My tryst with destiny

Dei shanmugam edra vandiya

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Analysis...a small one

Just wanted to analyse my strenghts and weaknesses. Pretty important huh?!?!

Strength

1. On any day, Quants is my strength. I have encountered only few problems which i didn't know how to solve.

2. Reasoning ability is terrific and i am now able to guess GMAT testers intentions (just like Neo could see all those binaries... o.k o.k wrong comparison agreed :) )

3. Timing has been terrific. Always ahead of the clock. That relieves most of the pressure.

4. Mental strength. I would never bog down when i got a question wrong. Through my test taking experience, i feel one question doesn't make or break anything. The tests are intelligently devised to give us the score we deserve.

Weakness

1. In Quants the mistakes that i have made are mostly silly. But, does it matter. Is there any mistake classification report given to the schools. No. Even if you click the wrong answer though you know the correct answer, it is a mistake. So, need to remove this weakness.

2. RC is a major set back. I do RCs better in OG but not in tests. Atleast one goes down. This is the major problem. Need to be very careful. There is no margin for error.

3. SC. Man these GMAT testers....Some one teach them good grammar. Though i am strong in parallel construction, modifying clause, sub-verb agreement, one thing which drives me crazy is idiom/phrase. I am o.k even with that. Suddenly, there would be out of the box for which i am not convinced even after seeing the explanation. Luck would play a vital role here.

4. Mental stamina - Till date i had only one test where i could concentrate on both sections. That was PR4 but the result was 570. Shit i hate that score. Anyway, i should be beware of the fact that mind is a monkey. Give a good GMAT show so that it doesn't wander anywhere.

5 days to go (including today)

I really like this countdown game. 5 days to go..3 days to go...It really builds up the pressure. isn't it?
The whole of this week has been disappointment. Well, my study plan had Kap800 in it. Unfortunately, it is not available. I tried my level best to get one. :(This made a big vacuum in my preparation phase. I really don't know what to do. I wasted my time in surfing unnecessary things. I didn't really have the motivation to re-read everything. I have completed almost all the materials i have. I felt like stranded blind in a forest.
Now, as i am typing this, i have exactly 5 days to go including today. To get back to rhythm, I read the posts of both iday and inblue for a while to get some inspiration. Iday's all success story gave the necessary motivation and inblue's not-the-best-performance gave the right warning signal to me.
What i have completed? (Question bank basically)
Kaplan, OG10 Verbal, OG10 PS, OG10 DS, OG11 Verbal, OG11 Quants, OG11.
Whats remaining?
Kaplan (few practice tests), GMAT review questions,Power prep review questions.
Full Length tests remaning
Kaplan practice test in the book
PR practice test in the book
Power prep 2GMAT prep 2
Plans ahead
9/1/2006 Kaplan practice test in the book / Remaining materials
9/2/2006 PR practice test in the book / Remaining materials
9/3/2006 Power prep 2 / Browse through every materials for the mistakes and redo it.
9/4/2006 GMAT prep 2 / Browse through every materials for the mistakes and redo it.
9/5/2006 Skim through preparatory materials and flash cards. Relax as far as possible.
9/6/2006 Hopefully i get atleast 800.