Apologies for not updating it regularly. Have been quite busy with packing and other mundane stuffs. Also, the other contributer to this blog is putting up pretty well with her laziness.
Anyways, July-Aug are the gmat months. For Indians to crack gmat should be easy. The Indian engineers find the verbal tough though. For me, the verbal part was a bit of a nut to crack. Some pointers for those who are trying.
For SC, practice is the key. I did as many 1000 SC i could. It is not just about the number of questions you practise but the strike rate as well. Make sure that with passage of time, your strike rate increases otherwise we are back to square 1. There could be two approaches to get on top of this section.. one is the rigorous rule policy- this is where you start for scratch. get hold of all the SC rules etc. Basically mug Wren & Martin again. This could be uselful for guys with not-so-great english foundation. It is a great way to be sure of your answers and your concepts. Will defintely help you in future. Or....Second- is to go by instincts. This is the route I followed as I belive my english is okay and that it just required some tuning. Now...I don't know the concepts very well but I get to know when something is wrong. I feel what is correct. The problem with this methodology is you cant be sure of things but based on your experience, you would mostly be correct. It is a high risk high gain scenario.
As far as CRs go, again...I think it is just a matter of practice. Practise so hard that a time would come when you would just simply know what the answer is..not because you solved it well..but because you have cracked the gmat pattern. After a certain amount of practice, you would instinctly know what the correct answer would be.
RCs are tough/easy depending on the type of RC one gets. If it is a factual RC, it is pretty easy for us engineers. Some of the RCs are a real bouncer. Remember that these RCs are quite different from the ones we get in CAT and quite often make a lot of sense. RCs in gmat test a lot of the applicants reading ability compared to that in CAT. the CAT RCs are more based on luck. I would wanna share my strategy for handling RCs. A cursory read at first. Goto the questions. and then look for the answer. This works for the factual RCs. For the inferential ones, it is more about the 'feel' of the passage than anything else. This, I feel, requires practice. Maybe, start reading the newspaper editorials or any other thing that is substantially heavy on your brain.
At the end of the day, the total score is what would matter. We must decide which part we are gonna score. I was confident with my CR and SC bit. Thus, could manage a 40 on verbal. So, look for your strangths and score on them.
FYI- The Yale SOM essays for 2009-10 are out!
The ISB deadline is nearing. Just a suggestion for those thinking of applying to ISB. Don't waste a lot of time on its essays. It is not worth it.
I will try and awaken the other contributer of this blog from her hibernation mode so that she is able to pitch in her inputs to you guys. However, I would continue to do so..!!
Cheers.!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI really like that you and your fellow contributor are trying to help others. The MBA admissions process is definitely difficult, but it's worth the reward when you get in! I went through it last year, and am currently entering my 2nd year Haas at Berkeley.
A few classmates and I had many frustrations with GMAT preparation while we were studying. So much so, that we decided to work on a GMAT prep startup during our first year of school. I'd love for you to do a review of our site. Just let me know, and I can send you the info.
Good luck with your first years! Business school is a great experience.