The Cheapest Thing available - Advice!

Once you are done with your initial introspection and have finally decided to give GMAT a go ..Here is what to do.

Set a target:

I will divide people into two categories. People who have taken up CAT and people who havent.
For people who have done some serious preparation for CAT and have consistently scored around 70 - 90 percentile in TIME , Career Launcher, IMS Career Forum mock cats aim at a 770. People who have scored consistently above 90 percentile, have a target as high as 780 - 800. Though a lot depends on your performance on the day of GMAT this must give you a rough idea of what target to set for yourself. For people who have scored less than 70 percentile in CAT consistently in the GMAT set yourself a target of 740 to start with. Remember for IT Indians with about 3 years of work experience and very average extra curriculars and an average professional progression, a score of less than a 680 will be a screaming ding, UNLESS you have exceptional writing abilities that weaves such a compelling application packet which can hypnotise a essays hardened BSchool Adcom member. Ding is a GMAT prep junta's lingo which means no admission offered at a BSchool. I repeat, underline the "unless"

For people who have not given the CAT, take up a GMAT prep from the website www.mba.com without any preparation. This is the diagnostic test that can help you assess your potential. Anything above a 720 in the GMAT sans preparationset your target as 780 -800. A 660 - 720 set your target as a 750. And people with less than 660 set a 740 as a target.
However I must present an exceptionally important disclaimer here: A brilliant GMAT score does not assure you of a place in the BSchool. Similarly a meagre GMAT score will not refuse you an admission. GMAT is just one facet of your application. If you have a not so great GMAT score, say a 640, but you are confident you can weave magic with the rest of the application packet take a call based on your discussions with some Bschool students, forums etc. Forums have some gyan providers like GMATBong in www.testmagic.com, Stacy Blackman in www.beatthegmat.com

I set a target of 780 for myself though I fell into the 70 - 90 percentile range in the CAT. I pushed myself too hard at times emotionally drainig myself. After the GMAt I felt that if I had set myself a target of 740 or a 750 I would have fared a lot better than the 710 that I ended up with. So the essence of presenting this breakup is so that you guys do not overburden yourself with targets and feel a lot of unwarranted pressure. I never understood it when Ravi Shastri used to say that Indian bowlers are trying too much. They just have to play within their limits and they will be awesome. I realized the magnitude of his advice post GMAT. If I had not tried too much and too hard I would have gone to score a 750.

Take the Plunge:

By plunge I really mean Plunge...while sleeping you should get dreams of a DS question, while eating a solution to an unsolved quant question should strike your brain, while chatting with your fiancee notice the mistakes in her sentences etc etc etc - Well you must be thinking I must be one helluva psychopath..Ahem..I didnt do all this and hence scored a 710. But I know of atleast 12 people who scored in excess of 750 and one trait that appeared with such astonishing regularity was the PLUNGE that they had taken.

Everytime you make a mistake take a oath of not committing a similar mistake again. I did this but kept repeating mistakes -it is easier said than done :)

GMAT Materials:

There is a whole lot of materials that are available on the net, book stores, websites and blogs
that you will feel overwhelmed. A simple secret to a good GMAT score is use only as many materials as required.

The absolute Essentials:

Preparatory Materials:

GMAT Official Guide 10 - Though it is an instance of serious copyright infringement, I am forced to say about the OG10 ebook which is extensively used by GMAT preppres. It is the most comprehensive guide to your GMAT success. Make sure you have gone through OG10 - Every SC, CR, DS, PS atleast twice. I am conciously not advicing RC as RC takes a lot of time. Go through the last 100 questions in RC. That should more than suffice. But if RC is the section which you are the weakest then its your call.

GMAT Official Guide 11- This has a brilliant Diagnostic CAT that can cause flutter in some people. Just keep your cool. It is much difficult than the actual GMAT. This is not to say that GMAT does not give you questions that are lesser in intensity. This DCAT is difficult because the DCAT is not adaptive and you are served questions from the most difficult bins, whereas actual GMAT will pity you and reduce the intensity of the questions once you get a couple of questions wrong. But again all the questions front cover to back cover twice, of course with an exception of RC if you wish.

Have OGs for the last four weeks of GMAT prep. This way the most important rules, your most recent mistakes will all remain intact in your memory.

Princeton Review SC Rules - The rules of SC have been very crisply stated. This book is IMPORTANT for the SC rules than for anything else. Buy the book if you have to. The SC rules are worth the purchase.

1000 SCs, 1000 CRs, Jungle Juices - These sets may be available on a variety of sources on the net. I took it from the files section of the GMATnetwork yahoo group. Jungle Juices are the actual GMAT questions that appeared recently. These prep material will more than suffice.

Test Materials:

GMATPrep - Nothing is as good as a GMATprep test. There are two free tests that you can download by just registering free of cost on the www.mba.com website. Take and retake and re-re-take the test until you feel that you have seen all the questions. Everytime you retake the questions most of the questions refresh barring a small percentage of repeats. I got about 5 questions from the GMATprep without any change in the actual GMAT. I cannot emphasize the importance of the GMAT prep anymore.

GMATSets - These sets may be available on a variety of sources on the net. I took it from the files section of the GMATnetwork yahoo group. Join that group and you might get some more useful information. Disclaimer: I am not a moderator of the group trying to get more people into the group ;) I used to take verbal set21 and quant set 21 in one go so that it was like a replica of the actual test. It is a good way to build stamina.

I took just these two tests and felt that the prep I got there was sufficient for me.

I think this post has become too long that the reader might feel a little exhausted after reading all this information. I will give it a break here and add a little more about GMAT mode in the post to follow.

-V