A Midwife's Tale: GMAT Story Till Now

Yeah, here I am back from a 3-month hiatus. Though I lost a significant chunk of time recuperating, I did make some GMAT-progress. I had to reschedule the test and it now stands 4 weeks from now. It seems like a eon. Well, 9 months into the GMAT, first thinking about it and later studying about it, feels like I am bringing a baby into this world!

Here's what I have been up to:

1. Quant: Done with all the MGMAT Quant Strategy Guides and currently half way through OG-13 and Quant Review. Facing some trouble with a handful of topics like Combinatorics, Probability and Co-ordinate Geometry.
2. Verbal: Being a non-native speaker of English and specially having been taught British English, I did complete the entire Verbal Foundations by MGMAT. I would say a must do for any one who is not so much into American English for many things which are correct per the standards of British or European English are considered incorrect by GMAT. I am continuing to work on Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension - all MGMAT strategy guides. Besides I am half way through the all the verbal chapters from OG-13 and Verbal Review.
3. AWA: This is one of those sections which have been neglected by the masses in general, mainly because it does not count towards the total score and some of the schools do not pay heed to this. As for me, I am doing the AWA exercises occasionally for it takes some practice for your thoughts to evolve into full bloom. Besides, I don't want the AdCom to wonder if I really wrote those admission essays.
4. IR: Frankly speaking I have neglected it until now. Planning to start practicing the official questions at least by next week.
5. Mock Tests: Did not take much of the mocks particularly because I am not through studying the Verbals. From just a couple of tests, it is evident that I must be brushing up my verbal skills.

Standing at this juncture with some unpleasant debacles, can't claim that these are the best strategies, but definitely these seems to work for me as of now.

By the way, learning and practicing Verbal for GMAT has already done loads of good for me, for I feel my English to be much better now than it was 3 months ago. As opposed to one of my suggestions in the previous posts and after having revised Wren & Martin and being more than half way through the MGMAT Verbal Strategy Guides, I advise not to study Wren & Martin for GMAT. Though it is indispensable book for English Grammar, it teaches British English. Revising this material will lead you to select wrong answer choices in the actual test.

The same stands true for Arun Sharma's Quantitative Aptitude. GMAT math is tricky, not tough. CAT math is tough, not tricky. Besides, the book has lot of grammatical mistakes with confuses your basic understanding of most of the problems - don't waste your time here.

The most important thing: pay close attention to your health, eat well and exercise. The last thing you want to do is to reschedule because of poor health.

That was a brief de-brief of my three month absence though not in best of my spirits! I hope things will turn out well in the end. Here I leave with a T S Eliot Quote... wish that you go as far as your true potential takes you. As somebody told me a few days back: Stay focused on your purpose, not on your goal. You can cut off your worries when you take your eyes off that goal.

Deadlines... not amusing anymore

Deadlines have always amused me. It cuts enough slack for me to ponder till the end of eternity and lets me build elaborate castles in air. Till the time I have or I think I have enough time, I find it so surreal and fantastic that I wander far and wide into the castles of Spain. By the time my Casanova mind is back home and I realize that the deadline is staring at my face, it becomes a negative inspiration. Nevertheless, a negative inspiration is always better than no inspiration.

Eh, so the sloppy me does finally have an executable prep plan for the nth time. And one week already into  it, I do not intend to have another (n+1)th revision. But before I get to the study plan, here are some preliminary assessment that you must do if at all you want your study plan to yield desired result, all arranged  in priority sequence:

1. Understand the test pattern, scoring system, types of questions, etc. What is the average time estimate per question and how does the Computer Adaptive test work. Visit http://www.mba.com/ for details.
2. Find out what GMAT score is required for your desired MBA program and corresponding application deadlines. A glance at the best B-schools will indicate that you will need 700 for top 10 schools, 680 for top 20 and 650 for top 50; which means the scores will not be an issue and you may need an additional 30 to 50 points to stand out among the other applications. Most of the schools have 3 application rounds, roughly around October, December and January. 
3. Take a diagnostic test or a full length practice test to determine how much you will need to improve. Analyse the diagnostic test thoroughly and determine your strength and weaknesses. Understand which question types are more challenging and where you spent more time. You will need this information to build your study plan. You may choose to schedule your test by this time
4. Finally - you are ready to design your prep plan.

The case:

Based on my last years test results and following my difficulties in trying to read and comprehend long passages, I need to improve a whooping 150+ points for my target school; strength - Quant, weakness-Verbal. A little research in various test forums and data collected by test prep companies will indicate that though a lower Quant score and higher Verbal score has a higher impact on the Overall score, the vice-verse, however is not true. Further, when you are playing the game at the highest level (700+) and you get most of your questions correct, the CAT stops testing the basics and starts gussying them up.

The strategy:

Having said that, my prep strategy follows the below GMAT pyramid for a duration of 16 weeks.

16 Week Prep Plan:

Week 0, 1, 2 : Focus on base of the Pyramid - General Knowledge. Do not waste OG questions during this period. You may want to use Kaplan's or Manhattan GMAT course books for this, they have standard material. As for me, I am working on Arun Sharma's Quant and Wren and Martin's High School Grammar. Arun Sharma's Quant is great for getting the basics right. But beware, this book has good number of grammatical errors and I have found occasional issues with the methodology used in certain cases. If you plan to practice Arun Sharma's Quant, then better keep an open mind. Wren and Martin is the best book I have read till date on English Grammar. Though it has a lot of topics, the most relevant ones are Correct Usage, Verbs and Tenses and Written Composition.

Week 3: Focus on Question Strategies for next three weeks. Take a full length CAT and re-assesses your strength and weaknesses. Finish Quant and Verbal sections from OG. I intend to do only OG-13; not planning to work on OG-12. Spend extra time on the weak areas. Revise your basics and practice smaller timed sections.

Week 4: Complete OG Verbal Review and OG Quant Review, 2nd Edition. These two books have the most recently retired questions from the real test per the claims of GMAC. Continue spending extra time on your weaknesses and revising your basics.

Week 5: Complete all the questions from Kaplan GMAT 800. Not a good guide book, but an excellent collection of really tough questions. Prepare a test taking strategy.

Week 6 through 15: Time to focus on the Test Strategies. Take full length CAT; one per week and apply the test strategy. Work on your prep strategy and refine your test taking strategy every week.

Additional tips:

1. Practice Sudoku - will improve your calculations
2. Practice Puzzles - will improve your ability to comprehend subtle information
3. Read good newspaper and keep yourself well informed
4. Read and work with "Word Power Made Easy", Norman Lewis - will build your vocab
5. Start writing, may be a blog - will improve your writing ability
6. Most important - Keep yourself motivated and focused

So, the plan is laid out. Resources and timeline determined. The dream with a deadline is now a goal ready to be executed. Finally, the deadline is not at all amusing.

Any other ideas, holler on.

Eating that frog!

Macaulay; heard of him? Not the actor who played the lead protagonist in Home Alone. Thomas B Macaulay of the East India Company in late 18th century? The Battle of Palassey, Siraj-ud-daula, Mir Jafar, Lord Macaulay, recalled? Okay, I am not trying to quiz you on British Raj or Colonialism or historical defectors; rather wanted to state some observations, rather remarks made by our Colonial rulers.

Lord Thomas B Macaulay, according to history, played a crucial role in deforming Indian Criminal Code as well as Educational Policy. But as the years passed by, he grew infamous for making derogatory remarks about the Indians, particularly, the Bongs. 

So what did he say that I want to say?

"Whatever the Bengali does he does languidly. His favorite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from bodily exertion; and though voluble in dispute and singularly pertinacious in the war of chicane he seldom engages in personal conflict and scarcely ever enlists as a soldiers. There never perhaps existed a people so thoroughly fitted by habit for a foreign yoke." - Mrinalini Sinha, "Colonial Masculinity"

When he said that, he meant this:

"What the horns are to a buffalo... deceit is to the Bengali. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offensive and defensive of the people of the Lower Ganges" Courtesy - Dhoomketu, 22nd Floor

Why these thoughts?

Because after a stupendously unproductive day, I am wondering if I have internalized all those stuff that Macaulay (and others) had said about my Bong Brethren! Was this the secret power of the Westerners that they were able to convince their Colonial subjects to take on the very stereotypical qualities that they wished them to have; powers so strong to have lasted even on the pseudo-Bongs like me that too after more than 200 years?

Ever since I read the The Alchemist, I felt inspired by its underlying philosophy. When you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Really? The Universe already conspired and ensured that I too be duped by this secret Westerner power even before I was born and dreamed of wanting something!

I am sure, by now anybody, especially a Bong, who reads this, will have better excuses for not studying or doing any productive work! I am not advocating procrastination rather I am a remorseful victim of the thief who steals away my time, slowly, silently and at times even after acknowledging. 

The more I think about it the more I realize; Procrastination is a necessary evil. Anybody who thinks they can catch hold of this thief are on a vain pursuit. All great men have been procrastinators. Difference? They were good procrastinators and I am a bad one. They knew what to procrastinate on and what not to. While it is easy to be motivated but it is really difficult to tame the vagabond of your mind. While I was in the midst of a Zeigarnik Effect to finish mindless tasks like browsing Youtube and indulging in social voyeurism like Facebook, I came across this video on productivity, kind of gives a scientific explanation for lethargy!

Whatever be the case, sooner or later we all have to eat that frog. Whether we want to gulp it down the throat or relish it, our choice.

A tryst with the devil

A devil? Yes, anybody who has tasted GMAT for real will agree when I say that. There could be exceptions of course; like people with talent who did not have to work hard or people with no talent who worked real hard! I am still trying to figure out which one of these am I!

It was June 2012 and after a fairly good diagnostic test performance, I schedule a test just within a month time. Don't know why just a month. Predominantly I would blame my blatant vanity. "Study, why, I don't need that, I am too good for practice." By the end of first week of registering, I finished skimming through the Indian B-schools who would not mind accepting me. The GMAT score trend in schools like ISB and IIM A (EMBA) was around 690. For a person with an automotive background it should not be a big deal even if they were to score 40 points less. I was high on confidence, my practice CATs will indicate scores at par with the set trend. The task that lay ahead of me was just to practice my game plan. By game plan I mean strategy to attack each GMAT question viz, which ones to guess, where to give an extra 30 second to a problem, etc. So head bent as I was I kept practicing the strategies on consecutive full length CATs without bothering what it would be like playing at the topmost level.

Next day I was at the test center after a full night out and a complete day cramming last minute quant short-cuts and IR question types. After all those game plans, I thought I would be able to work on my little weak areas. That was my stupidest folly. The test starts and by the time I am into the quant section, my mind is already tired after an okie-dokie AWA and a satisfactory IR sections. I felt brain dead and my top floor simply refused to admit further quant challenges. Soon I realized, the CAT was testing me on simple basics. My heart sank further when I stopped spotting tough questions. And before I knew, verbal too showered a similar wash-over. I read about the 1994 human vs computer chess games, Kasparov's lose, Anand's win over the supercomputer. I always wondered what it would be the experience like - to win over a computer. Believe me, after a wash-over like that, I felt freakishly stupid. After all it was a victory of regular artificial intelligence (not a super computer) over the real thing; poor me! However, after this dismal performance, I did manage to interest ISB and SPJMIR but nothing further. The story behind it? Maybe sometime later.

If I were to summarize what went wrong, in order of significance, it would go like this:

1. Never take a full length CAT before test. You must put your last CAT at least a week ahead of the Devil. This gives your brain ample time to breath and be ready for the real game.
2. Develop a game plan to attack the CAT at least 2 weeks prior the D Day. Spend last seven days fine tuning them over smaller sets of questions.
3. Stop cramming anything new those two weeks; this will not have a positive impact on your scores. Rather relax and work on points 1 and 2.
4. A night out before the date (or a real Date!) is absolutely forbidden. If you ever have a craving to practice anything new, just remember they would take your pictures(with those puffy eyes) and wire them to the prospective B-school along with your scores. CATs are real test of mental stamina. Don't let the last minute work eat out your opportunity when you can actually give your best.
5. Stop procrastinating, act now.

I learnt the truth the tough way. Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard. Every practice problem and every minute is an opportunity, the challenge is to make it count.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I have always been a dreamy kid. I would spend hours staring at the blue sky trying to figure out cloud formations or watch the sun setting in the yonder. At times I would sneak out of my bed and stay up all night gazing at the moon and stars. I was fascinated by sky and the celestial objects and would often wonder what will it be like to be on the other side. Curiosity spoke one fine day. I was counting birds in the evening sky and I asked mom, "Maa, I want to fly; can I grow into a bird!" She tried to reason me, "You don't have wings my dear. But you can study a lot and some day you will fly like a bird!"

Oh, if only I had wings to fly! And I wondered how on earth will studying help me fly? I had no idea, but just a dubious belief that one fine day my lovely teachers at school will teach me how to fly or at least grow wings! Don't start doubting my sanity as a kid, I must be hardly 6 years old. Since then, my idea of 'being able to fly' has been changing.  From aspirations as wild as growing into a bird, becoming an astronaut, an engineer, a classical dancer, wildlife photographer or a CEO, they have been very very dynamic. Hence, before you actually take a plunge into test preparation and decide to go to a B-school, ask yourself the same question your favorite teacher once asked you at school:

We, the general junta are modeled around situations and our meaning of happiness keeps on changing according to them. The key is to believe you can fly and then figure out how you want to 'fly'. I have been harboring the idea of MBA since my graduation days. I believed before going for an MBA, a strong work experience lays a good foundation for you to evolve as a successful business leader. So I go on to become a mechanical engineer at one of the top two diesel engine manufacturing MNC of the world. For six years, I worked on product development and project management. Though my responsibilities were very versatile and I was in some way growing into a leader, I was never happy with the progress; I realized that was taking baby-steps and my career was stagnating. And I decide to give education one shot before its too late.

Perfectionist, as people who know me would define me, I am vulnerable to procrastination. Not because I am incompetent but simply because I lacked motivation and my 14 hour job did not give me the luxury to prepare for any test. So the first task for me, unlike for many of you, was to discover motivation and allocate time. After a lot of pondering for almost 6 months and with a gentle push from Arduguy, I did finally call it quit. Having said that, I will strongly recommend not to follow my footsteps unless it is really inevitable. Instead try to allot a fixed time apart from your regular job responsibilities for your test preparation. If you must quit, first assess your financial situation and plan around your B-school application expenses. Decide and execute.

PS: The intent is to share my experiences and my journey through GMAT and hence to a B School (hopefully of my choice). I hope those reading my blog will benefit from my experiences; both the good ones and not so good ones.