Month: June 2015

How To Approximate Your OG Diagnostic Test Performance To The 800-Scale

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As mentioned in this post, the first step of your GMAT Prep begins with taking a Diagnostic Test. This need not be a computer adaptive test, the paper-based Diagnostic Test on the OG will suffice. A few rules that need to be followed while taking the test: • Take the test when you are fresh so that you can get the most accurate measure of your competence; you should not have anything other than your own ability to attribute a sub-par performance to. • The test can be taken either as two sections – Quant and Verbal with any length of break in between (even a day or two) – or as five question-types (PS, DS, RC, CR & SC). • Do not break the test either in the middle of a section or in the middle of a question-type. Your performance across five categories will be categorized as shown in the table below. Before we approximate this performance to a score on the 800-scale we have to take a few things into consideration that …

How To Structure Your GMAT Prep

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A goal without a plan is just a wish – Antoine de Saint-Exupery If there is one thing that is absolutely essential to successfully prepare your way to a great GMAT score it is a structured GMAT Study Plan that is executed perfectly. It is tough to make a one-size-fits-all study plan for those who want to prepare on their own. Instead we will take up each of the elements of your preparation and discuss those in detail. What you should not do Given that the GMAT is predictable and there is a seemingly huge quantity of actual GMAT questions to practice along two official free tests the usual pattern that test-takers follow unfolds as follows. Take a mock test without any preparation – some test-takers use the first test from the GMAT Prep Software, others use a free test from a reputable source such as Kaplan, some others just take any random GMAT Mock that they can find. Firstly, no test from any player in the market actually simulates the GMAT. The failure occurs …

What is the optimum time to prepare for the GMAT?

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This is the first question that pops up regarding test-preparation, be it for the GMAT or for any other test. The short answer to this question — it will require a minimum of 2.5 months and a maximum of 6 months. Now let’s try to get inside these numbers. The optimum time needed depends on the test-taker but the prep phase for any test has two components — the prep-phase and the testing-phase. How long should each of these components be? Let’s start by working backwards.

Why You Should Always Start Your GMAT Prep With A Test Date In Mind

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The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution – Igor Stravinsky, Composer The GMAT can be taken the all-year round but test-slots are not available with equal ease all year round — test-slots are easy to get during the first six months of the year (you can get a slot even if you try book today for a slot in a couple of days) but as the year draws to a close it is almost impossible to get a slot of your choice! Most of you would know the reason for the same — the application deadlines of schools start towards the end of the year (around September). So while we are free to choose a test date of our choice, we refuse to do so for a variety of reasons, some valid and some invalid:

Q & A – The Assumption Question

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Let’s discuss! In the previous post, we discussed the standard operating procedure to solve Assumption Questions – The Negation Method. The best way to really test whether you have understood a particular method of solving is to test it against tough questions. What makes a GMAT CR question tough? A tough question has trap options that are extremely relevant to the passage making it tough to eliminate them. Also, unlike a medium-level question, a tough question might have three close options, two which are very close and one close enough to be in the consideration set.