Test 1 + Kaplan Test 1 + Manhattan GMAT Test 1
Week 3 - Princeton Review Test 2 + Kaplan Test 2 + Manhattan GMAT Test 2
Week 4 - PowerPrep Test 1 + Kaplan Test 3 + Manhattan GMAT Test 3
Week 5 - PowerPrep Test 2 + Kaplan Test 4 + Manhattan GMAT Test 4
Week 6 - GMAT Prep Test 2 + Kaplan Test 5 + Manhattan GMAT Test 5
Week 7 - Knewton Free Test + Kaplan Test 6 + Manhattan GMAT Test 6

Total Tests - 21

Progress in week 8

I had this plan last week.
1. 3 chapters in the Sentence Correction Guide.
2. 3 chapters in the Word Translations Guide.
3. 3 chapters in the Equations, Inequalities Guide.
4. 8 chapters in the Critical Reasoning Guide.
5. 7 chapters in the Geometry Guide.
Total - 24 chapters

This is what I actually completed.
1. 3 chapters in the SC Guide.
2. 1 chapter in the Word Translations Guide.
3. 1 chapter in the Equations, Inequalities Guide.
4. 5 chapters in the Geometry Guide.
Total - 10 chapters

My plan for this week: Complete all the pending chapters in the Manhattan Guides and the Maths portion of Kaplan Premier Program.

GMAT Prep - I (590, 39Q, 33V)

After a lot of hesitation and endless preparation, I took my first GMAT Prep today. As promised, here's my score. 

GMAT Prep I (590, 39Q, 33V)

When I started with the Analysis of Argument, I had no idea what the argument was about. It sounded as vague as ever, and only after the passing of a good 15 minutes, did it all begin to make sense. Anyway, I did both the analysis of argument and analysis of issue and moved on to quant.

I made a total of 11 mistakes on quant out of 30. I didn't complete the quant section. My timing was poor and I ran out of time at the 30th question. So that makes 7 questions unattempted plus 11 questions incorrect. 18 mistakes in all.

Quant Total : 37 Q - 19 correct, 11 wrong, 7 unanswered - 51%

Then I went on verbal. Verbal always has this relaxing effect on me (regardless of my score). However, I seemed to have made 15 mistakes in the verbal section. The distribution of mistakes was 5 in SC, 4 in CR and 6 in RC.

Verbal Total: 41 Q - 26 correct, 15 wrong, 0 unanswered - 63%

On looking back, I've made ALL of my mistakes on data sufficiency. Need improvement there. And timing is another thing. On sentence correction, I made a lot of silly mistakes. RC and CR, I genuinely need work on those. On the whole, I'm ok with this score for a start. Atleast, I know where I stand and what needs to be done.

Comments, advice and suggestions are welcome.

1000 SC, CR, RC - Set 6

SC - Score - 13/20 - Mistakes - 82, 83, 85, 90, 95, 99, 100 - 65%  
CR - Test I - Score - 13/20 - Mistakes -  83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 98 - 65%
RC - P11 - Score - 6/7 - Mistakes - 1 - 85%

Total Completed: 300 - SC - 100, CR - 100, RC -100
Total Remaining: 2700

1000 SC, CR, RC - Set 5

I started doing this in sets of 20 each for SC, CR and RC.

SC - Score - 15/20 - Mistakes - 78, 74, 72, 68, 63 - 75%  
CR - Test D - Score - 13/20 - Mistakes - 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18 - 65%
RC - P9 - Score - 8/9 - Mistakes - 1 P10 - Score - 8/9 - 88%

Total Completed: 253 - SC - 80, CR - 80, RC - 93
Total Remaining: 2747

Progress over the weekend

Worked on MGMAT SC guide. Completed up to 7 chapters in this guide and 3  chapters from the Word Translations Guide. This is what I'm planning to do this week before taking the practice test the coming weekend.

1. Need to do 3 more chapters in the Sentence Correction guide.
2. Need to complete 3 more chapters in the Word Translations Guide.
3. Need to complete 3 more chapters in the Equations, Inequalities Guide.
4. Need to complete 8 chapters in the Critical Reasoning Guide.
5. Need to complete 7 chapters in the Geometry Guide.

Total - 24 chapters

1000 SC, CR, RC - Set 4

SC - Score - 9/15 - Mistakes - 46, 54, 55, 56, 58, 60 - 60%  
CR - Test C - Score 10/15 - Mistakes - 18, 16, 14, 12, 9 - 66%  
RC - P7 - Score 6/7 - Mistakes - 4 P8 - 9/9 - No Mistakes!!! - 93%

Total Completed: 186 - SC - 60, CR - 60, RC - 66
Total Remaining: 2814