Currently In Toronto - My GMAT Test Day Experience (07/14/2006)

Well I have an extremely hectic travel schedule this week. I am currently in Toronto for some technical discussions and its quite cold out here (what can I expect January in Toronto). Actually getting to Toronto was quite interesting, it was far cheaper to fly to Buffalo (courtesy Jetblue) and rent a car to drive to Toronto than to fly to Toronto directly. So I and the Sales account executive decided to save the company some money and had an uneventful drive from Buffalo to Toronto. I am scheduled to fly from Toronto to Denver tomorrow for a scheduled meeting on Friday, and I will be taking the red eyed flight on Saturday 0:55 hrs from Denver back to JFK (courtesy Jetblue and I am NOT looking forward to it)
Now back to business, my GMAT test day 07/14/2006 experience!!! Well prior to the test day I took one simulated test available from www.mba.com and was satisfied with the result. On the test day, it was a peaceful walk to the testing center (I must say I was lucky in this aspect, the testing center is two blocks away from my apartment). I went with some of my flash cards to just revise the tricky grammar concepts for sentence correction. In the test center, they had some trouble with signing people in for the GMAT test, finally they got the problem resolved. I got a nice corner room, completely secluded and I was ready to give the test a crack. I was pretty relaxed, considering it was the month of July I knew if I screwed I had another shot at the test. I was a little concerned about AWA section as I did not score well in the Princeton practice tests, so I chalked out some strategies based on the Official Guide. The Official Guide gives you some excellent hints regarding the AWA. The AWA topics were quite gentle and I believed I did a decent job with both of them.
The quants section began with some easy questions, and then it started getting tougher, I got some really crazy coordinate geometry questions and I decided to just guess and skip. I strongly believe that on very hard questions, if you realize that you cannot solve it in less than 2 minutes, just guess and skip. I felt I paced myself very well for the math section and I had 5 minutes to spare for the last question and I took my time.
The verbal section was quite smooth, although I had some really tricky sentence correction and I had one pretty tough reading comprehension. I knew I was doing pretty OK as the questions were becoming progressively tough. For the verbal section again I kept a 90 second limit on any sentence correction or critical reasoning questions, so that I was well paced for the verbal section. Reading Comprehension to me is easy to score so I decided to keep extra time for it, again for RC I believe it is crucial to read the passage completely.
Well I took a breath and submitted my answers and wow I was thrilled with the results (Q50, V42, 760), and it was extremely close to what the simulated tests predicted.
Bottom line, the simulated tests are excellent predictors of your performance in the actual test and the Official Guide is the ultimate preparation book. Also you will feel much less pressure if you give the test in Summer or even earlier, as you would know that you could have another shot at improving your GMAT scores.

Back from Denver - 2nd Post - GMAT Preparation

Well I managed to leave Denver before the snow could derail my travel plans. In Denver the weather is weird, I mean on Wednesday (01/10/2007) afternoon the temperature reached nearly 65 F and on Thursday evening it was around 10 F and it was going downhill.... What a temperature swing!!! In Denver I had a huge meeting with some C level execs of a major Telco, and it was a great experience answering business and technical questions coming from different angles. Honestly after these meetings the B-schools interviews feel much more relaxed..
Well I will devote this post to my GMAT preparation, I started my GMAT preparation on Jan 3rd 2006, it was a new year pledge. I decided to take the Princeton online course, I felt that it will force me to regularly prepare considering the amount of money I had to pay. The Princeton online course had some very useful Math tips, but I felt the verbal part was weak. On the whole with their practice tests and the lessons it was a good experience. Although I must say their AWA evaluation is out of whack I used to get 2-3 on my AWA essays.. However my preparation was interrupted by several business trips to Toronto, Montreal and Tampa... As with any business trip you hardly get time for yourself with business dinners after work, so I decided to start studying in the airports and airplanes. It was initially tough, but then I got used to solving some Math problems in the airplane and that would attract stares from my neighboring passengers. From the Princeton online tests I identified my Achilles heel was Sentence Correction and so I focused on that.
However,I realized that I should spend time on the Official Guides, so I bought the Official Guide plus the Official Math and Official Verbal guides. And then it was all about solving the questions in the Official Guides, with special emphasis on Sentence Correction. I made some flash cards to keep revising the key grammar concepts (It really helped a lot). Bottom line there is no substitute for the Official Guide, it is the best material for the exam.
Before the test, I took the simulated tests available free from the GMAT website, I also purchases some paper tests from the GMAT website. The simulated tests were very useful and I felt adequately prepared for the actual test.

My first post as a blogger

Well I have decided to take the plunge and enter the world of blogging. I am a prospective student for the full time MBA Fall 2007, and I decided to share my experience of applying to B-Schools.
First let me tell something more about myself, I am originally from India, did my undergrad in India, graduated in 1996 and then came to US in 1998. I have been in US since 1998 and currently live in NYC, so I guess I am an oldie in the MBA applicant crowd.
Regarding my professional background, well after my BTech in ECE (Electronics and Electrical Communication engineering) I started my career as a Software Engineer. While working I did my MS in Computer Science and then I got the opportunity to be the Technical Support Manager, managing the tech support team. Currently I am in the Sales organization as the Sales Engineering Manager, I have been in this position for the last two years and I feel that this is the right time to make a plunge... I wish to launch my own company so that is the prime driver for pursing an MBA..
In my current job I get to travel a lot and make technical presentations, (well Sales!!!) and I am currently in Denver, Colorado and everything here looks white with snow. Denver got its share of blizzards and snowstorms... Thankfully NYC has been spared till now, frankly I like snow from a distance, driving in NYC during snow can be a nightmare!!!
Anyway that's it for my first post...