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!