Target CrITiCaL ReasOniNG

Have been going real slow with my Prep so far as I was involved with some community work and also was over loaded with work at office.Now I have finished the community service project I was working on and also my office work load will be a bit lighter for next one month or so.

I have planned to attach the sections where I can attain 100 percent accuracy rate. I have identified Quants and CR as the two sections where I can aim at giving my sore aboost. For quants I am not doing anything specific as of now but I am pretty sure that with a little bit of practise and a great amount of concentration while giving the tests I will be able to avoid the careless mistakes I might make during the test.

For critical Reasoning I have started with practising the questions given in the LSAT. I read it on scoretop.com that LSAT CR is tougher and if we can practise with LSAT CR questions we can surely do good in GMAT CR.
You can go to scoretop.com and get loads of practise sets from LSAT to practise CR. So next few days I will be doing just CR and will also keep working on sentence corrections.

Somehow I feel that I will end up with 2-3 mistakes each in RC and SC and CR each. So if I can get all right in Qquants and decrease my mistakes in verbal I would be in a very good shape.

For SC I have finished Princeton Review and the Verbal workout of Princeton Review. I gave a test but still ended up with 10 mistakes in verbal section. I have to see how I can improve on Sentence correction in particular.

Some good information

Below is the post I got from http://brit-chickmba.blogspot.com . Found it really good. Might be of help to some of u as well.


What I'm looking for
Before talking about each school, I thought it would be useful to post the lists I made of why I want to do and MBA and what I want from a programme.

What do I want to achieve?

Equip myself to lead an nfp organisation in the future, by:

* developing skills in strategy and leadership
* gaining a deeper understanding of the issues affecting nfp orgs
* building more generalist skills and knowledge onto my specialist skills, knowldege and experience.
* acquiring enough knowledge of other specialisms to understand the issues and ask intelligent questions
* gaining knowledge and skills in the 'hard' areas
* building on my knowldege and skills in the 'soft' areas

What am I looking for when chosing an MBA

* Core courses with a good mix of 'hard' and 'soft'
* Opportunity to lok in-depth at leadership, strategy and nfp issues
* Ability to have both breadth and depth in course taken
* To learn from experts working at the 'cutting edge'
* To learn from my fellow students
* To be able to put theory into action
* To be in a co-operative culture
* Opportunity to work and study with people from a wide-range of backgrounds
* To be somewhere I'll enjoy living and studting
* Good links to nfp orgs and consultacies
* Interesting extra-currics
* Interesting people
* A firm foundation for future professional practice and development
* A well-regarded course
* A mix of teaching methods, used effectively
* Opportunitied to sing (a long-term hobby that I want to continue)
* Finance available for international students
* A loan forgiveness programme
* Decent transport links with the UK
* Not too big, but not too claustrophobic
* Excitement!

The above aren't in any particular order. I'm going to go through them at some point and divide the criteria into 'essential', 'desirable', and 'bonus', and probably add in some more that I think of along the way.

Edited to add: In response to requests, anyone wanting to use this list elsewhere is very welcome to do so, but I'd appreciate it if you could credit where it originated. Thanks.

Now, as promised, my thought on each school:

Yale
What makes it stand out

*Very good reputation for its nfp offerings.
*Interesting nfp focussed resources and courses (e.g. Programme on Social Enterprise, Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures, Nonprofit Organiosations Clinic.
*Social Entrepreneurship course
*Strong offerings in the strategy area.
*Strong offerings in the leadership area (including Chief Executives Leadership Institute, Creativity and Innovation course)
*Intersting joint offerings with other schools, particulalrly liked the look of 'Business Ethics and Sleeping Well' with the School of Divinity.
*Small school.

Concerns

*New Haven
*No university housing, how difficult will it be to find accommodation when I'm coming from across the Atlantic and have no local credit history?

Stanford
What makes it stand out

* Overall profile and reputation of the programme
* Location / weather
* Centre for Social Innovation and the nfp course oferrings
* Centre for Leadership Development and Research and the leadership and strategy courses
* Leadership DEvelopment Platform
* Process of Change Lab
* Management communication Programme

Concerns

* Location - west coast makes time difference with and travel time to the UK that little bit more

Before I visited, I'd listed 'reported arrogance of students'. I've now deleted that, but replaced it with 'very high competition from extremely able applicants'! But if you don't ask, you don't get, and the worst they can do is say 'no'.

Kellogg
What makes it stand out

* Centre for Nonprofit Management
* Offering of noprofit leadership non-credit course, early on in the year
* Social Impact Club and Conference
* LEAP
* Well regarded programme, both generally and for nfp's
* Very team focussed
* Good leadership and strategy offerings
* Board Fellowship course

Concerns

Slightly larger programme than the other two

One Down....dont know how many more to go :)

I have been really keen on seeing what my score would look like if I take a full length test. But I had been restraingning myself from taking a full length test so that I dont waste one test cos of this temptation.

I did some basic stuff like reading the strategy to crack sentece correction and critical reasoning questions. I also did the Princeton review Verbal workout for sentence correction.
So finally I thought I should og ahead and take a full length test and I took the Princeton Review first cd test.Was taking it on my friends comp and it asked me to enter first word in Acknowledgement section for authentication, had to go back home and get the book.

So i did finally start my test.

First section promted to me was AWA and I dint even think twice before skipping the section :)
Next to come was Maths. I told myself not to hurry up through the section and give it with extra caution so that I dont make careless mistakes. I was pretty confident that I will get all of them right. Dint face any conceptual problems in any of the questions. But i guess that must be the case with most of the people. being an Indian male with Engineering background puts me in a good stead on my math skills.

The next section was the one where I really wanted to judge where I stand today so that I can plan my strategy accordingly. I was careful with the first 15 questions and gave them some extra time and went slow. I was trying to be careful and was also trying hard to keep my concentration level good. But looks like it dint happen :(

After finishing the test I was prompted if I would want to upload y score for which i said yes. But then my PC dint have anet connection so it dint happen. It then showed me the table where it listed out in each section which questions I got wrong and which ones I got right. Now here culd I find my score :(
Now I am still not surer how bad or decent my current status is. If you guys can help then here are the stats :

Quants 3 Wrong out of 37 and all of them were wide aprt and all after first 15 questions. Careless mistakes :(

Verbal wasnt as good as I wanted it to be. Anyway I know its the area I need to work on:
3 wrong in SC3 in CR4 in RC
so total of 10 wrong out of 41 :( But the good thing was no mistakes in first 10.

Any clues on how u think I stand at this point of time.I know it wont make much difference as neither will I get over confident nor complacent but still I had this curiosity to know the score.

Anyway I know the areas I need to work on now. So I will try harder to cut my mistakes there and be more careful in quants and not commit any careless mistakes.

Today is saturday but we are officially working as we have a release coming up soon :) Listening to Enrique One night stand have a grt day guys

Its not that bad after all :)

Hey guys the sentence correction doesnt seem as tough as I was thinking after going through the rules in the Princeton Review.
I have practised a bit about how to identify the common GMAT errors and have been made good progress atleast in the tests given in the Princeton Review book.

I know it might be relatively easy and not a correct reflection of how the actual level of difficulty of sentence correction may be in actual GMAT. It has atleast helped mke get rid of phobia of Sentence Correction.

Going forward I plan to finish Princeton Review Verbal Workbook and then move on to kaplan and then Kaplan verbal workbook.

Last would be the OG :)

I hope this is the correct approach and should help me ace the SC questions on GAMT>
I am right noe concentrating only on SC as I was most scared of this.
I tried Quants and DS and I am sure with a bit of concentration I can get most of them right. That leaves me with SC and CR and RC to concentrate on.
Planning to take my first full length test over the weekend. We have along weekend ahead as we have a holiday for Independence Day on Aug 15th .
Happy Independence Day !!!

Done with the DIagnostic Test

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; In matters of taste, swim with the current.
-- Thomas Jefferson

I finally bouth my First book Kaplan GMAT book. Took my first Diagnostic test and was not sure how to react. It dint go too well or too bad.

It had 38 questions and I got 29 right and 9 wrong.
Data sufficiency 2 wrong (The first two questions of the test. Careless mistakes)
Quants : All correct. it was pretty simple
CR : 3 wrong :( A bit disappointed here
RC : 3 wrong. This is my weakness I know and I am ready to work on it as well.
SC: 1 wrong. Was a bit happy as i was most scared of SC.

It showed a score of 76%. Dint know how to interpret that in terms of absolute score.
Have been reading Spidey's Notes for SC so far. PLanning to get Princeton Review and Kaplan Verbal workbook.
Will start with PR and take a full length test from that to gauge where I stand as diagnostic test dint tell me much I think.
Then I will do Kaplan and later on OG and kaplan verbal workbook.

Long way to go :)