Cracked GMAT at 46 (730, Q51, V37)

This is an amazing story of a 46 year old who has cracked GMAT with a score of 730 - Q51, V37. Some of us attribute our long separation with academics as an excuse for a low score. But this guy has proved that nothing is impossible once you decide it. An amazing success story to read:

During March end 2007, there was a huge professional disappointment for me and I was kind of down with this debacle and for about 2-3 weeks I was unable to decide about my future course of action. It is during this phase that I came to know about IIM-A PGPX program and did some search on internet and found that before IIM-A, IIM-C is also available, provided I take GMAT before 25th May (last date for IIM-C).

My first impulse was to go for GMAT before 25th May 2007 so that I can apply to IIM-C as well but later on I decided against it (On hindsight, a wise decision) and asked for July dates (IIM-A last date is 10th Aug.). However as I have huge experience and at 46, I was not sure whether IIMs will consider my application favorably. I wrote a mail to IIM-A and asked them about my chances at 46 and was really surprised to receive their response within one day, saying that my huge experience (25+) will be advantageous for executive MBA. IIM-Also gave me a target GMAT score, based on my experience.

With this information in hand I got really motivated and started frequenting PagalGuy GMAT section. Since last two and half months I have been a parasite on these threads, soaking all information provided by others without posting anything ( I am really sorry for this).

Armed with all information and many free tests (downloaded from net, after getting links from PagalGuy I started my GMAT prep around April 25th. Asked my friend in Delhi to buy OG11 and Princeton review and courier them to me.

My first priority was to find out where I stand as far as GMAT is concerned and to find my weakness ( I have already appeared for CAT twice 2005/2006).

I gave Princeton Review test 1 0n 27th April 2007 with a score of 680 (Q51, V 33)

On detailed analysis I found that my main weakness was sentence correction and I had to brush-up Probability and Permutation and Combination. With this information, I took a printout of OG10 VA section (free download from Net) and started practice on same. I had OG10 (only VA) , OG11, OG11 (VA) and SC1000 and Princeton Review. The material was enough and I decided to do at least 25 sentence corrections everyday along with going thro’ the basic explanation of different types of error tested in GMAT. As far as sentence correction is concerned, this strategy continued till the test day on July 10th. Slowly my accuracy was improving from 55-60% to about 85%.

In between I gave many tests as follows:

Kaplan (Free test and not the dreaded CD tests) 1st May 2007, 700 (Q47, V38 )

GMAC paper test 14, 6th May, 700 (Q51, V36)
GMAC paper test 25, 8th May, 710 (Q50, V39)
GMAC paper test 28, 11th May, 720 (Q51, V38)
GMAC paper test 31, 21st May, 710 (Q51, V36)
GMAC paper test 37, 26th May, 700 (Q50, V37)
GMAC paper test 42, 2nd June, 730 (Q50, V41)
GMAC paper test 48, 5th June, 720 (Q50, V40)
GMAC paper test 52, 10th June, 720 (Q51, V36)
GMAC paper test 55, 23rd June, 710 (Q50, V36)

Even though these are paper test but to simulate the actual test condition, I did not print out them but was reading them from screen and marking my answers on paper.

In addition I also took some more test as follows:-

Princeton Review test 2, 7th June, 720 (Q51, V39)
Power Prep 1, 19th June, 760 (Q51, V41)
Power Prep 2, 27th June, 770 (Q51, V47)

I knew that my Power prep scores were inflated because many question were same as my practice material and not only I remembered few answers but also I saved some time which was utilized to give more time to other difficult Qs.

With above practice, I went for my final GMAT on 10th July with the hope that I will be able to score about 690 but I think I was lucky to come out with a score of 730 (Q51, V 37).

In actual GMAT, I think the questions were a bit tough as far as VA in concerned but I have no reason to complain.