My G-day Experience-II

I somehow managed to calm down myself and tried to think that what was lieas ahead of me is the major thing.. How manyB-schools really care about the AWA score if u get a stellar GMAT score? ( Some schools do, but anything that could have a cooling effect on me was fine with me at that time ) So now I was for the major thing: the battle of 800…

Quants:: I knew I’ll ace it and I did:
Quants was my stronghold right from the day 1 of the preps. Most of the mistakes I had made in my practice test were the silly ones:: marking the answer value in dollars when it was required to be in cents, marking Jack’s age when Jill’s was asked and similar ones. So I decided to triple-check each of the answers in the first 15.And it paid twice. Once as early as my 4th Q, I had calculated the value of k, when that of 1/k was required. Then, it was perhaps my 8^th or 9^th question. It was a statistics question on standard deviation and I had miscalculated the value. While double-checking, I intuitively felt that this can not be the answer for the given set of values, recalculated it and found that I was indeed wrong in my first attempt.

Perhaps Q20 onwards, Qs started getting really tough. But fortunately I had lots of time on my hand. So I kept enjoying the tough ones, knowing that this is a sign that I’m doing good. These were inter-leaved with some really easy Qs, which I didn’t expect at this level. Some of these were time-consuming, but only because they needed a lot of calculations.. Perhaps these were the experimental ones, but I could not afford to take any risks.

Last 7 minutes:: 3 Qs left. At this juncture, I got a tough DS question. 4 minutes passed and after picking numbers, I was almost sure that it must be (C), but was not confident about it. Time was running out, so I picked (C) and moved ahead. Luckily the last two were relatively simple ones and I was able to finish of my Maths section with 2 minutes to spare.

From my mock tests I had calculated that on my bad day, I’d score 50 and on a good day, a perfect 51. All the double n triple checking ensured that this surely wasn’t my bad-day. I guess 34^th was the only Q that I cud have got wrong.. So I was confident of landing up a 51 in Quants.

I was feeling much better in this break. The AWA debacle had subsided and the maths performance had given me the much needed feel-good factor.

Verbal: My make-or-break section:: This time it made my day::
Scoring a Q50 or Q51 in almost all practice tests, it was verbal alone that had scores swing from 610(Kaptest #4) to 800 (Manhattan GMAT 1 and 2). So I was desperately waiting for this section.

Started with some easy ones, 2 super easy SC Qs, followed by a pretty obvious CR. At the 4^th Q, I got a monstrous RC. I used the well-practiced roadmap technique and took notes in written. I’m not sure how correctly I answered it, but it ate up a lot of my time. By the time I reached my 10^th-11^th Question, it was clear that I was lagging behind the scheduled time. For subsequent RC Qs, I had to resort to mental roadmaps, instead of the written ones. Still, I must say that the Roadmap technique helped me tackle RCs better. In the second half of the sections, I started getting all kind of difficult Qs, not only tough ones, but the time consuming ones as well: Fully underlined SCs, 4-5 lines-long CRs and 5-6 para long RCs. The lines from Keya’s success story were echoing in my mind: “Either my mind has given up, or I must be doing really good to get these Qs.” And I strongly believed that it was latter.

For the last 10 Qs, I had about 17-18 minutes left: just on the borderline. At that time, I was finding it really difficult to focus. Speculations about my score were distracting me from the job at hand. The Qs,which kept getting tougher, did not help my case either. But somehow I kept foing and finally I finished with about a minute to spare.

I’m done; show me the score; not yet!!!
Now here’s the dark shade of me. At times, I like to tease myself by delaying the things I really really want to see or know. (Perhaps this is what Scott Peck calls “Delaying the gratficication” )Even in the mock tests, I used to get up for a glass of water or something before seeing the scores, jsut to make it more pleasurable. It was no different this time. I started filling all the background information, which was mostly optional and I don’t think that even 10% of students care to fill that. I was at the 4th screen of the background info,when the Pearson guy, who was overseeing me, rushed from the other room to let me know that I don’t actually need to fill that and I should better proceed to check my score. At this, I gave up and just proceeded on the last screen, confirmed that I don’t want to cancel the scores, clicked on the show-scores button and closed my eyes in prayers. I was sure that my score is going to be 7X0, where X can be from 4 in the worst case to 8 in the bestest one. I opened my eyes to see 770. It was Q51, V44.I thumped my fist in the air and walked out confidently.. All these months of hard-work had finally paid off. With that score, I can hope to target even the higher-end schools and hope for some schol to come my way as well.. But that comes later. Right now, the best thing is that I again have time for life and for myself..

My G-day Experience-I

“The day” arrives..

Well, after all those months of preps and many mock GMATs, I guess I was ready for my encounter with the beast.. 13^th was the day. And though 13 is an often cursed number, it has never ever proved unlucky for me.. And I hoped that 13 will be good for me this time too..

I had an unusually good sleep the night before.. Normally, I have butterflies in my stomach a day before any crucial exam, but perhaps this time the “Art of Living” exercises helped (I had recalled those back last week and practiced every morning for the last 2-3 days) and I surely was in better control of myself. This did ease my nervousness a bit, but unfortunately just a bit. Woke up at about 6 in the morning.. Had a quick look at my idiom-list.. Another quick look at my essay template.. And then decided not to strain my mind any further.. As usual cud not eat anything due to nervousness..  Left for the center with my cousin about 30 minutes before the scheduled time.

At the test center
So I was at the Pearson center a good 10-15 minutes before time.. Bought some kit-kats for the break and then headed for the examination-center…All the time I was thinking that the only thing that could kill me was nervousness.. So kept on telling myself “Don’t panic!! Don’t panic” and this was creating all the more tension in my mind..

Anyways, I was 8^th of about 10 candidates registered for the 9 AM slot. I was asked to hand-over my passport for verification purposes. Next was the bio-metric scan. Finger-print were taken, my signatures were recorded on a digital pad. Then a digital snap of mine was taken. Later on, I got to know that this snap will be the one that’ll be sent to all the schools which receive my GMAT scores. Boo-hoo!!! Why wasn’t I dressed in my best shirt? Even my hairdo could have been better After all the basic formalities, I was taken to the test room..

Pre-test confusion:: Which schools do I send my scores too?
Before entering the room, the Pearson guy asked me if I want to write down the list of schools or I had them in my mind.. I told them it was latter. But the fact was that even at that time, I had not finalized the names As I sat on the screen, I quickly selected ISB and NUS: the two sureties on my list. Next I selected the two scholarship generous ones Emory and Fisher.. Was confused about my fifth choice.. Should I go with another mid-tier school.. Vanderbilt and Purdue were the names in my mind. Or should I aim higher and go for Berkley or Chicago GSB.. Finally, I settled for Tepper. The Carnegie-Mellon brand name and its MBA(IT) course tilted the scales in its favor… Not surprisingly after the G-day, this is my top-choice out of the five listed (provided that I get a schol)

At this point, the other guys in the room had already started their stuff and the room was really noisy with their keyboards strokes echoing throughout. At this stage, the ear-plugs came handy. I just plugged those in and I was in my own zone.

AWA:: Panic killed me here::
I knew that I have not had much practice for this section.. Most of that little practice was not under timed conditions. But yes, the previous day was almost entirely devoted to this section. No real time practice, but I had a look at the entire list of AWA prompts of both kinds and pondered over each one for some time so that I have at least I have something for each topic. I find this really strange:: If there were no such list, perhaps I would have felt pretty much confident after writing down 9-10 essays and thinking points for 10-15 others, but actually having one such list creates all the more insecurity if you leave out even 3-4 topics. Anyways, coming back to my G-day experiences, I was targeting at 5.5 or 6.0 in the AWA section.

It started with the argument section.. The prompt that I faced didn’t seem familiar. How could that be? I had scanned the entire list just the previous day, but surely this was a new topic. Still I had prepared the argument part well.. And I guess I was able to write a reasonably good essay. Found a number of flaws in the argument, wrote about 5-6 para essay. I was more or less satisfied with this one.. Later I found that my prompt wasn’t in the copy of the official argument list I had.. Perhaps they have expanded the original list and you can find the longer list here..

Next was the issue prompt. Aha.. this was a familiar one. And I had spend some minutes thinking on that just the previous day. I have a lot of points and I’ll surely churn out a 5.5 or 6.0 essay. Or so I thought.. As I started writing, I felt that perhaps I’m missing the more crucial ones.. As I started arranging my half-written points up and down, I realized that I was falling short of time.. As if that was not enough, the guys around me, who had finished their AWA section, started leaving the room. Sure enough they had started before me, but still this had a psychological effect and I was in a state of panic.. I ended up making a mess of my essay. Though I knew, I had put some good points, but I wasn’t satisfied at all with the presentation. In the last 90 seconds, I decided to proofread at the cost of adding more content and that was really a good decision as I caught at least 6-7 spelling errors.

In the break, I kept cursing myself for the blunders in the issue essay. Tried to remain focused, but now all the strong points and relevant examples that I should have put on my issue essay kept cropping up in my mind. Anyhow, nothing could be done now. I paid a quick visit to the rest room, used the famous “splashing water on the face” technique, had my kit-kat, rested for 2-3 minutes and then proceeded for the test room.

<< To be contd……>>

Yipppeee!! 770 (M51,V44)

 

Hi everybody

Wrote my GMAT yesterday….

Scored  770.. (M51, V44)

Started writing the detailed debriefing, but am already feeling sleepy L But I guess after all these long months  of preps, I deserve a sound sleep.. But then this place which has been a record of my GMAT journey doesn’t deserve to be neglected too….

So though of this mini-post for information purposes for the visitors of the blog.. Detailed debriefing to follow soon.

Till then, it’s celebration time for me J

AWA argument #49

“The owners of the Cumquat Café evidently made a good business decision in moving to a new location, as can be seen from the fact that the Café will soon celebrate its second anniversary there. Moreover, it appears that businesses are not likely to succeed at the old location: since the Café’s move, three different businesses—a tanning salon, an antique emporium, and a pet-grooming shop—have occupied its former spot.” 

The author believes that the owners of Comquat café made a good decision in moving to a new location as the café is about to celebrate its second anniversary there and three different businesses have occupied its former location after the café moved. Though at a first glance, the argument looks sound, but a careful analysis reveals that the argument rests on questionable assumptions and weak premises.

 

First, the author assumes that just because the café celebrated its second anniversary at the new location, we can conclude that the café is doing well. However, he does not provide any evidence for the same. It’s possible that the sales at café have dropped significantly after moving to the new location, but the owners have to continue there due to personal reasons. If this is not the case, the author must provide evidence that the sales and profits are soaring at the new location.

Second questionable assumption that the author makes is that the role of a business location is the same for all kind of businesses. The tanning salon, antique emporium and the pet-grooming shop may have failed, because the people there may not be interested in these. However this provides us with little reason to conclude that they would not be interested in the café as well. To augment this evidence, the author must additionally provide that when owners of Cumquat decided to move, the café too was not actually doing well.

Finally, it’s unfair to rest the blame for the failure of the mentioned businesses solely on the location. The owners may be poor managers; the market-demand may have changed; there can be several other reasons for the businesses to close. In fact, we’re not even told that the mentioned businesses closed because they were not doing well. They too may have moved for purely non-financial reasons, even if they were making good profits.

To sum, the author’s argument is unconvincing due to the weaknesses discussed above. The author could’ve strengthened his stand by giving evidence of Cumquat doing well at the new location and by showing that the profits for Cumquat and other businesses were falling and location was the only factor responsible for the same. Without this evidence, the argument fails to impress the reader.

AWA Issue #7

“The best way to give advice to other people is to find out what they want and then advise them how to attain it.” 

The author suggests that for giving advice to a person, it’s best to first know what he wants and then advise him to attain that objective. Though the author’s stand may prove to be correct in certain circumstances, I feel that this is not a good approach in most of the cases. 

The major problem with the author’s suggestion is that it completely ignores the role of experience in setting objectives. Very often, a person sets unrealistic goals for himself, only to fail at later stage.  Also it’s possible that he may start chasing something that’s not really worth the effort. A person having experience in a similar field can advise on keeping realistic goals, which are good for him.

Another point that the author misses completely is that often people are not very clear about their objectives. They need to be advised even for knowing what they actually want. For example: a typical high-school student doesn’t often know what streams of career are open to him and which of these is suited best for him. In such cases, career counselors come in picture and they first advise the student on what choice he must make; advice on how to attain that goal comes later.

Also at times, the choice a person is making may not morally be the right thing to do. Imagine a scenario in which a youngster wishes to drop out of college mid-way and start an illegitimate business like smuggling or drug-trafficking. In such a case, will it be sane for his father to advice him on how to achieve what he wants? The father should better reprimand him and advice him to concentrate on his studies.

No doubt, the author’s suggestion may work in some cases. These are the cases where the person seeking advice has a clear understanding of his goals: goals which are good for him and for the society as well. In such cases, we must surely concentrate on advising him how to attain those goals.

To conclude, I’d say that I strongly disagree with author’s suggestion on giving advice. It may be workable in some cases, but in most other, this will prove detrimental to the person seeking advice.