GMAT guide

A lot of poeple have been asking me about my GMAT prep after this post.. so here goes.. obviously, different things work for different people and what I'm writing below is only based on how I went about my GMAT preparation alongwith the few things that I learnt along the way. They may or may not help you, proceed at your own risk :)

The first thing that I believe one should do when starting the preparation is to simply give a full length test, possibly using the GMAT official software you get when you enroll for the test. It really helps.. it either is a big confidence booster coz you do better than expected.. or it tells you exactly where you stand. Also, analyzing the mistakes you made in this test is a huge eye-opener. For me, a lot of the mistakes I made were simply out of carelessness, specially around the real numbers concept.. so I instantly knew what I had to look out for.

The important thing after that is to have a schedule and to stick to it. Give yourself time and keep at it. A couple of months should be more than ok, coz let's face it, this isn't exactly interesting stuff.. you really wanna get it over with before you start getting bored. It should be a realistic schedule, keeping in mind your other commitments but it also shouldn't be too lax. If you loose steam in the middle, I hear it's very difficult to get it back.

How you prepare does depend on the kind of material you have access to.. but everyone will tell you that the OG is the Bible of GMAT.. it's true.. you've gotta have it, read it and solve it inside out. I made note of all the questions I got wrong, and some of the ones that I got right but thought were tricky. I had meant to go back to these questions in the final days before my test but I actually didn't get around to it. However, if you can, I think it will help.

As far as revising the theoretical concepts are concerned, I only banked on OG. I didn't read through the theory of any of the other books as I felt the concepts were relatively simple. A lot of poeple swear by Kaplan and while I don't know about the theory, I recommend it for the practice questions (which are harder than the average GMAT level). If you've had an Indian education with Math till the 12th standard, quant should really not be that hard. They really drill math into us. I mean you'll make mistakes but those will probably not be because you just didn't know how to attempt the question. For verbal, I went mostly on instinct and didn't do any of the cheat-sheets, paper-notes stuff that I hear people do.. but if you feel you need extra preparation, please go ahead. I don't have any tips though as I didn't go down that road.

In the end however, it's pretty much all about practice.. solve as many questions as you can.. if you wanna do some of each section everyday, go ahead.. if you wanna solve only one question type everyday, it's your wish.. it doesn't matter.. what matters is that you practice.. get a big repository of GMAT questions and just start solving. Chances are you won't be able to run through every question, I had most of my repository unattempted by the time I gave my test but if you've solved enough, you'll reap the benefits.

Also, give a lot of tests.. full length tests.. I don't know about you but it had been a while since I had to concentrate for 4 hours on the task at hand. At work, I usually go grab a biscuit or walk to a colleague's desk or some such jazz every 15 minutes. And the 4 hour thing takes time to get used to.. the stamina builds over time and the mind wanders less and less. It also let's you figure out your own patterns and adapt to them.. if you see you always have extra time left, maybe you can spend more time on the earlier questions rechecking every step..

That's about it.. practice, practice, practice.. banking on those 3 words is really your best bet. Give it your best shot and remember, like everyone keeps telling you, an MBA admit is not just about the GMAT score.

All the best!