Took "Full" Practice CAT today - lmao

So I just finished taking a MGMAT Cat Exam.  The reason I put "full" in quotes is because I didn't do any RC.  I've seen those passages more times than I would like to admit, so for me to do them would be pointless.  Well maybe not totally pointless because yes I know it would help with stamina and what not, but I knew that I had other things to get to tonight.  But when I say that I literally pressed B for all 12 RC questions... that's exactly what I did!

So what was the outcome you ask?  Well I got a 43 which is not my highest, but I feel good about that 43 for one reason.

3 of the 37 were 500-600 level.  - 0 incorrect
8 of the 37 were 600-700 level. - 3 incorrect
26 of 37 questions were 700-800 level!  - 16 incorrect  :-(

A closure look at the ones I got incorrect tells me the following:
a.)  I need to not be so cocky about Geometry in thinking that I'm a Geometry master and that if I can't immediately see how to solve a geometry question that I can't figure it out.
b.)  need more practice with overlapping sets
c.)  combinations and probability are hopefully topics my tutor and I will go over shortly
d.) Exponents and Roots - not to be so cocky!
e.)  last but not least I need to keep listening to my tutor because he's helping.

Now we're getting to a point where the harder topics (the ones people say you don't need to study) are the topics getting in the way of me scoring 46/47/48.  I also didn't get as much sleep last night as I would have liked to have so I'm 100% sure that played a part in my lower quant score!

This is what I emailed my tutor after I saw my test score:

" need you to kick my butt on Thursday!  Also remind me on Thursday to ask you a question about homework...

November 1st!  I'm starting to feel it in my bones so knock me off my high horse and bring me back to "reality" well your reality...  I'd rather think I don't know how to solve anything and go into the exam over prepared than vice versa."

I don't even think he wanted me to take a full test yet, but I need to do so in order to see where I stood.  I wanted to make sure that my Sentence Correct skills didn't drop to a detrimental level.  I got 4 SC and 4 CR incorrect. and 10 of the RC question incorrect lol.  I guess B was correct for two of the 12 questions.  I was just surprised that I got so little SC incorrect.  Everything seems very promising, but I will NOT let this make my head blow up!  Need to stay humble because otherwise I'll be like "I GOT THIS" and then my Quant section will be full of Number Properties!

Sidenote - As I was writing this post my Tutor responded to my message with:

"will kick your butt on Thursday, don't worry  ;)"

Manhattan GMAT: 45Q score!

I think I've found my threshold...  now the real work begins to try to beat it!  After months and months of studying and having my highest Quant score be a 39 back in March!  I've consistently done better on the Quant side but now I think I've found the threshold I need to surpass.

I've only been taking the Quant sections of the practice CAT exams and here are the results:
45Q - Veritas
39Q - Veritas (I was very tired)
44Q - Veritas
45Q - MGMAT

So the question now becomes - how do I get to that 47/48 level?  I need to start getting more 700-800 level questions correct.  In order to do this, I need to get better at a couple of topics.  Some of the topics my tutor and I have not covered yet, but it's on the upcoming agenda.

So from now until my exam date I'm going to keep my head down... and keep my blinders on!  I feel that I'm so close I can almost taste it!

On the Verbal front - I did another set of 24 RC today and only got 4 wrong.  I'm really focusing on the comparisons made within the passages as well as the modifiers.  That way I don't eliminate answer choices that are out of scope.  It really seems to be helping me!  So again... Blinders!

Writing Essays is DRAINING!!!

Goood Morning Goood Morning I'll Love Ya... Good Morning!  wait... hhmmm I think it's "Toooomorrow.. tomorrow.. I'll love ya... Tomorrow..." ok anyway choose your favorite it's unimportant!

So today I had many conversations, but I'll get to those in a second.  I want to address my studying.  So during the hour or so that I get for lunch I try to go do one of my MGMAT guides.  I just re-finished, for the umteenth time, the MGMAT Equations, Variables in Choices, and Inequalities book.  This time around I'm not allowing myself to skip any hard questions.  I'll admit that previously, I would just skip it and say that I'd come back to it and never do that.  So now, I force myself to sit there for 10/15 minutes and solve the problem.  It's a good confidence booster actually.

In addition to that lunch homework... I've been making sure that I do Quant sets every day.  My tutor had me do some problem sets last week, which were for him to get a sense of what we need to work on.

On Monday I did the first 37 problem solving out of the OG.  I got 5 incorrect... upon further inspection 3/5 were because of miscalculation errors on my part.  Now I am not taking these stupid errors lightly this time around.  I need to understand WHY I'm making these errors.  For example, one was about LxWxH but then all three were doubled making it 2Lx2Wx2H... for some reason my brain said ok 2x2x2=6 and not 8 like it should.  Those are the things that CANNOT happen on G-day!

On Tuesday I did the next 37 problem solving out of the OG and got 4 wrong.  My weakness is beginning to peak it's little head.  I know which questions I have issues with.  2 of those 4 were incorrect due to a stupid error on my part, but I did not include that in the debrief to my tutor because there must be a reason for me to make those mistakes and THAT'S what we need to figure out.

Tonight I did 37 of the DS questions.  I didn't do so hot here...so that too is very concerning.  Hopefully I'll have better luck tomorrow night when I do the next 37!  For DS I need to force myself to write more down.  I have a bad habit of doing things in my head which does not work 100% of the time for DS because you assume things that you don't have.

Now... on to the conversations I had today with a couple folks.  It's interesting when you start talking to current applicants and the same theme comes up.  Today it was all about Essays.  I spoke to 4 different people today and we were discussing essays and essay timelines.  One of my friends sent me his essay for NYU's PT program to look over.  I marked it up with comments and sent it back over to him and told him that I loved him and to not hate me.  I think he understands I'm only trying to help.

I started my Tuck essays tonight!  I decided to go sit on the pier by my house for inspiration.  I live on the west side so I went to the pier by the Intrepid.  Here are a couple of pictures!

The first thing I did upon sitting down was re-read my Dartmouth Tuck Visit debrief.  For me, the reason I was soooo detailed in that debrief was for this exact purpose.  I wanted to relive my trip up there while I was writing essays.  So... to that I say... mission 1 accomplished.  

I started writing the first essay - Why an MBA and Why Tuck?  I've had this essay in my head for months now, so to get it on paper was not difficult.  I wrote about 800 words and will of course need to trim it down but I feel better knowing that there is a hard copy of my thoughts saved on my hard drive.  

I skipped the 2nd essay about leadership because I'm waiting to hear back from someone about something.

I started writing the 3rd essay which is about a challenge I've overcome and what not... the topic I chose was a no brainer... however I did not think that writing about it would be so draining and time consuming.  I know I've had to overcome but I've never ever had to write about it so thoroughly.  What I thought would be one of the easier essays for me to write about has become the more difficult.

The 4th essay is when I packed up and walked home.  It was dark and my eyes were hurting.  I wrote down my ideas for this essay, but I needed to come back and connect to the internet so I could research something.

I was definitely exhausted from all of that thinking! 

Cheers mate!

Finally...Geometry! *See Disclaimer

Well it's been a while!

Geometry
So today I finally looked at the syllabus for my MGMAT class and saw... GEOMETRY!  This is probably my favorite topic in all of the Quant topics.  Unfortunately, I don't anticipate seeing many geometry problems on the exam.  For some reason these just aren't tested as much as number properties and the like.  Damn GMAT makers... can't make my life easy can they?

So I only did 2 chapters in the Geometry study guide tonight.  The two chapters were Polygons and Triangles.  Out of the 30 or so MGMAT problems, I got 2 wrong.  Now I know these are easy topics but I didn't even struggle or have to go back and look in the chapter to see formulas or anything.  Now I will say that last summer I bought a geometry book and went through half of it so that definitely has something to do with it.  But I don't know... geometry is fun to me.  Which is where the disclaimer comes in and might be my achilles heel.  (sidenote - I've used that achilles heel analogy twice today along with "work me over" - don't ask)

*If by some chance I encounter a Geometry problem that is uber difficult, I may want to spend too much time on it, thinking I can solve it.  After my MGMAT class it won't make too much sense for me to spend TOO much time going over geometry problems because there are more important topics that I will DEFINITELY see.


Studying

After talking to my GMAT junkie friend Brandon - you guys know him as Osirus, I've developed a plan for my post MGMAT studying.  I need/want to take a practice CAT Exam every weekend up until I take my test.  I'm going to start this regimen the Sunday after my visit to Dartmouth Tuck (2 weeks baby!)

I've realized that the way the MGMAT class is taught is the opposite of the way that I would learn the material the best.  For example:

MGMAT way to teach Quant topics is for us to:

Go through the Study Guide material... Go to class and learn the study guide...go home and do Official Guide problems

My ideal way to learn Quant topics is to:

Go to class and learn the study guide material ...go home and go through the study guide... do Official Guide problems

MGMAT way to teach Verbal topics is for us to:

Go to class and learn the study guide material...go home and go through the study guide...do Official Guide problems

My ideal way to learn Verbal topics is to:

Go through the study guide material...go to class and learn the study guide material...go home and do Official Guide problems.

Combinatorics


So for those of you who don't know - which is probably everyone - I play in our corporate volleyball league.  We were undefeated for a while until we had an addition to our team as some other people stopped showing up.  I quickly learned that there are specifically two people on the team who cannot be near each other in the rotation because...well...  "You are the weakest link... Good Bye."  I was sitting at my computer at work the other day and I thought of a combinatorics questions...how nerdy right?  So here's the question:


There are 8 players on a volleyball game.  6 players are allowed on the court at one time.  2 players cannot be by each other in the rotation.  How many different ways are there to start off the game?


Now I will say that we had another game tonight, and low and behold, no one listened to their Co-Captain = Yours Truly, and they allowed the two weakest links to be near each other... and we lost 2 of the three matches.  I will admit that I started overstepping my "coverage area" in the last match because I can't stand losing and when it comes down to it I'm going to get the ball over the net more often than some others.  Just look at the stats.

My friends are still waiting on HBS and Stanford.... BUT i found out that one of my friends was accepted to Michigan Ross.  Phenomenal!

That's all Folks!

5 Star notebooks are how much?!?!

::sigh::  HELLO EVERYONE!!!  and i'm back in full effect!  I wanted to get back on here and give everyone an update... just gonna hop right into it as this may be long...

Ok so... I've had my third MGMAT class.  One thing I want to say about the class is that there is a TTTOONNN of readings and homework.  For the last class I actually did the wrong Quant Guide.  Each class we have to have an entire Quant guide completed.  This week it was supposed to be Equations, Inequalities, and VIC's.  I accidentally did Fractions, Decimals, and Percents which isn't due for another 3 weeks!!  Oh well... luckily I understand equations and VICs, so I didn't have a problem understanding during class.  I did tell myself that I would go through the guide I missed this weekend... and I did!

If I wanted to stay busy for 5 hours a day for three months, I definitely could.  I still put in about 2-3 hours/night.  Today I actually woke up at 10:30 and was studying by 12.  Fell asleep studying from 4-5:30 then studied from about 6-8.  Had to watch the olympics because Apolo Ohno was racing... so I did some CR (Critical Reasoning) chapters while watching the olympics....  Now that I think about it.. maybe THAT'S why I don't fully understand CR Diagramming!  Actually no, I just don't like it... but I will give it a chance.

Anyway, after some speed skating and skiing, I decided to read some chapters in the SC (Sentence correction guide).  I'm beginning to like sentence correction - FINALLY...  but my Quant skills are slipping I think.  That'll come back to me with repetition.

I went to the John Jay bookstore (i live down the street from it) to buy some notebooks.  I want to do the OG problems tomorrow but I want to keep them separate.  I bought two notebooks... a 5 subject notebook and 1 subject notebook... $17.98!!!!  WTF?!?!  Now I remember trapper keepers being about $6 when I was in kindergarten... but when I was in HS notebooks were like $3.99 or something like that...  I gagged when i saw the price, but I had no other option!

Tomorrow I plan on doing all of the OG questions that we are supposed to have completed up until this point.  I was thinking about saving the OG problems until after the class, because that's what a lot of people are doing, but I figured... if this is what's recommended... who am I to tell people who have scored in the 99th % - no I don't think your strategy works for me!  Pssshhh..

Ok lemme see what else is going on?  Oh so on Friday I had a half day at work.  Anytime we have a day off we get the former previous day as a half day.  Since I don't have work on Presidents Day I had off on Friday.  I met up with someone I met at an NYU marketing event/conference back in October.  Most of the people I met that day were applying for 2010 and I'm applying for 2011, so I guess I was more laid back in that I wasn't trying to suck up to the admissions committee.

In any event... So I met up with him at Redemption on 52nd & 2nd avenue at 4:15... it was good to catch up with him... we had been emailing back and forth ever since we met, but he had to be left alone because he was applying R2 (round 2) to Wharton, Harvard, Columbia, NYU, and UVA Darden.  Since he's done with the applications we decided it was a good time to meet up.  I'll be MIA to my friends come March because that's gonna be crunch time for me.

He too is in digital marketing for a national retailer so aside from talking about B-school stuff and GMAT stuff we were also able to compare notes on our jobs.  He has an interview at Wharton & Darden next week!  I wish him the best of luck!!!   So yeah... I got there at 4:15 and we left at 7 and only had 4 beers each - I had Stella (yum)...  but I was definitely feeling the alcohol after 3 hours.

I also got an update from a kid that I went to High School with who also applied to schools this year.  He applied to Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, MIT Sloan, and Dartmouth.  He got rejected from the big three (Stanford, Harvard, Wharton), but was accepted to Sloan and is waiting to hear back from Dartmouth.  I'm sure he'll get into Dartmouth because his profile is really good and he went to Dartmouth for undergrad.  I do think that he'll choose MIT over Dartmouth though...

So the big news this week is that I'M GOING TO YALE!!!  I have no idea what I'm going to wear though...  suit with a shirt?  do i wear a tie?  cufflinks?  how about jsut a sweater underneath?  i'm going on a Campus Tour... Sit in on 2 classes... and then there's an Admissions q&a... i gotta remember to bring my notebook. and ask the question - if you had to describe 3 things adjectives that describe Yale, what would they be?

I will upload all my pictures to the blog when I get back home... actually right now I should be researching train schedules and what not!  yeah lemme go do that ahaha!

Here are the standings from the contest...  there are 9 days left... let's see where I end up!

Until tomorrow!  xoxo

Humbling first Prep Class

First Order of Business that I'd like to address is this GMAT Giveaway contest.  I've consistently been in 3rd, but yesterday I made it to 2nd... only to be pushed back down to 3rd today.

I'M MONEY9111 BTW

So I had my first MGMAT class today...and it was a very humbling experience to say the least. I was very excited to officially get this process started. I consider today the official day of my GMAT prep - even though it's been months and months, preparing for the class.

My class was from 6:30 -> 9:30. It didn't feel long or drawn out either, which was never a fear... but was a concern. There were were about 16-18 students in the class = very diverse bunch. I cant remember how many sets of 2 tables are on the other side of the room.

Tonight we went over the basic GMAT review... and tackled DS...I thought I had prepared well enough hat I would be able to tackle basic DS questions, but that was false. I definitely underestimated DS.

Now I heard that there would be a lot of work... but I didn't realize how much work. The syllabus is available online but it does not give you a sense of how much work there is. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining at all... I'm actually thrilled because I'm willing to put in the time.

Also, I didn't realize how much additional material was available online... ie. hour long topical Lab videos (at least I think they're videos)... They're definitely going to be a great resource. I also get 30 minutes a week of online office hours w/ phone. You just have to sign up online... I'm definitely going to use this as well, because an hour of "tutoring" is quite pricey post-exam. 


The teacher is very good. Very energetic... i don't know if I could personally be 'ON' for three hours teaching this stuff.. but I suppose that's why they get paid the big bucks. If the initial explanations are tough to understand, they're broken down from another angle.

Like I said, we went over DS today, which as we all know is tricky. Everyone has their own mental process in approaching these problems. There was a situation where one person was thinking of an answer from one angle, and someone else the complete opposite from another angle. The teacher was able to get everyone on the same page, by realizing how each person arrived at their answers (one right and one wrong, but neither understood why they were right or wrong). Just this skill alone.. compared to another prep company I checked out would have sealed the deal for me. I think another teacher would not have been able to recognize the students' though processes and would have simply said "no... this is how you're supposed to do it."

Another thing about the class that I like is that, it's not all just a PPT. Sure the basic material and problems are in the PPT, but when working them out they're done on the board. I'm not sure how other prep classes do this but it's very effective.

If anyone would like to know who I am taking a class with.. send me a PM.. just don't want to post the name up here. It was the first class, so I'm sure people need to warm up and feel comfortable enough to ask more questions. Not I though, I don't care haha if I'm not getting something... might as well ask = get my monies worth! 


Hot to Trot!

5'9 isn't short... or is it?

Hello Again Everyone!

I'm just going to jump right into it tonight....  here is the leaderboard:

I don't believe I updated you on my Friday and Saturday evenings...  well I stayed in.  I only left my apartment to get food...  I wanted to study all weekend, knowing that I had to take my first Manhattan GMAT (MGMAT) practice exam today.

My goal was a 600... now to refresh your memories, my ultimate GMAT score is a 710.  Yes I bumped it up from a 700, because with my luck if I aim for a 700 I'll get a 690 and start cursing in the testing center..

I'll get to how I did in a second...  the book that I was going through this weekend was the PowerScore Critical reasoning Bible.  My goal was to get through this book before Tuesday, because that's when my Class starts, but in order to do so, I would have to get through 150 pages tomorrow night.  I can tell you right now that that's not going to happen.  I underestimated the time it takes to get through Critical reasoning.  I find myself having to take more breaks while going through this book.  It's mentally draining.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about... Critical Reasoning gives you a paragraph.. and you have to answer a question based on the information given... so a question could look like the one below with 5 answer choices that follow:

Each of the following, if true, would help to resolve the apparent discrepancy above EXCEPT:

So you can see how after reading a couple chapters of language like this... you can develop a severe headache.  But yeah so that was my weekend...

So like I said previously... I took my first practice exam today...  my goal was a 600 and I got a 590.  This is where the title comes from get it?  haha  5'9 = 590...  so this goes back to why I increased my target to 710.. this seems to be the case with me.. always ending up SHORT on exams.  Even the SAT's... my goal was a 1300 and I got a 1280.

I was pleasantly surprised with the 590 because during the exam, I felt like I was getting every single question wrong.  As you know from this blog, the last month or so has been dedicated to the Verbal section.  I know that I'll be able to increase my Quant score once I begin seeing the questions again.  I was nervous for Verbal and wanted to focus on that.  Turns out I surprised myself, because my split was the same 37/37.  If I get this split in April I'll be devastated... but it's only January and it was my first CAT (computer adaptive test) ever.

At first I was thinking about not taking it... because I didn't think I was prepared, but then I remember that people say to get the first one over with, so you know how much work you have ahead of you.  Well this was good advice.  I now know that this road is going to be long and arduous.  That's alright though... I can do it!  The kind people over at MGMAT recommend that you come into the first class having completed one of the CAT exams, to establish your baseline.  So to that I say... CHECK

My MGMAT class begins on Tuesday - I've done all of the preparation that I can do for now... I'll see how much homework I get from the class before deciding whether or not I'll continue through the PowerScore CR Bible in conjunction with the class.  I may hold off until afterwards...

It's 9 weeks, so this is when my life becomes non-existant.  I have a lot of work to do before this exam.

I thought I had more to say... but I guess not!  Until next time...  love, peace, and happiness
Notecard Count = 129 (notecard count was 117... so I added 12 from tonight which is a 10% notecard increase)