Of Diagnositcs, Parties, and Plans

OG12 Diagnostic Quiz - Quantitative section: DONE.
Since I took the test untimed, it took too much time. Was exhausting. Also had to take a break between PS and DS to finish off some work that came up during that time. So on Saturday, by the time it was 4:30 in the evening, I was exhausted, mentally as well as physically. Before the test, I had managed to go through all my FCs to recall all the concepts I had learnt till then. During the test, I kept Google and my FCs handy, since I did not want to mess up a question cos I forgot a formula. The purpose of the test was just that - to gauge my level of preparedness in terms of my ability to solve a question.

Although the test went well (will put up details on my score and error log as well as CPs later), it was very tiring. Took the rest of the day off from studies - partied at night :-) and stayed over at my cousin's. Didn't look at my books on Sunday and Monday as well.

Have stayed awake post 2 on Saturday, Sunday and Monday night. This has screwed up my sleep schedule just a teeny tiny bit. Will wake up at 5 am tomorrow onwards again. Have a plan ready for the next two weeks. Aim is to give the Verbal section of OG12's diagnostic this Saturday. Not much to prepare for that really. Will start with MGMAT SC guide post that test.

28th August - first Practice test of the season (since the 2 I gave end of last year pretty much don't count now, I guess...). Should it be Princeton Review's CAT #2? Shall be followed by more partying. :-)

Oooh! Also! I'm going to get "The Power" - the new book by Rhonda Byrne. It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?!

Oh, and I guess you'd want this update too. Finally got to read Artemis Fowl's latest book. Was good fun. although I think I might have outgrown it a bit.

My First Post

Yes yes, my post title is a cliche. So is my blog name, blog description, and this list will eventually include a whole host of cliche posts with cliche contents, so much so that even the comments other people start leaving on the same posts will be cliche!
I think I should change the name of this post to "Cliche", just so that the cliche content of this post is reduced by atleast a small amount.
See, THIS is why blogging about my GMAT prep is a bad idea. I love to write! And, unfortunately for you first-post readers, I haven't written any non-financial-update-report matter in many months!
Getting back to the point, I think it's pointless to tell you why I made this blog. Everyone knows the answer to that.

What I would like to tell you is this:

1. I gave my CAT (Common Admission Test) last year, and got an 80 percentile, with a 94 percentile in the Verbal section *jumps with joy*, and obviously horrendous percentiles in Math & DI (Data Interpretation). I had joined T.I.M.E. coaching classes, but was irregular in attending the same. When I finally got serious in August 2008, I did put in a whole month's worth of serious prep time. But, I eventually realised I wanted to score well on my college exams in October instead, so I said goodbye to CAT 2008 then.

2. Because of #1, I expected myself to be better at GMAT Verbal than Math (I sucked at CAT Math). Although I have till date not solved a single official GMAT question (read: from the Official Guide for GMAT Review), I did realise that my speed at solving Verbal questions (specially RC) is kind of...slow, to put it mildly.

3. I know #2 because I have read the theory/review sections from Princeton Review's (PR) "Cracking the GMAT with DVD" 2010 edition.

• I found their RC (Reading Comprehension) strategy pretty helpful (it helped me increase my speed with RC...but only to an extent). But, I read on a blog today that Kaplan's RC strategy should be incorporated into PR's to get the best way of doing RC. I shall look into this later. Please remind me!
• I still haven't gone through all of CR (Critical Reasoning) because it got kind of borrr*yawn*iiinnnng.
• SC (Sentence Correction) seemed mostly pretty basic (that's 2 adjectives in a row...is that correct?). I hope this will be my strength, because I believe my grammar is pretty good (loved Wren & Martin as a kid!). I think I'll have to read up on the rules for grammar & an idioms list for this.
• I gave a warm-up test from PR where the Math questions I got wrong were mostly Data Sufficiency (DS) questions. I found that my problem was skipping to Statement (II) before reading (I) properly, and my eagerness to mark (C) as the correct option. Pretty basic, careless mistakes...
• The Math review from PR seemed pretty unsatisfactory to me. So I went on an internet-surfing-hunt to find the 'perfect' Math review. I found a couple of helpful links/notes...I shall upload them here soon, or provide links to them.

4. My target GMAT score is 800.

5. I believe in The Secret (Rhonda Byrnes book).

6. I want to get into ISB Hyderabad to start my MBA in April 2011.

7. I want to give GMAT only ONCE because it costs Rs.10,000! And also to stop waking up at 5 am every morning.

I have been reading up on the GMAT for more then a month now. I have realised one thing - if you give yourself 4-5 months to prepare for the GMAT, your first 1-2 months are going to go sllllooooooooowww. Therefore, I am 'planning' on giving the GMAT by December end now, so that I can start pushing along my preparations.

I started waking up at 5 am in the morning to study for GMAT before I went to work (I leave home by 8-8:30) because I'm too tired to study by the time I come back home (usually 7 pm). I was totally into this routine for about 1.5-2 weeks, when I gave that damn Warm-up test, and ended up doing a lot worse than I would've liked. I know, I know...that's no excuse for not studying for MORE THAN A WEEK! But, as luck would have it, I've been getting fever the last 2 nights, so all plans of getting back into action have been kicked aside once again.

However, the second I'm physically up to waking up early and studying again, I shall get back to my GMAT preparations.

Remind me to add my previous posts here, flashcards from Manhattan GMAT & Beat The GMAT, notes from MGMAT, math review from the guy who scored a 790, list of quant formulae, tough quant problems.

Till then, I think anyone interested in the GMAT will thoroughly enjoy www.gmathacks.com It's an amazing website with amazing insights into the GMAT! I currently subscribe to their "GMAT Question a Day", but I stopped solving them when I couldn't get ONE question. This seems to be a trend with me :-(

Enjoy the site! And I hope you enjoy my blog!