Sunday, August 29, 2010

Princeton Review - CAT I - 620 (37Q, 39V)

I took the Princeton Review Practice CAT I today. Scored 620 (37Q, 39V). I was happy with the slight improvement in scores. Made a total of 8 mistakes on quant and 9 mistakes on verbal.


Quant Total: 37 Q - 29 correct, 8 wrong, 0 unanswered - 78%
One thing I'm happy to say is that I've eliminated the timing problem altogether. I finished on time and there was not a single question where I had to guess. So these mistakes are sure to be careless ones.

Verbal Total: 41 Q - 32 correct, 9 wrong, 0 unanswered - 78%
On verbal, I finished ahead of time as usual.

Got to get back to analysis now. I will take a short break of 2-3 hours and work on this. I'm sure that I can take my score to the 700+ level, provided I continue at the same pace of preparation.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Knewton Free Course!

I'm a big fan of Knewton and think that they have enthusiastic, lively, knowledgeable and entertaining instructors.

Knewton is giving away a free GMAT prep course in their Back-to-School Facebook Giveaway sweepstakes. If you are interested, visit http://knewt.ly/fbgiveaway. The contest ends September 10, 2010.

Here's a little more background on what winning their course would mean:
  •    Live and interactive web-based classes
  •    One-on-one attention from world-class GMAT instructors
  •    5 full-length CATs created by the architects of the actual GMAT
  •    Live office hours and 24/7 academic support from GMAT experts
  •    Hundreds of concept videos
  •    Flexible 1-year membership
  •    Guaranteed 50-point score increase

Change in Plans!

Adekku and other fellow bloggers and friends, thanks for enquiring about my disappearance :-). I'm not dead studying, though there have been changes in plans.

I've decided to apply in Round 2 and rescheduled my GMAT date to the second week of November. I was getting too stressed about the unfinished chapters in GMAT, work deadlines and dismal test performances that I figured that it is better to reschedule. I'm taking Knewton classes too and find that they're fun! My time these days is mostly spent on Grockit. I've completed the easier questions on PS and DS in all areas in Quant and I'm moving on to the moderate section. Grockit has Quant and Verbal challenges (10 questions in each) which give you the percentile ranking based on your recent performance, performance in the challenges and the performance of other GMAT students. Each challenge is unlocked when you solve 20 group questions. I find that the challenges are a pretty good indicator of my performance so far. Since my Veritas prep test, I haven't taken any other test in a couple of  weeks. Was out of town last week and back after a refreshing vacation time with family. I will get  to the Princeton review test this weekend.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Veritas Prep Free Test (580, 36Q, 33V)

In this test, I didn't have any issues with timing. Made a couple of guesses on quant, especially in probability and mixture problems. In both quant and verbal, I made 13 mistakes. In quant, I got a bunch of questions wrong, in a row. Noticed that a lot of questions were similar to OG, only they had been slightly re-worded. Will analyze the mistakes tomorrow. Off to bed now.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

GMAT Study Status

There seem to be a million things to be done.

  • Kaplan - Math Work Book - 4 Chapters 
  • Kaplan - Verbal Work Book - 4 Chapters
  • Kaplan Premier Program - 6 Chapters
  • Kaplan 800 - 13 Chapters
  • Manhattan Advanced Chapters - 22 Chapters
    1. Equations, Inequalities Guide 3 - Chapters 8 through 14 - 7 chapters
    2. Manhattan Word Translations Guide 4 - Chapters 9 through 13 - 5 chapters
    3. Manhattan Geometry Guide 5 - Chapters 6 through 9 - 4 chapters
    4. Manhattan Sentence Correction Guide 8 - Chapters 9 through 14 - 6 Chapters
  • OG - 12 - 10 Chapters
  • OG - Math Work Book - 7 Chapters
  • OG - Verbal Work Book - 7 Chapters
  • Powerscore CR Bible - 14 Chapters
  • Peterson ARCO - 14 Chapters
Total -  102 chapters

Friday, August 6, 2010

The easiest way to blog?

I love stuff that inspires. Sometimes, I find a quote that is so inspiring, funny or downright true, that I'm compelled to note it down. I've made a note of these in my mini blog. Check it out!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Progress in week 5

I haven't been keeping well and progress had slowed down last week. I couldn't muster enough energy to give a full length test, so decided to focus on error analysis instead.

Looking back at the consistent, dismal performance over the last three tests I've decided to spend more time on reviewing the basics. I've entered all the incorrect answer choices, answer choices that were correct but consumed too much time into an error log and am revising the error log. Back to the basics!