I finished my GMAT today. This is my debrief and advice on taking the GMAT.

The FIRST step to taking the GMAT and starting the path down the MBA application process is to get motivated. When times are tough and life feels stressful, it can be hard to to get yourself into the mood for picking up the books and studying. Motivation helps get past these road blocks. I listened to an audio book called The Seven Hidden Secrets of Motivation. I found it extemely interesting and full of useful insights, such as just merely doing research and learning more about how to accomplish a goal will help increase the probability of success in your mind - and hence increase motivation. In fact, my mental perception of the probability of success played a big part in my level of motivation. The most important part of Motivation is having a really big Reason Why - why do you want to succeed at the GMAT? After a while, I found that I just got into the habit of studying while I was on the bus/train to work, during lunch time and after work.

The second part of taking the GMAT is doing research on how to get a top GMAT score. The mainstream books and materials available at high street book shops are not sufficient: this is aimed at the mainstream crowd aiming for 550 to 650 or so. Forums like TestMagic and BeatTheGMAT get you started thinking about this. I really recommend looking at the GMAT Strategy Guide complied by a few others. I have posted what I think is the most interesting part of this on my blog, Study tips that every single 700+ scorer mentioned. In a similar vein, there are some useful Insights from GMAC posted under the GMAT Strategies category of MGMAT Blog: i.e. those who study harder and longer generally do better. There are also other articles on the internet, such as Manhattan's Strategy Series. I highly recommend reading the debriefs of those who have scored highly and posted debriefs. In fact, not only did I read a number of debriefs from TestMagic, but I also copied out the parts of these I found most useful and posted them on my blog. These snippets that were useful to me (not necessarily you), as well as links to the original posts, can be found here and here.

Don't get too bogged down with the first two stages. What counts at the end of the day is solid grunt work: doing lots of exercises, learning from your mistakes and doing more exercises with a view to improving your 'strike rate'. There is plenty of material out there, in terms of questions and answers. The keys is tackling them in an organised way so that you track which questions are time consuming or you get wrong. Ursula's debrief describes how an Error log can be used to achieve this. It is worth stressing over and over again that the most important part of this is to learn from your mistakes. I also recommend keeping a cheat sheet for particular problems and methods of tackling them that come up again and again. You will notice that the same kind of sequence problem or probability problem will reoccur again and again. Collating all these and their answers is useful. I did this only for the problems I came across from the GMATPrep. I found this extremely useful because the Math problems I came across on the real exam were very similar to the in GMATPrep, and I had rehearsed the approach well for these.

However, the Errorlog approach to learning can be slow if you are not familiar with the subject matter to begin with. In this respect, the Manhattan GMAT guides are excellent for Math.

Stan Schroeder reveals the life cycle of a Digg story. The post is a fantastic analysis of how a story on Digg gets to the top, while others fail to do so. The key element to Digg's algorithm seems to be not the number of diggs, but the velocity of them: how many diggs a story gets per hour. Additionally, the diggs in the earlier part of the story's life cycle count for more than those in the latter part. Who has dugg the story is also important: the top users have higher influence.

Back when I was using a 80386 PC in the 1990s, I would start up my pc and the first thing that would happen was that a black screen with a C:> single command prompt would appear. Most of the time, I would then just punch in the following command against the prompt:
C:> win
This command would boot up Windows 3, a graphical user interface for your PC. More and more applications were migrating to this platform, rather than being started up stand alone from the C:> command prompt. In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, marking the end of the C:> command prompt as the base platform. The base had platform shifted to the graphical user interface.

These days, the first thing I do when I start up my Windows XP PC is to start my Firefox browser. From here I can access my email on GMail and connect with my friends on Facebook. I have even started editing my documents online using Google Docs. I can see the end is near for the graphical user interface we call 'the desktop'. The platform is about to move again to the Web.

some useful advice I've found for my silly mistake epidemic...

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http://www.urch.com/forums/gre/11422-how-get-high-gre-quant-score-average-math-non-math-test-takers.html

The Silly Mistake epidemic

This is the number one reason why even the best math brains end up scoring 750-790 instead of the perfect score. This phenomenon is so common, that only a very few are gifted with the eternal vigilance necessary to avoid being struck by it. I was so vexed with it myself that I thought I was doomed to make a small mistake somewhere. By making yourself aware of the common types of silly mistakes you can greatly reduce becoming susceptible to them. What you have to do is to constantly keep them at the back of your mind during the test, and while solving a problem, just run a mental check to see whether your approach falls prey to most common types. Since each individual may find different concepts problematic, the best remedy is to make a list of your own math vices, which can be drawn from the many practice exercises that you solve. After a while, you’ll start seeing a pattern where you make the same kind of silly mistakes again and again. Note them down carefully. For example, some of the common types of silly mistakes are as follows.

1.Not considering zero, fractions and negative numbers while solving inequalities or picking numbers. Remember that when ETS say a number is real, it can be positive, negative, fractional or zero. Don’t assume it’s always positive and don’t draw your own conclusions.

2.Taking leave of common sense. Sometimes we get so involved with the nitty-gritties of mathematics that we start functioning like automatons and stop thinking. Don’t fall prey to this trap. For example, what is the probability that a number amongst the first 1000 positive integers is divisible by 8? Don’t start counting the multiples of 8! The figure of 1000 is a red herring. Use a little common sense. The numbers will be 8,16,24,32…So, 1 in every 8 numbers is a multiple of 8, even if you consider the first million integers. So Probability is 1/8 (Question from Power-Prep.)

3.Not drawing figures. Drawing figures, especially in questions relating to geometry, speed, etc. makes the question ten times easier to understand. Drawing figures also makes the question more true to life. For example, if ETS tells you that Sally lives 10 miles due west of John and Anna lives 14 miles due north of John, you can bet your farm they want you to use the Pythagoras theorem. Don’t miss the obvious; draw a diagram.

4.Forgetting definitions. If you forget that 1 is not a prime number, you’re making life hard for yourself. Definition questions are the easiest to solve.


The single most important requirement – The ‘open sky’ approach.

This is not really my brainchild and I read about it on some IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) website. They summed it up in one sentence straight: “To do well on the GRE you require a free and uncluttered mind”. This is so true. It was pathetic to see so many students on the test day, outside the test center, with open books, cramming something last minute. If you have to keep referring to your book (and unfortunately for them, on the test day) then you haven’t prepared well since you aren’t sure of yourself. Learn everything you can lay your hands on, but on the test day, your mind should be totally blank. Your mind should be like a Swiss Army Knife with all it’s blades in closed posisition, but ready to whip out any one when necessary. You never know what concept you may have to use on your test question, but you should feel confident that it’s there somewhere in your mind and that you can recall it when necessary. Sure, you’ll get your share of jitters on the test day, but those should not arise from a lack of confidence.

Following on from my previous post summerising some concepts of free content distribution that are being talked about on the Internet: TechDirt point to a post by Kevin Kelly that describes eight ways in which scarcity can be added to digital content to make it valuable enough to pay for.

I think the first two that Kevin points out are particularly compelling:

• Immediacy: imagine having tomorrow's content, today. What is interesting about this idea is that it is the opposite of the BBC opening up its Archive, which is centred around making old content available to viewers. Which would you pay more for: the next episode of Lost now instead of next week or an episode of Lost from a month ago? The answer to this question may vary depending on the type of programme that is substituted for Lost. In the same way that Jackson 5 songs have reemerged in charts of songs sold through iTunes, there may be some programmes that people will want to watch over and over again.
• Personalisation: in a world where there are millions of websites and hundreds of TV channels, determining what and where to consume your media from can be challenge. Amazon.com has for years used technology to guide users to the things they are interested in. Imagine you could have all news you are interested in - what is happening in your local area, the latest news to feed your addiction to Le Mans racing - all of this for the same price as an in print daily newspaper. Would you buy it?
  

I'm now thinking that what the GMAT really tests is different modes of thinking. GIN's posts provide the clearest hint:
* Reading Comprehension: understanding and digesting information that is read
* Sentence Correction:
- not being phased by question
- thinking through all rules/concepts and determining which apply

For Data Sufficiency:
For each of the two statements, and then them combined:
- thinking of the different values that can be punched in to test different scenarios. e.g. with a formula question, going through negative and positive values combinations for different variables
- often one statement has more information than it seems
- rephrasing questions to make the formula/question easier understood
- determining different values that can be ascertained from information

The test is also a test of stamina and concentration over a long period of time.

http://gmatclub.blogs.com/blog/2004/07/gmat_prep_tips.html

Study tips that every single 700+ scorer mentioned.

1. Record all mistakes on wrong questions and revisit them no sooner than 5 days. If still getting wrong, then zero on the subset's and go for more help.
2. Always read the explanation in the book to see why you get it wrong and take enough time to really understand the concept.
3. Pick a date and register. Don't study then register. There was a tendency to not take prep time as seriously.
4. Quite a few went through OG questions more than once. Not all questions on the repeat though; Mainly verbal sections and Quant that were areas of weakness.
5. Wrote practice essays at least 20 times under timed conditions.
6. Visit the test center before the day of test. Many did so a week or two before.
7. Time spent by most averaged between 3 and 4 months.
8. All averaged 2-3 hrs per day and no less than 10-12 hrs on the weekends.
9. Took advantage of every break during the GMAT. Take a bathroom break, some washed their face to wake up, got fresh air.
10. Study in blocks. One person mentioned studying in 80 minute blocks without getting up to build stamina. Another person mentioned studying in 75 minute blocks with exact numbers of questions that are on the real GMAT to build stamina and skill. Many agree that the ability to handle the time constraints is nearly as important is solving the problem. Scores in the actual GMAT are worse if you leave an answer blank than if you get the answer wrong.

Interesting note:
The Official Guide for GMAT contains questions that are in the 550 to 650 difficulty range.