GMAT Journey – Days 9 to 24

Sorry guys, I was completely occupied and didn’t feel like blogging at all. I must accept that it is hard to convince myself to blog. 😀

And the most awaited answer to the question – So what’s with my GMAT prep these days?? Well here it is…

I completed the e-GMAT course both CR and SC on 5th April as planned and I managed to take a Grockit test over the Easter weekend.
BTW, I took a 3 day break over the Easter weekend and I got a chance to travel back home (KanyaKumari, my native) and stay with my parents for few days. It was truly refreshing. 🙂

I was surprised when I scored 620 because I skipped 15 questions in verbal section and got a 31 in verbal and 45 in quants. However, in the skipped section I got only 2 or 3 right and I was very happy with this performance in verbal. And hey, Quants 45 is also good considering the fact that I didn’t touch my quants book for nearly two weeks.

Wondering why I skipped the test?? My mom thought I was showing off when I asked her not to speak me while taking the test. 😀 Had to skip the test and convince her. GIRRRLLLSSSS 😉

Well the plan for the rest of the preparation period is going to be to work on the Grockit study plan. This is effective because it allows you to concentrate and practice only your week areas. I am little skeptical about the difficulty level in Grockit because I feel that it is sometimes very easy to solve. Anyways, that really doesn’t matter because I am making so many mistakes even in those easy questions, which means that I need to improve on it. I still have around 18 GMAT club Quant tests, which are unused, so I am looking to somehow squeeze it in my study plan.

One Major Study to do is the RC section. I still haven’t started the OG bits of it. I strongly feel that it is tough to improve on RC at this stage and probably will take up the test without any preparation on the RC section. Guys, just to let you know I am a VERY BAD reader. I read the SC and CR questions twice to understand the meaning. That is how bad I am. 😦

Cheers,

Sabin

P.S. Will try and keep and keep updating this blog as frequent as possible.

GMAT Journey – Days 4 to 8

It’s not that I lost interest in blogging but its just that I didn’t have enough content to write about my prep on a daily basis. So decided to store everything for a day. And Here you go…

The last 5 days have been really productive. Finally, I feel; I know how to study for GMAT verbal.:-)  I have been concentrating on the level 1 concepts of the e-gmat course for both sentence correction and Critical reasoning. For critical reasoning, I also referred to power score CR because I just don’t want to lose touch with the concepts that I learnt from it earlier. As of sentence correction is concern I am just going with e-gmat concepts.

Sentence Correction – The main objective was to cover the level 1 concepts, which included subject verb agreement, verbs, pronouns, basic modifiers, parallelism and sequencing. I am doing this video course for the second time and I find it hard to believe that I missed to grab few concepts when I took the course for the first time.

I am still not happy with my performance in tenses. The sequencing in gmat SC is really hard for me to pick. I will have to work hard on this topic before I move to the next level.

Critical Reasoning – I have managed to complete Inference, Assumptions and strengthen section. E-gmat offers a unique way of tackling CRs but somehow, me being a fan of powerscore CR, I tend to get confused with few concepts in e-gmat.

I am finding the Inference section, one of basic concepts of critical reasoning,  to be really tough and I am hoping to improve on this in the coming week.

On an average, I have put in little over 6 hours of effort everyday and I am sure I have spent this time usefully. I still have 8 days to finish my e-gmat course as planned earlier. I don’t want any slippage in this as it might affect my schedule.

On the personal front, everything is normal and I have made it a point not to use my mobile frequently. I am able to concentrate for 6 hours in a day. Thank god I am finally doing some exercise. (That will make Edna happy. That too she being a health freak these days. 😉 )

Easter week ahead and with guests due to come home, I am hoping to spend more time this week to compensate. Hope I stick to the plan.

Good Night. 🙂

GMAT Journey – Day 3

I was pepped-up last night to start my GMAT prep early today morning but the late night movie, Mr.Deeds played a spoil sport. I woke up at 7 and started to reply to all the unanswered posts in gmat club. I decided that it would be better to do only sentence correction and skip the Critical reasoning for today.

In sentence correction, I took up the e-gmat course from the start. Finished my diagnostic test and scored a 71%. Then as per the e-gmat schedule, I took up the next three sessions – Significance of meaning, Sentence Structure part 1 and part 2. These sessions cover

• Clauses and  phrases – Also a detailed analysis of comma and semi colon usage
• Significance of meaning – The importance of understanding the meaning of sentence in GMAT.

It was time for a post assessment quiz and I scored a 90% but it was a very very basic quiz so I am not getting carried away.

Evening, it was time for the gym and I enrolled myself in the so called best gym in Dindigul. Did some basic workouts and got back home. Some shopping of diet food as well. J

Its going to be a busy day tomorrow and I am looking forward to it.

Good Night.

GMAT Journey – Day 2 – Final Break

Just another ‘Do Nothing’ day comes to an end. 🙂

Slept till 9 in the morning and had a very good traditional south Indian breakfast – Ghee Roast, Vada and a filter kaapi… soo yummm. Got back home by 10 and my maid helped me clean my room so that I can start studying from tomorrow.

I didn’t want to think about GMAT and get myself worked out too much. I decided to enjoy the remaining half of my break. Watched two movies – Arthur, a high lifestyle movie, and Moneyball , a   Inspiring story of a baseball team manager. Two contrasting movies and I felt really relaxed.

Evening, I met a priest, Father Britto Peter, a Jesuit, he had counselled me when I was in college and it’s been nearly 7 years since we met. He was happy to meet me today and I shared my GMAT experiences with him. He gave me some useful tips to improve :

1. Never think about what you want to achieve rather think about what you have achieved. This will give you more confidence. I felt this was a very good idea as it will also ease the pressure to perform.
2. Don’t study continuously for more than 2 hours. Take short and timed breaks after 2 hours of study.
3. Try to apply all the concepts that you study. Do not answer a question if you don’t know the concept.

I thought he just nailed all the problems that I had. Anyways, it was great to meet him today and I am all charged up to start my preparation from tomorrow. As I planned yesterday, I have decided my strategy for the rest of the preparation.

Materials to use:

• Quants – MGMAT Strategy Guides, GMAT Club Tests
• Verbal – MGMAT Strategy Guides, Power score CR, e-gmat verbal complete

And then went through the e-gmat recording session – Develop your personalize study plan and decided on a plan for the next two weeks.

Plan for the next two weeks: (22-03-12 to 05-04-2012)

It is just going to be Verbal, Verbal and Verbal. Maths I can always improve and I am planning to spend 15 days in April on this. For the moment I just want to master verbal. This plan might sound risky but I have the confidence that it will work. J

• Sentence Correction – 4 hours per day on e-gmat – as per the ‘e-gmat SC study plan’. By the end of this prep, I would have finished OG as well.
• Critical Reasoning – 3 hours per day on e-gmat – as per the ‘e-gmat CR study plan’ in combination with power score CR guide. By the end of this, I would have finished OG CRs as well.
• Reading Comprehension – Two passages a day from OG, IF time permits. I am not really going to concentrate on this section as there is a very little scope of improvement on this.

That’s it I am all set for my prep starting tomorrow. THIS PLAN WILL WORK and I AM SURE I WILL GET THERE.

BTW, I couldn’t hit the gym as planned yesterday because of the unplanned meeting with father Britto. Planning to go tomorrow evening.

Now, going to watch one last movie, MR.Deeds and I hope it’s funny. No movies for the next 30 days/till I finish my GMAT.

Dinner time – Chappathi and Mushroom(yuck I hate it). These lent days are just killing me without any taste of blood…. 😉

GMAT Journey – Day 1 – Break

Today was amazing!! I just didn’t touch my book at all, apart from cleaning my table. Slept for over 12 hours and watched two movies (a Tamil flick – Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi and  an English movie – Sex Drive).

Evening, I had a chat with a friend, who got an admit in ‘Great Lakes’, Chennai and I am nervous when I think about my B-school path ahead. May be I should consider some B-schools in India as well. Actually not some, just one school, which is ISB, Indian School of Business ranked 7^th in the World. Anyways even if I have to get there I would need a GMAT score of over 720. I realized that the priority for the moment is GMAT and its mere waste of time to think about anything else.

Thought little about what I should be doing tomorrow and came up with the below task list.

1. Go through the ‘e-gmat recording session – Develop your personalize study plan’.
2. Finalise on the materials to use.
3. Strategy for the rest of the preparation period. Split the tasks into smaller chunks and put a deadline against each task.
4. Also planning to hit the gym and spend two hours on it daily which means I will have something other than GMAT to do.

That’s it I am not thinking anything about GMAT after this. It is time to play with the kids next door and I am waiting for Edna to call me. When I am done with these, the download of ‘Money Ball’, the movie, will be complete and I will be all set for another movie tonight.

Night Night. 🙂

GMAT Journey – Day 0

After45 days of preparation (over an elapsed period of  90 days) I scored 570 on MGMAT test. I was completely disappointed and I didn’t know what to do.

I went to church, said my prayers and then went for a long drive in my Swift. It has always helped me think differently but this time all I decided was to take a break. I realized that I was getting bored with this preparation all together.

Issues that I have:

1. I realized that I was wasting too much time every day thinking I have a full 24 hours a day. Even though I had 24 hours I realized that I was concentrating on studies only for two hours day. I wanted to cut this first.
2. No physical activity for the past 3 months and I started to get tired after anything I do.
3. Didn’t have a strategical approach to preparation.

Its 20:40, 2012-03-20 and I have decided to make a note of everything I do for the next 30 days or so till I finish my GMAT and https://sabinrodriguez.wordpress.com/ was finally born.

Takeaways:

1. Blog my daily activities to keep track of what I am doing everyday.
2. Its time to hit the gym.
3. Take a two day break and decide on a strategy.

GMAT Journey – Background

A bachelors degree from St.Josephs College of Engineering (affiliated to Anna University), Chennai was the starting point of my love for pursuing MBA from a top B-School. Its been nearly 5 years since I graduated and I haven’t done much in all these years to achieve my dream. Worked in a software company like every other BE graduate did and finally decided to take my GMAT with very less preparation last year in November 2010 and scored a 49 (I dont even remember the split up that’s how irritated I was).

An year passed, work was getting too monotonous for me and I felt I was getting bored. A sudden spark on the 1st week November 2011 and I decided to quit my job and prepare full time for GMAT. Not sure where I got the courage from but hey I know I had to do this at some point as I was an average student right from my childhood. Spoke to my parents,EDNA (that’s how I call her;-)), friends, colleagues and they all encouraged me to go ahead and prepare for my GMAT.

Finally, end of December I was out of the company and was all charged up to prepare for my GMAT. 3 Months passed since then and I must say I haven’t made any progress with my studies. The only thing I could do in this 3 month was to brush up my basics in quants and verbal. I was pathetic in my basics. I took a diagnostic after 15 days of preparation elapsed over 45 days and I scored a 540. Well, I knew I was ready to prepare for GMAT.

Hello world!

Welcome to my wordpress. 🙂

I am starting this blog with a hope of sharing my GMAT journey. Have  nice read!!