Gmat Journey

What´s up?

2008-04-14T13:13:00.002-05:00

Well, I know it´s been ages since the last time I made a post on this blog... But I´ve been waiting for something interesting worth writting...

So here is a small recap of what is been going on...

1. I finished my math summary for the GMAT, I hope that in a few weeks I can scan it since it is all hand written, but it will take a long while, since is a long summary, aproximately, 70 pages or more...

2. In January, I decided not to take the GMAT again, since I had not much time between studying time and preparation for applications, so I decided to apply to 3 universities that seemed very good and didn´t asked for this test.

3. I decided to apply to 3 universities: 1 in Switzerland, with a master in finance, 1 in England with a master in financial economics and 1 in Belgium with a master in financial economics as well.

4. I managed to complete and translate all the papers that the universities asked for... I don´t know why exactly it is so horrible the amount of papers that we need to get together in Colombia in order to study outside our country.

5. I took the IELTS (this test is not as nice as the TOEFL, I liked the TOEFL better). I took this test, because one of the universities that I wanted to apply asked for it. I got a good grade.

6. I sent all the documentation to the 3 universities. It was tons of work, and very expensive, and I have to tell, that I really admire all the people who have the guts to fill and complete an application request and all the essays and stuff.

7. I am waiting for the feedback from this universities... I hope one of them can accept me. One of them, the one in Switzerland, already said no to my application, and they were extremely rude.

8. I am trying to keep a positive mind, but I am also considering B plans... As soon as I have more news, I will keep you guys updated!

Thanks for all the support and nice words... I try to keep a nice attitude, since it is so important.

Application Tasks before applying

2007-11-04T22:03:00.000-05:00

Well, again a long time without posts, but again, I’ve been really busy, but I am glad to say that this time I got busy because my whole application process.

There isn’t much to say about GMAT, but there is a lot to say about the application process, and in this past month, I finally decided to which universities I am going to apply, taking into account several factors: Country of teaching, University, Curriculum, Price, Living, Average age of the students, Amount of latins in the program (I don’t want to be the only latin there). I have 4 universities that I want to apply on the first round, and 2 more for backup in march.

Maybe I don’t have much to say about GMAT, but I have a list of activities that has occupied my time lately, maybe this list can help you guys, since if you are interested in GMAT, application process is also on the way :)

Write to all universities asking them all the related questions about applications and scholarships
Make a list of all teachers that I am going to contact for references
Make a list of all friends and colleagues that I am going to contact for references
Contact all teachers that I am going to ask for references
Contact all friends and colleagues that I am going to ask for references
Find out how to make the apostillaje (legalization of documents) process and the costs of this process
Contact translation companies for prices on translation
Contact Fedex and other major messaging companies for prices
Review all required documentation needed in order to apply
Review all costs - dates to process the documentation needed
Start looking for possible Gmat dates and the costs of the test
Find out with the British Council and with the Toefl organization to see which test I will take, the difficulty and costs
Update Curriculum Vitae in Spanish and in English and make each version
Make a budget of costs of the whole application process
Make a board for follow up of the application process
Review possible scholarships for each institution
Review housing and every day expenses

Math Summary

2007-10-02T07:40:00.001-05:00

It’s been two months without any posts... Well, first of all I am pretty embarrassed, since I love this blog, but to be perfectly honest, I never found anything really interesting to write, so I didn’t.

Here is a small review of the two last months: I started to work hard on my math summary, I had a lot of things to fix at home, I started my painting lessons again, I had dengue and the big project that I was working on, got approved. Most of this time passed between the dengue stuff and the project, the cool thing is that this project will represent something really nice to show at my curriculum and also at the application process.

The only big thing that I was working on related to gmat is my math summary, in this summary, I am making a compilation of all the math books that I have, since I got tired of looking at some subject and no book had it totally well explained, so I went to the OG, and I made a list of all the math subjects tested on the GMAT, so later on, my summary can be my main math reference.

I know this sounds like a lot of work... the truth, yes it has, but the cool thing is that I reviewed a lot of math concepts, and since math is my main concern, for me it was important to make this summary, I expect to have this summary done by next week...

Well, anyway, here I am back again into posting!

Miracles...

2007-08-01T22:43:00.001-05:00

Well, miracles do happen... I just found it out this past weekend...

The thing is that no matter how much I know that I have to study, that the GMAT is important, and all that, I wasn’t able to study for more than 30 straight minutes...

And there came my new hobby, listening history... I’ve always been a great fan of history and I love reading about history, well, the thing is that I have heard from a woman called Diana Uribe, who is a philosopher, who has a radio show where she talks for an hour about history, and she starts to tell you the story of all sort of things, just as a friend was telling you a nice story of something that happened to him over the weekend... so she is really fun to hear and you are learning at the same time.. Cool, isn’t it?

So, the thing is that I started to hear one of the History of England cd´s this past Sunday, and then by art of magic, I started to be productive... I know that it sounds weird that you study math and hear a woman narrating history at the same time, but I don’t really care, all I care about is that I’ve found study fun, and this past Monday, I didn’t turned on the TV, but I went straight to study... =)

I also think that it has helped me that the TV in the bedroom is broken so to watch TV, I have to go to the kitchen or to the studio.

And also other thing that I found to be a good help is the fact that whenever I study I get very very cold, maybe is the fact that all the blood goes to my brain? (I’m just kidding, but I really don’t know why I always get so cold when I study) so to avoid that much cold, I am now wearing two sweaters, and voila!

Anyway, it is really cool to feel finally motivated to study... It doesn’t really matter what gives you that extra something, the important thing is to find it.

Chichi

2007-08-01T22:41:00.000-05:00

I’ve been away for quite a long time, since on the 13th of this month; I received terrible news, my great-aunt died. Usually, it wouldn’t a big motive of sadness, but she was an amazing woman, who happened to be my mentor.

I worked with her for a year in New York, thanks to her, and I had the chance to learn and experience wonderful things because of her, that otherwise, I would never be able to see or experiment.

She also shaped me to be the workaholic that I am today, and she thought me about discipline and how to be gentle at the same time with other, and how important family is. She was the best boss ever, because she always took you to your limits, but she also rewarded the efforts to achieve it.

As you can see, she was extremely cool and nice! And we will always miss her, since she was a very important family member for all of us.

After receiving this news, I traveled to Barranquilla, to be with my grandma, who was very affected, since she was her little sister, I stayed with them for almost a week, and it helped us all to feel better.

Anyway, I wanted to make this post, just to write, a few lines about Chichi, the incredible woman that I pointed on this post.

Nice Advice

2007-06-14T09:32:00.000-05:00

Checking the Manhattan Gmat site, I found at the Gmatters series a good piece of advice about preparation, I found this extract the most important or meaningfull to me, but if you want to check the complete information, go to the attached link.

Okay, I know my strengths and weaknesses. Now what?

Once you've gone through the above exercises, you should have a pretty good idea whether you want to take a class, hire a private tutor or prep on your own. In addition, you should be able to determine a couple of other things:

The total amount of time you're going to need for primary studying (that is, the first time you learn the material). If you take a structured class, the schedule will already be pre-determined.

The amount of time to set aside for review, after you finish your primary studying and before you take the test for the first time. Most people take the test between 2 and 6 weeks after instruction ends.

The amount of buffer time you need to ensure that you can take the test a second time, if necessary. You are only allowed to take the GMAT once in a 31-day period (and 5 times a year).

The application deadlines of your preferred schools. You will, of course, have to work backward from these drop-dead dates. If you have the time, it's preferable to get the test out of the way before you have to start filling out the applications themselves. Keep in mind that your GMAT score is valid for 5 years! If you know you will apply to b-school within 5 years, get the GMAT out of the way as soon as possible.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Studying

Okay, now let’s talk about what to do during an individual study session. At the beginning of each study session, take a few minutes to decide what you’re going to accomplish; prioritize these items so that, if you can’t get through it all, you’ll have done the most important items first. You can choose to focus on one of three main areas in a given study session:
(1) learning content/concepts
(2) developing strategy
(3) preparing yourself for the CAT experience.
(4) doing exercises (this is an addition of mine)

For sessions focused on learning content (facts and rules), structure your study so that you learn a related set of concepts. Then, put those concepts into practice via actual problems from you’re the 3 Official GMAT guides. When you can successfully apply concepts to actual GMAT problems, it’s time to graduate to a new set of concepts. As you complete problems, check the answers. If you get a problem wrong, try to figure out why. When you get it right, you’re still going to examine the explanation! First, make sure you got it right for the right reason (i.e., you didn’t just get lucky).

Second, examine the explanation to see if you could have done it more quickly or cleanly. For every problem, whether you got it right or wrong, ask yourself whether you’ll do a similar problem the same way or a different way the next time.

For sessions focused on improving strategy, first review the lesson or lab that covers a particular strategic technique and decide how best to assess yourself on that technique. To gauge your progress on particular problem types, such as critical reasoning, do a set of problems all of that type using a particular strategy; check the answer explanations after each one, make sure you understand why you got it wrong or right, and assess whether you successfully implemented the strategy you were studying.

Finally, for sessions focused on your CAT preparedness, try the following exercises:

*The 30/30. Choose 30 problems of one type. Allow yourself 30 seconds per problem to eliminate as many incorrect answer choices as possible. Give yourself one point for every correctly eliminated incorrect answer choice. A score of 60+ indicates you are learning how to make effective educated guesses.

*Time log. Keep a log of your practice problems; list the book and problem number, problem type, time spent, result (right or wrong) and, if applicable, content / knowledge being tested. Review the log once a week to spot good and bad patterns; talk to your teacher about how to remedy the weaknesses.

*Appraise the scrap paper you’ve been using for practice problems. Is your work legible? Clean? Concise? Pretend that you have limited scrap paper whenever you do homework. Never erase anything. This will train you for the laminated scrap paper you’ll have to use on the actual test. (Take it a step further: have Kinko’s laminate some legal-sized graph paper, buy some dry erase markers and use these to do your homework!).

*Ask your instructor for other “tests” to address any of your particular weaknesses.
One last point: when you hit a wall, stop. If you’re so tired that you can’t keep your eyes open, or so stressed you can’t concentrate, take a 15-minute break. After that, if you still can’t pull it together, reschedule your study session for later that day or the next day.

Second test:

People do often see improvement on a second exam simply because they know what to expect the second time around, but this improvement, by itself, usually isn’t enough to justify taking the test again. Now that you have the experience of one test behind you, though, you can use your knowledge to focus your prep for next time – you just have to ask yourself the right questions:

Did you think you had scored higher or lower or were you about right?
Was your pacing good or did you feel pressed for time?
Did the test seem harder or easier than your practice tests?
Do you remember any particular concepts or problems that really threw you off track?

GMAT ROADMAP

2007-06-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

Strategy to tackle the GMAT

What I should do to tackle this test? Well, this weekend and part of this week I had the time to sit and think about it for a while, the first thing that I did is trying to figure out in which sections I feel stronger, and in which I don’t.

The sections that I feel that I am fine are: AWA and Reading Comprehension.

I have problems in the quantitative part, both Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency, and in the verbal part I have to work on Sentence Correction and Critical Reasoning; I don’t feel that bad in the verbal part, but I have a lot to improve on.

But for each section I came up with a roadmap:

Math

This has to be my main section for me to tackle since, I always had problems with math, and since I need to show a good math score, since the master that I am pursuing is a master in finance, which requires a lot of numerical skills. Here are some of the actions that I plan to take for the math section:

Summary of the most important concepts.
Study and come up with my own strategy for DS
Practice with OG and Test Magic.

For math the most important thing is practice, and for that what you need is time, since I know that after a while of putting my brain the math mood, I will be o.k.

There is a really good chance that I will include a math tutor in the preparation, since the math tutor that I once hired is really good and cheap, so for the hard questions, I think he can be tons of help!

Verbal

I know that verbal can be the “it” factor, since a lot of people have really good math scores, so a good score in the verbal part can really help my score to get boosted. I have to take advantage of the fact, that even though English is not my native language, I am good with grammar rules (thanks to French also) so I have to work hard on this area, but since I love doing verbal things, I know that verbal won’t be so hard for me. Tons of work, of course, but not that hard at last.

Here are the actions that I plan to take on the verbal section:

Summary of the most important concepts.
Study Manhattan SC.
Practice with OG and Test Magic.
Take time every day and read some articles of different areas after lunch or in the morning bus.

AWA

I know this is not a very crucial section on the GMAT, and since I think that I am a good writer, my strategy for this section is fairly easy, just follow the instructions that I wrote on how to tackle this section some time ago and write one essay every two weeks on my blog to hear other people’s opinion about it, that would mean that at the end of the GMAT preparation (almost 3 months) I will have 3 essays of each type done, so I think that is more than a good preparation for that section. Anyway, if there is something that I learned about the GMAT is that in this section a lot of it comes into the subject that you get, if you are lucky to get a good subject, it’s easy, but if it is a horrible one, no matter how good you write, it will be harder to write something nice.

Here is the link to my AWA complete strategy: http://gmatjourney.blogspot.com/2006/05/awa.html

Mistakes that I don’t want to repeat

If people are not able to learn from their old mistakes, there would be no point of making them... So what I don’t want to repeat from my old experience? Well, it’s easy, it would be not to expend too much time searching for information and making flashcards, I spend tooooo much time making that stupid mistake, and I don’t want to repeat it, so this time I am just going to focus on the OG, and Manhattan SC, and the other books I will take them as a backup, or as a strategy source, but the most important thing with this test as most tests is practice.

What I am planning to do different

Just yesterday, I read this phrase: “for a 7XX GMAT is a bit like training to go into space; one must strive for optimum mental and physical condition levels to best complete the mission. A key component to getting that extra 5-10% on T-day is to minimize stress by staying healthy and alert.” (I have a good amount of nice GMAT related phrases that I found; I will post them later on).

I think this phrase is totally right, so it is important to take it easy, not get too stressed with the test, and work with a good mindset. I paid for my Yoga and Meditation lessons, but I haven’t been able to take them yet, so I plan on taking them really soon, since I already paid for a whole quarter. Right now my painting lessons are helping me in a huge deal to relax and lay back.

I also plan to work on the concepts, because at least for me, if my concepts are clear things are easier for me, and I proved that theory during college where I always got very good grades.

Another important thing is that this time I am going to breath, sleep and dream with the OG, which is the key of success and the best way to get into the test mindset.

So in summary, my whole strategy will be focused in two main points: Strong Concepts & Practice OG.

Now, here is my GMAT Preparation schedule:

Being realistic, I know that I can’t start my preparation until this coming Sunday (June 10th), before that it would be really hard since I have to finish two paintings that I am working on and which have to be done by this coming Saturday, so I think that on Sunday, I will be able to study.

So the starting preparation date would be on June 10th, now, the final day, or the G-Day would be September 3rd, I think this would be a good date, and If I happen to have a bad result, (I hope not) I still have time to take it again. I tried to take the test maybe at the middle of august, but I know that between august 13 and august 27 I can’t take days away from work, because at that time we have the annual inventory, which is very important for us, and take it on august 10 is not good for me since I want to study more, and I don’t want to kill myself while doing so. Another reason to take the test at that moment is the fact that I will work on the application process at the same time.

Doing the math the total amount of days that I would have to study the GMAT would be 84.

So here is how I plan to split my preparation days.

SUBJECT # Days # Weeks
Math Concepts: 9 1,29
Verbal Concepts: 5 0,71
Manhattan Gmat: 7 1,00
Strategies from other books: 6 0,86
OG 10th and 11th edition: 50 7,14
Days I can’t because of work: 4 0,57
Free / Vacation days: 3 0,43
TOTAL 84 12

So by the second week of July I should be on the OG train already. I don’t want to set so strict dates, because I know that if you miss one, it is really easy to get discouraged, that is why I included 4 days that I can’t work because of my office and 3 vacation or free days! In those 3 vacation day, I have to take away that Sunday before the G-Day, since I don’t want to study before this test.

Cab Incident

2007-05-13T21:38:00.000-05:00

I wanted to wait some time before making this post, since it was kind of hard what happened to me last weekend.

I was going to my painting lessons, which are every Saturday morning from 9 to 1 p.m. Well, since I have to carry so many things and since the academy is really close to home I always take a cab.

Well, last Saturday, I was going to my painting lesson, and I was in a really good mood, and very happy, since I love painting, when I took the first cab that passed without passengers, when I was going to enter into this cab, the driver told me, to close the door slowly, and I tried to, but since it was really soft, it sounded kind of hard, and then the guy got really angry and started to yell at me… when that happened I told the guy to let me get down, since we only passed one house, since I wanted to start my day in a good way…

That is where the nightmare begun, the guy started to yell in a hysterical way to me, and then he called me all the in the most horrible ways ever, and then he slapped me in the face… Yes, as you guys are reading, he slapped me in the face!

What happened next? Well, maybe because of all the power points that I received about personal defense, or maybe because I was so afraid, but I kicked him in his shoulder… how my leg got that far from the ground, I don’t know, adrenaline makes wonders! And then I started to yell like crazy so this guy would let me down. At first he stopped, so I could go down (in all this time he never stooped yelling at me and telling me horrible stuff) and then when I had one foot out, he started the cab again, and I had my foot dragged all over the street (he even kind of ruin one of my new converse) and until he stopped.

How did I make him stop? Well, since I live close to the military hospital, and there are always militaries on the front door, he had to stop. The militaries came to see if I was o.k. and then came the police… The worst part is that there is nothing that an honest person can do against this horrible people, since there were no “major” injuries.

I had a terrible weekend, and now that things are over and I am fine again, thanks to the support of Andres, my family and a group of good friends, I wanted to make this post, for several reasons, first, as a warning, when taking cabs, try to get one on the phone, second of all, try to get as close to the door as possible and always be alert, third, try to get a bus before a cab, at least in a bus you have the help and support from more people, in a cab you are all alone against the other person, and you don’t know that they have in there to harm you.

My mom and a lot of friends told me that I was very lucky, things would be a lot worse, and now my dad calls me karate kid, after the movie that I love so much (thank you Mr. Miyagi) so I guess that I have to grateful.

Big Project is Over

2007-04-19T23:06:00.000-05:00

Today I took a look at my blog and I realized that my last entry was a month ago… Well, the good news, is that I am finally ready to start my Gmat and of course my application process again.

Last week, I finished a big project that I worked for the last 2 years and who consumed a lot of my time, this project was so hard that I had to call a doctor in order to help me out, since I had a neck problem because of all the stress that I had to go through.

This week, all my efforts were focused on two things: resting and getting a normal work and life schedule.

So right now I am feeling a lot better, and this weekend I will start my prep again, I hope to have a lot of cool things to write this coming Monday.

Beat the GMAT scholarship

2007-03-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

Hi Guys,

Well, check it out,. Eric just posted this year's Beat the Gmat Scholarship and the awards are really cool...

Good Luck!

Back from vacations

2007-01-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

It’s been quite a very long time since my last post...

Updates:

Happy new year to everybody!!! (It’s kinda of late, but is the intention what matters, isn’t it?)

I bought and moved to my new house, that is why I wasn’t able to write for quite a long time, because I had no internet and I was really busy with all the things that I had to do in order to get my house look the way I wanted.

My parents were here in Bogotá, so for vacation, we had a great time, but I spend a couple of day missing them.

But it wasn’t all just fun, I also did some GMAT – Master related activities:

I bought a new desk for my studio so I can be able to study in it, my old desk was a pain in the ass, I never liked it.

I went to an MBA talk from INCAE, which is a school in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, who is really good, they only have a graduate business school, and they are the best rated grad school in South America for MBA´s. I don’t want to go there, since I want a short master, but I like the fact that I went, since talks are really inspiring and motivating. They also left me a couple of ideas related to the application process that I have to work on.

I also had a date at Colfuturo; this is a government institution, which helps students with loans to study away. If after you finish your studies, you come back to Colombia, part of your debt is forgotten. In this date, they clarified all the questions that I had concerning their application process.

This Thursday I will go to the Luis Angel Arango library, (this is a great library, in fact Bogotá, has a great libraries network) to get my membership card, you have to pay for it, but is not too expensive.

I started to consider the idea of not only a Master in Finance, but also applying to an MBA (one year MBA´s only) so I started to a checking list.

Good debriefings Tips

2006-12-26T18:35:00.000-05:00

Since I am starting my GMAT preparation all over again I decided to start by going through some debriefings that I think are really useful: Twinsplitter, Ursula, Piyust / ticktacktoe and Eric from beat the gmat. I took all of this information from testmagic.com.

For my previous preparation, I just read them and said to my self, oh this is interesting, but I forgot a lot of their tips, so this time I made a list of the most important points that I found out on each of them (I am also adding some ideas that came to me while reading their tips):

Use Ursula’s practice sheet to get a feeling of what went wrong with each question (slow, unsure, correct, wrong, careless error, concept error)

Ursula usually did 40 problems in a 80 minute session and all questions where the same type (DS, CR, RC, etc)

Ursula’s time strategy: Divide the total time of a section (quant or verbal) in 3 and try to complete 1/3 of the questions on each block, but remembering to be flexible on verbal.

Get Piyu´s CR presentation (it can be obtained at Piyu´s links at this debrief at test magic or also at beat the GMAT forum) and work with it. Piyu´s Math document at the end of my math preparation.

Practice Boldface questions.

Anytime you see helpful information at test magic or other page, paste the link in a word document.

Search for static’s books for concepts.

Copy Twin’s SC Strategy.

Look for real life examples to add for AWA.

Do a lot of problems in front of a computer to get used to it.

At data sufficiency questions read the question very well and determine the kind of question, and when solving it, keep the statements separated.

Get sahil´s sentence correction notes.

While working with critical reasoning write down or at least identify the type of question.

Go through Powerprep quantitative overview.

Use the forums!

New Blog: El Mecateadero

2006-12-11T10:55:00.000-05:00

Well, it happened that I really liked this whole blogging stuff. That is why I decided to open up a new blog, this is one is about a little bit of everything, I just started it... So I hope you guys can visit it sometime. The name of the blog is El mecateadero, it is a Spanish word that accounts for a place where you go with your friends to eat something small between meals and where you hang around and have a good time.

The link to it is: http://www.mecato.blogspot.com/

Don´t spend too much time looking for information

2006-12-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I started packing since I will be moving to my new home next weekend. While packing I took the opportunity to really see which GMAT Stuff I really needed, and what was really important, Since I have a pretty good deal of books: OG 10th and 11th edition, Kaplan GMAT and Kaplan Math review, Barron’s GMAT and Barron’s GRE and Manhattan GMAT, Plus some other reference books as Grammar in Use, Algebra and Arithmetic’s by baldor and some other math and grammar books, I think that I don’t need so many downloaded resources, that is why I decided to throw away all the things that were bothering, or were taking my attention away, from 8 folders, I ended up with only one, with the MOST important things to read and to take into account.

What is the message after all? Don’t spend too much time collecting information as it happened to me, I think that it really takes your attention away from the real deal and it is a very very common mistake

Big Decision

2006-11-27T11:54:00.000-05:00

The week that I was away in Villa de Leyva, I had a good a mount of time to think about a good deal of things, specially the whole application process.

I made a decision, which some people might consider as a step back, but for me it’s the best decision ever... I am not going to apply this year; I will apply for the 2008-2009 period.

What led me to this decision, well, first of all, the whole reason I was applying this year, is because I was very enthusiastic about the Alban scholarship, this is a scholarship that is given to Latin American students who wants to go to Europe. At first, I thought that this scholarship was very very big, and since this is the last year that this scholarship will be given I knew that I had to apply this year.

Since I had a bad GMAT score, I had an idea, and it was to apply to an university that didn’t ask for this test, and then apply to Alban. I was in the middle of this process, when I realized that this scholarship isn’t that good as I thought.... That is where ideas came into my head... If Alban isn’t so good, why apply so early, when I am not ready under any concept to pursue a master degree?

The answers to this question, lead to my final decision. Which is not to apply this year.

My reasons:

I am in the middle of buying my first house process.
I am in a kind of new position, and I still have a lot of things to do.
I need more financial experience.
I need a better GMAT score in order to get accepted in the universities that I like.
Because I don’t feel that this is the right moment to apply.

So well, this whole thing doesn’t mean that I am not going to study for the GMAT anymore, or that I am quitting, what this decision mean is that I want to do things right, in order to get better results in my future plans.

Economists´ Jokes

2006-11-10T07:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a good friend send me some jokes about economists´ and I wanted to share them for a good laugh... Have a nice weekend =)

An economist is someone who gets rich explaining others why they are poor.

An economist is someone who knows 100 ways to make love, but doesn't know any women/men.

A central banker walks into a pizzeria to order a pizza. When the pizza is done, he goes up to the counter get it. There a clerk asks him: "Should I cut it into six pieces or eight pieces?" The central banker replies: "I'm feeling rather hungry right now. You'd better cut it into eight pieces."

An economist, a philosopher, a biologist, and an architect were were arguing about what was God's real profession. The philosopher said, "Well, first and foremost, God is a philosopher because he created the principles by which man is to live." "Ridiculous!" said the biologist "Before that, God created man and woman and all living things so clearly he was a biologist." "Wrong," said the architect. "Before that, he created the heavens and the earth. Before the earth, there was only complete confusion and chaos!" "Well," said the economist, "where do you think the chaos came from?"

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. - Laurence J. Peter

Economic statistics are like a bikini, what they reveal is important, what they conceal is vital" - Attributed to Professor Sir Frank Holmes, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, 1967.

Phelson's Law (or so I was told) Copying an idea from an author is plagiarism. Copying many ideas from many authors is... research!!

A voice from history. “Not all Germans believe in God but they believe in the Bundesbank"

Not everything is bad news

2006-11-09T18:01:00.000-05:00

Well, I’ve been kind of extremely busy these last few days, but as the title of this post claims... Not everything in life is bad news.

I got my official score, of course the result is the same sad thing, but the only good aspect was my AWA score... I got a 5, and taking into account how nervous I was and the horrible subjects that they gave me and the fact that I never practiced a single essay; it was a really good grade.

Other good news: I had a great birthday... Thank you all for your warm wishes... =) But the best news ever is that the bank passed the loan to buy our dream apartment, so that is the best news ever!!! I also started to study, and this time I am very enthusiastic about it.

Next week I will be out of town, in a company training... I hope I can get some time to study between classes... I think I will.

Tomorrow I will be posting my new study strategy in detail... But I wanted to use this space to say THANK YOU!!! to everybody for the good advice and lovely words.

GMAT: A TOTAL NIGHTMARE =(

2006-10-25T10:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I presented my GMAT and it turned out to be the worst nightmare ever!!!

My final result: 450, math 25 and verbal 27 = (

I know that this result doesn’t really show what I can do, so of course I am really sad and heart broken, but on the other hand, I am relieved that I went trough with it, and that I now will go for another chance.

Here is the story of what went wrong:

Yesterday, I woke up very early, around 6:20 a.m, my stomach wasn’t feeling really good, and I was feeling kind of sick.

I had the “wonderful” idea of studying yesterday morning, just to refresh some concepts, and it turned out to be a total freak out moment since I realized that I forgot some geometry and probability formulas and from that moment everything went down the hill...

I had phone calls that took all of my concentration again, and also I had an unexpected visit...

When I got to the test center the girl turned out to be very nice and very friendly, I signed out the confidentiality papers and all that stuff and I started my test.

Now, there is a description of my test center... Small cubicles and only two people were allowed to take the test at the same time.

I got two horrible essays, and then I knew that I was in trouble, then I had my first break, I had a small chocolate, which was actually very hard, since I was all shaky and my hands could barely open the chocolate.

Then, I enter for the math section... I thought I was doing o.k. but obviously I didn’t I think that I was so nervous that I forgot everything I knew... Then break again and then back to the verbal section, and this time my next cubicle neighbor made my life impossible, he started to cough, and to play with the pen against the table making a terrible amount of noise, it made me lose all of my concentration and after a while I had to go out in the middle of the verbal section and ask the girl from the test center to tell the guy to quit the noise, she told him to do so, but the guy kept doing other kind of noises, not so terrible, but noises after all, and it really affected my whole concentration, at the end I had to guess the last three questions and giving quick and terrible responses to some others, because I runned out of time...

Then, It was the part of the results, and when I saw the 450, some tears came out... of course, I never expected such a terrible result, thank god, I was feeling insecure, and I didn’t send my results to any university.

Later, I got to Andres´ office, and then to the movies, it really helped me to feel better, and when we got home, I changed the whole layout of my studio, I also changed the way I arranged my books, and I started to think how am I going to change my strategy... Right now I am in a meditation kind of state, thinking about what I am going to do now... Today is my birthday, so I am going to enjoy the day, relax, and wait for the weekend to start studying... I have a good idea of what I am going to do, and my strategy will be to focus on OG, and also to make my own abstracts of the most important subjects.

I am more calm that I expected. I think that by taking things slowly and not getting crazy I will get to my goal. I know that I have to study harder and in a more consistent way that I used to do. Any suggestions are more than welcome.

On the other hand here are some comments about the test:

Have everything ready days before, and try to relax before the test day, I was making a lot of last minute arrangements and it really broke me.

The erasable board is not such a horrible thing as everybody says it is... I found it to be very useful, and I really like the fact that the marker passed really smoothly, saving me time, since I always had problems with pencils, they broke all the time...

Try to practice the ear plugs on to avoid noises, since they were too big for me, I found them very annoying, but is good to try to get used to them, can help you a lot, if you have a noisy neighbor...

G-Day this coming monday!!!

2006-10-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

Years without writing... so here is a small recap...

My test date: Next Monday, October 23rd.

Level of studies: not as good as I would like it to be.

What I am going to do: I only have 4 whole days to study, and the morning of the G-Day (I always study the same morning of the test, so that morning I will use it to review important concepts) I took Thursday and Friday off. In these last few days, I will go through Manhattan SC book, do one essay of each kind, finish with Kaplan’s math book and go trough OG to practice exercises of each kind.

How am I feeling? Being realistic? Scared as hell!!! I don’t know if I will get a good grade, but I have to give it a try, what is the worst scenario? That I don’t get a good grade, that I have to repeat the test and apply on December or January, not my favorite scenario... but on the other hand there is always a chance that I will get a good score, I am trying to be as positive as I can be, but is only natural that I feel scared, I am trying to keep it cool, by remembering me, that the wooorst thing is that I have to take it again. This is just a test, not the end of the world...

GMAT Date changed again / Application Process

2006-09-18T17:16:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s pretty obvious that I changed my test date. The new date? October 23, two days before my birthday. Time: 12.45 m, the same hour time that I took the TOEFL, so I take it as a good luck thing, since I got a good TOEFL score, without studying and after a moving.

Now GMAT conditions are kind of the same, but this time, I will study, in fact, I’ve been studying.

This new G-Date is really close to my favorite university deadline, which means that I have to study for the test and prepare my application at the same time. It might sound impossible to some of you, but I’ve been finding it very productive, since being in the application process motivates me a lot.

I also signed up for yoga lessons, my first lesson would be tomorrow. I already had an unblocking session, so I’ve been feeling, really good, my mom was also here, and she gave me tons of love, hugs and kisses, that I really needed, I also started to paint again (oil painting) and for the first time in almost a year of trying I managed to paint something nice.

I am very very optimistic about the future. Right now I am very focused and confident, a new feeling that I haven’t had in a long time. Attitude is everything, right? =)

Blogger entering problems

2006-09-05T09:26:00.000-05:00

I wasn’t able to enter any new post in quite a long time because I had a lot of problems entering the blogger site. Today, almost a month after my last post I’ve been able to enter again.

O.K. What happened to my on this last month? Well I don’t even want to remember, this has been the worst month ever!!!! I had the most enormous amount of work, and I haven’t been able to study. I was only able to finish the Kaplan book, and I just started with the OG 11th edition.

What now? Well I am a total nervous wreck!!!! I don’t really know what to do since I haven’t been able to prepare as hard as I would like to... My test is on September 22nd, and I don’t feel ready. What should I do? Re-schedule my test? My problem so far it’s been my math strategy, which have failed me = (. In verbal I feel tons better but not totally ready...

Here is a little story of my situation, I would really like to hear your imputs about this matter:

I scheduled my test for July, but since I had tons of work I had to re-schedule it. My new test date is September 22nd.

My problem right now is that July and August turned out to be the two most horrible months ever! And until today I’ve been able to take a book again.

Verbal is my stronger area but is not like I am getting the most spectacular results ever, since English is not my first language, but I am a total disaster concerning to math.

My questions are 3:

1. What should I do? I am really thinking about re-scheduling my test for the second time, since September looks kind of better, but I think that I don’t have enough time to study in order to get a good result.

2. What can I do to improve my math? I’ve studying with an algebra book and the math summary for some books, but so far, nothing good has come from this situation.

3. How can you balance a really hard and stressful job with GMAT?

P.S. This post has been changed. First I posted a question that I made to the guy from Manhattan Gmat, but he turned out not the best advicer ever.

Algebra book is out of the way...

2006-08-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

Well I finally made, I was able to finish the horrible algebra book. (Just kidding, it happened to be a really good book, just too long)

These last few days were just really hard because of all the amount of work that I had and courses and stuff, which of course threw me away.

So how are things now that I finished the math book? I did the grammar in use test to see in which subjects I need help. I also did this test last year, before taking the toefl (on October 31st, to be more accurate) and the result at that time was 20% of the questions wrong, and 80% right, that means, 28 questions wrong out of 142, not too bad, but not too good either. Yesterday’s results: a little bit worse; 22% wrong and 78% right, that means that I got 31 questions wrong out of 142. The only thing that made me feel a little bit better is that I got more than 50% of the wrong questions in the same point; it means that I have to work on the same stuff... and of course the mistakes are easier to correct.

What now? My plan is to work on my grammar in use book in the mornings on my way to the office (on the bus) and at nights I at home I started to work on the Kaplan gmat book...

Good Weekend

2006-07-24T16:39:00.000-05:00

Finally, The first productive weekend in quite a long time... I should have studied more, but I really needed to rest, so I went to a trip and I also slept a lot.

I finished chapters 7,8 and 9 of my algebra book, I only have 3 more to go, and I really hope that by Wednesday I can be done with this book.

This weekend was very productive not only because I did some advance, but also because it helped me realize something.... there is no way you can study more than 5 hours on a weekend day, no matter how important the test might be, it’s also very important to rest and get your mind going.

Other nice thing that I did this last days, is that I attended a talk at Colfuturo, which is a part private – part government institution which gives loans and also students aids for graduate studies outside Colombia, and I also worked on some other application stuff, which is my ultimate goal.

MATH VS VERBAL

2006-07-19T11:11:00.000-05:00

Checking the answers that I’ve been receiving to my last post, I received a very nice thing from Aashim, I thought that it would be nice to place it here...

While we are on the topic of Maths vs. Verbal.It's true that verbal directly impacts your score much more than quant but that's only after you get a certain minimum in quant.Here's why(Scaled score vs. percentile):Verbal Quant Percentile39 49 90Because people score so much higher in Quant anything less than a scaled score of 49 can really take your score down badly. On the flip side anything above 50 in Quant will not get you much in the way of a higher overall score.Verbal is where the GMAT can be cracked.

As you see with a 39 scaled score you can reach 90 percentile. Considering the verbal maximum scaled score of 51, means that there are still 13 scaled score pts to go to reach a perfect 51- there surely is room for improvement. In fact anything higher than 44 in verbal is the 99th percentile!!
Q-50 V-38: 720 or 730
Q-48 V-38: 690 or 700
Q-51 V-38: 730!!
Q-47 V-38: 670
Q-46 V-38: 640!
You can see the score fluctuation with a constant verbal and how a low quant pulls the score down.

My strategy/recommendation is to ratchet up the quant to 50 or at least 49(Coz then you have at least 720 in the bag, unless you screw up verbal badly). And then work totally on verbal. (Then with a quant score of 49/50 in the bag, improvements in verbal can max out your score beyond the 750 levels). It's not so easy to score above 40 in verbal and anyone who scores less than 49 in quant has surely made some very stupid mistakes. And obviously GMAC thinks that someone who scores less than 49 in Quant does not deserve to have a high score.

Thinking about this message, I remembered what I read the other day at the beatthgmat.com site, where they have a section called ask Manhattan Gmat, and here I am attaching two extracts from some considerations about obtaining 700+ and a 750+ score:

Your overall score out of 800 results from your performances in quant and verbal, each of which is first scored independently on a scale of 0-60. These subscores are then combined to yield your overall score according to formulae to which only Pearson (the organization that administers the GMAT) is privy. Each subscore (verbal and quant) receives a percentile ranking as well. This indicates the percentage of test-takers who scored below your level over the past few years. So, for example, if you receive a verbal subscore of 40, you are in the 90th percentile, which means that 90% of all test-takers did not perform as well as you in verbal. Some recent scores of 750 broke down as follows: 41V/51Q, 46V/47Q, 44V/49Q, 45V/48Q, 47V/47Q. Notice that both sections are strong. Some recent scores of 760 broke down as follows: 51V/46Q, 42V/50Q, 46V/48Q, 44V/50Q. Again, these test-takers posted excellent subscores. To break 750, you more or less need to reach at least the 84th percentile in quant (subscore 46) and the 90th in verbal (subscore 40). While a significant number of test-takers can reach one or the other of these goals, very few can reach both on the same exam. Hence the reward of 99th percentile status to those who can.

Let's take a look at what happens at the highest levels of the exam: 700+. A recent test-taker received a scaled score of 45 in verbal (98th percentile) and 40 in quant (66th percentile) and an overall score of 700 (93rd percentile). Notice how much closer the overall percentile is to the excellent verbal percentile. If the overall percentile were simply an average of the individual percentiles, this person would have received about 640. But because the combination of an outstanding verbal performance with a fair quant performance is so rare, the overall percentile and score will be much higher than the lower quant percentile. Another person, who scored 49 in verbal (99th percentile) and 37 in quant (56th percentile), received 710 (95th percentile), even though the quant performance here was a full 10 percentile points lower than that in the previous example. Again, an outstanding performance in verbal significantly offset a middling performance in quant. Does this work in reverse? That is, will an outstanding performance in quant so dramatically offset a middling performance in verbal? No. This combination is much more common, given the increasing number of international test-takers, who often have excellent math skills but relatively weak command of English. Even among native speakers of English, it is more common to see relatively high quant scores coupled with fair to middling verbal scores. Because these combinations are less rare, they are not rewarded as highly. For example, a test-taker recently received a 50 in quant (97th percentile) and a 37 in verbal (82nd percentile), but "only" a 670 overall (89th percentile). So the truly excellent quant performance was not enough to pull the overall score above 700. While an excellent verbal performance can indeed take up some of the slack from a weaker quant score, keep in mind that most business schools want to see strong skills in both sections. In fact, some of the top 20 schools apply the "80/80 rule", which requires that successful applicants reach at least the 80th percentile in both sections. So do not put all your eggs in one basket: make sure you prepare well for both sections.

O.K. What is the point of all these considerations and stuff? First of all, that you need good scores in both areas in order to get accepted. In my case where math is problem, I think that I really need to work on verbal, to compensate, but maybe with the gmat it will happen the same way as in other test, that I get better scores on my weak areas and not so good on my strong ones, that is why, I decided, that after I finish the Algebra book, I’m gonna stop focusing so much in math, and work a little more with verbal... Anyway, the final key is tons of practice on every section ;)

I would really like to hear people opinion on this subject, which I think is very important on test prep.

Date changed

2006-07-17T16:22:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while without posting, but my computer at home had a little attack and I couldn’t write a thing until today.

Well, as can be inferred from this post title I changed my test date. Why? Because the original test day was supposed to be this Friday, and I am soooo not ready for it... My new test date is September 22nd.

How are things going on? Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about a strategy change. I set up a new schedule, that I will post as soon as is finished. The only thing that is going to change, is that I am not going to be so focused in the math part, because a lot of people are really good at math, but not that many at verbal, so a good verbal score would really help my score.

Also, good news from the office... From next Monday on, a new person will come to work with me and help me with the amount of work that I have, this of course will help me in several aspects: stamina, stress and mental energies. I am really happy about this change.

The other reason why I couldn’t write too much this last days, is because a friend got married, and in Colombia, when you are invited to a marriage, you have a good amount of events and parties and dinners to attend... the good thing is that the party (this last Saturday) was great, but it really killed any chance to study...

So far, so good... What’s next? Well, I finished chapter 6, which was a big-terrible pain in the ass, because of all the little things that I studied, but, according to my algebra book, the worst just passed. According to my schedule, I will finish the whole book by Sunday, I know that I am only half way over, but I am studying on a better rhythm now, and I have Thursday off (national holiday) and I also asked for Friday, so I have a good amount of free time to study.

About the being-tired stuff, I’ve been feeling way tons better =) My doctor told me to wait some time to see the effect of the pills, and I started to see it, the vitamins have been great also, and the exercise part too... Everything is going really nice, and I am very optimistic about the future... I think that things are getting definitely better.

Working out

2006-07-06T12:46:00.000-05:00

O.K. so far I am really happy about how this fatigue thing is going on. Here is my fighting plan:

Yesterday, I went around my house and check for a gym or something like that for exercise, as my doctor asked me.

The gym I found it very stressful, I don’t know why, but this is not the kind of environment for me... I like things more laid back, I think that if I am going for a gym to take all the stress away, I want it to be nice, but everything was really confined, everything was so close, I didn’t really liked it...

Later, I went to the yoga-pilates center... I really liked, more my kind of thing, so I decided that from next week I will enter the yoga center, I like very much because is a very dynamic kind of yoga (ashtanga) and I can also combine it with pilates, the environment is very cool, so I am happy with it.

I’ve also been using the elliptical machine that I have at home, I will just use more and more frequent. And also will go to the park to jog on weekends. On week days I am quite not sure, because in Bogotá sun goes out very late and I would get to work late and at night is not safe to work out on the park, and there are a lot of contamination on the streets.

To complement all this exercise part, I’ve been taking a multivitamin and sulbutiamine. Today I just got b-complex, and I am going to increase the amount of proteins that I eat (I read it in a medicine site, but I didn’t pay attention to it until today, when I read a comment about it)

The most important thing is Mental Positive Attitude, which is the key, for everything in life.

Checking the messages that I got from everybody I found a lot of nice and very cheering-kind words... I would like to say thanks to all of you guys for being so cool and caring. And Aashim thanks a lot for your good ideas and advice.

Doctor´s Diagnose

2006-07-04T10:21:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago I went to Barranquilla to visit my family. I was really happy to see them and the time with them all off their love and care helped me feel better and renewed but the most important thing was my visit to my doctor... After asking him why I was so damn tired the whole day and why even if I had slept well and after telling him all the symptoms and stuff, he told me that I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Of course after that I started to make some research about the subject and I found that I have a lot of the symptoms, but I think that I don’t have the disease in such a terrible way.

O.k. Let me explain a little bit more about the subject (or at least what I found so far) this is a disease that is becoming more and more common between young people between 20 and 50 years old. The reason why it happens is still unknown, there are several theories: 1. Excess of work and stress 2.Virus. In my case it was the first cause. There a lot of symptoms but the ones that I present are:
1. Extreme fatigue that has lasted at least six months; is not the result of ongoing effort; is not substantially relieved by rest; and causes a substantial reduction in daily activities.
2. Unrefreshing sleep.
3. Substantial impairment in memory/concentration.

I am not totally sure that I suffer a 100% of this disease because there some other symptoms that I don’t present, but what is clear is two things: 1. That I’ve been too tired for quite a long time. 2. I am not the same energetic person that I have always been.

The good news is that now I know that I have a disease, is not like that I don’t want to study... Is just that I am not a 100% well, and knowing what you have help you relax. The bad news... Easy! That I have this *&$% thing...

Treatment? Well there isn’t just one thing to do, there is not like a standard thing to do... so in my case: exercise, diet, taking vitamins and supplements, and a pill that will help me get more focused, taking things easy and not worrying too much about little things, relaxation, and resting better. My doctor also recommended me not to take vacations, but rather building a better daily routine.

Life is good again

2006-06-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

Well, reading my old posts I realized that it’s been a while without any positive post from me. I find that a little disturbing, since I am a very positive and energetic person, and the last weeks have just been really rough.

Today, I am flying to my hometown, Barranquilla, where my parents and childhood friends live. I think that it’s pretty nice to see them all, since I haven’t been around for the last six months, and a little bit of parents love is always necessary. I will also be also visiting all my old doctors, so they can check me out and see what’s been wrong with me.

These last few days I haven’t studied as much I would like (gifts shopping). I am just about to finish chapter 5 of my algebra book, and I hope I can work in at least one chapter in Barranquilla... What I can really tell, is that for all of you guys out there who have problems with algebra this is just the perfect book to undust (is this actually a verb?) Math... Anyway, I know that next week, a lot of study sessions will come back since I am pretty excited and motivated again.

There is always sun behind the gray clouds =)

Still Sick

2006-06-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

As I said in my previous post, nothing in life can be perfect, but right now is ridiculous how bad I’ve been feeling...

After my terrible cold, I had to use antibiotics, they really helped me with it, but now, they just damaged my poor stomach very much. Now I am sick, but from my stomach, the worst part is that I’ve been feeling really weak and of course I haven’t been able to study... this is just so depressing... the worst part is that the last few days some of the universities that I really want to go to, imparted conferences in Bogotá, and I attended all of them, since those opportunities are not frequent... Well, the thing is that I’ve been really excited about my master studies and all that, but without a chance to study for the GMAT in the last month... well my moral is on the floor.

I really hope I can get better soon, because I really want to nail this test =)

Nothing in life can be perfect

2006-06-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

I know the name of this entry might sound kind of sad of pessimistic, but the thing is that after all things started to go better at the office and I got time to study... I got really sick, I had problems with a horrible flu and I even had to go to the hospital. =(

Today, it’s been the first day that I’ve been feeling better. I couldn’t study much for two weeks; in this amount of time I have only been able to study two chapters of my algebra book, one about polynomials and the other one factoring. What I love about this book is that everything is well explained.

This weekend I started to think about the possibility of rescheduling my test. It will all depend on how much I can study this month... We’ll see.

Going On

2006-05-22T11:13:00.000-05:00

These last few days I’ve been very interested working on my Practical Algebra book, I already finished two chapters, which is really good, (taking into account that the book has only 12 chapters) but is not as good as I wanted... The problem is that this weekend was a family weekend and I also spend tons of time searching for a cool gift for my mom’s birthday, but so far, I’ve been unlucky. =(

The good thing is that things at the office are getting better and I have more time to study. This would be the last horrible week that I will have in a long while, and this next weekend is a holiday, so we’ll see how much I can work on.

AWA

2006-05-17T09:24:00.000-05:00

After some research about AWA, I decided that I will not create a template for the essays, why? Because I know myself, and if I forget one word of the template or if it doesn’t fit the subject in question, I would totally freak out.

Instead what I did is that I took notes about all the AWA recommendations that I found and I wrote a document compiling all that information (from test magic, mba.com, toefl, etc)

I am publishing here those notes, because I think that some people might find it useful.

AWA PREPARATION

The AWA section of the GMAT is divided in two parts: Analysis of an Issue and Analysis of an Argument

What does the GMAT test on the AWA section?

· Organization, development and expression of ideas.
· Providing of relevant supporting reasons and examples.
· Control of standard written English.

AWA TYPE OF QUESTIONS:

Analysis of an Issue: They present you an issue (subject) and you have to take one side and then explain your view on the subject. There is not good answer. It is important to consider both sides.

In conclusion, they give you a theme and you write your opinion about it. You get a position. It’s an open essay.

Analysis of an Argument: They give you an argument (it can be an article, an essay, somebody’s opinion, etc) and you have to analyze the reasoning behind this argument and write a critique of that argument. YOU ARE NOT BEING ASKED TO PRESENT YOUR OWN VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT.

In conclusion, you have to say if somebody’s argument is well and enough supported and explain your opinion.

WRITING THE ESSAY

Every essay has 3 parts:

Introduction: The introduction restates the question using different vocabulary and / or sentence structure. The introduction also includes your THESIS STATEMENT. The most important sentence on the essay.

In the introduction, you include all the ideas that will become the body of the essay. For example, if they ask you for your opinion about something in the introduction you talk about A, B and C reasons that explain your opinion, and then on the body of the essay you write a paragraph about each of those reasons ( one paragraph about A, another about B, and another about C). Remember that on the introduction you just mention those reasons, you DON´T explain them.

Body: The body is the “Heart” of the essay. It will include your main ideas and examples to support those ideas. Each new idea should be a new paragraph. The standard is 3 or 4 paragraphs.

On the body of the essay you develop the ideas mentioned on the introduction that support your point.

How to write good body paragraphs?

Each paragraph on the essay introduces a new idea. It should include a thesis statement followed by supporting examples. Use lots of examples.

Between paragraphs, use transition words like: On the other hand, though, in contrast, likewise, however, for example, in addition, first, finally.

Each paragraph should end with a concluding sentence which briefly summarizes the ideas in the paragraph.

Conclusion: The conclusion will be your final paragraph. It will summarize all the main ideas in your essay and it may also include your opinion. YOU DON´T INTRODUCE NEW IDEAS IN THE CONCLUSION.

Some of the elements of a good concluding paragraph:

It should include a summary of your main points.

It may also include the author’s opinion.

It should not introduce new ideas.

A good concluding paragraph often leaves an impression on the reader.

It might make the reader think deeply about the topic.

The conclusion ties the introduction and body together, and provides some sort of link putting it all together.

PREPARING THE ESSAY

Read and understand the essay question: 2 minutes.

Organize the ideas on paper by writing a short outline of the introduction, body and conclusion: 7 minutes.

Write the essay: 14 minutes.

Reread your essay and make any changes in spelling, verb tense, word choice or sentence structure: 7 minutes.

TIPS

For both kind of questions, it’s very important to include examples very well explained and developed. Those examples need good basis.

For both kind of question, it’s necessary to support your opinions.

Don’t get too ambitious; just make 3 or 4 paragraphs or points.

Indent: That means leaving 5 blank spaces at the beginning of each new paragraph.

Punctuation it’s very important: Hit space AFTER almost every punctuation mark (commas, colons and periods) but on the other hand, do not hit the space bar BEFORE almost every punctuation mark.

Capitalize the first letter of every sentence, the pronoun “I” and other proper nouns.

Make a good use of time: you only have 30 minutes.

Make sure the reader knows exactly what point you are trying to make.

Make somebody read at least one essay of every kind so they can give you your opinion.

For Analysis of an Argument questions, DON´T make the examples too personal, and DON´T write in the first person “I”; do it in more general terms.

For Analysis of an Issue questions, DON´T take one side completely, so acknowledge the strengths of the opposing argument too. But remember just to mention it very briefly.

Hit enter twice at the end of every paragraph. Doing this will create a space between your paragraph and will make the essay much easier to read.

Arithmetics Off

2006-05-15T08:41:00.000-05:00

O.K. Finally I can say that I finished the arithmetic’s chapter of my GMAT preparation. At the end it took me kind of a long time because I changed the way I was making the exercises, first of all I added Kaplan to the set of exercises and second I repeated the wrong exercises several times until I could solve them. If after three times I was unable to solve it, then I checked the explanation. Kaplan exercises are kind of easy, but Barron’s are hard, so they gave me a good time fun.

Yesterday night I started Algebra, and I am working with a book called, Practical Algebra a self teaching guide. I am very happy with this book, because they divide every lesson in little “frames” so you can find like 1 or 2 frames per page, after they explain a certain concept they make you practice instantly, so if you don’t get that particular concept you will have to repeat it one more time.

I found this method better for me, even if I was very tired, I got enough energy to answer all those little exercises right except two, and I really like the pace of their method. I am just starting but I see a good future in this book... plus I like algebra better than arithmetic, so I think that I am going to be o.k.

Useful information: Universities Spreadsheet.

2006-05-03T13:34:00.000-05:00

Well, Lost again, not going to say the same thing, because of course if I haven’t written in a week is because I was too busy.

This past week I didn’t dedicate myself too much to GMAT. What I did is that I took my spreadsheet with all the universities that I would like to apply to (16 in total) and wrote to all of them asking for brochures and applications forms. It’s very important to do that, because it takes a long time to receive all of those documents.

I know that anybody who reads this post will ask if I am crazy to have such a big amount of universities on my sight, but I believe that it is very important to have different chances under my sleeve.

I don’t know if anybody has heard about my universities spreadsheet, I think that everybody applying to a master should do it. What I did is that I entered in the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (IHE-SJTU) site (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm). Right there they have a link with the 500 more important universities in the world, I downloaded into an excel file, and then I organized them by country, and I filtered the list by the countries that I would like to live or study in.

After that I entered into all those universities and saw their programs one by one looking for Masters in Finance (for those who didn’t knew I am not pursuing an MBA) and then I made my spreadsheet, with the country, name of the university, name of the program, whether if I like it or not (I divided this field in three categories: Yes, No and Maybe) also I entered the price of the program and my observations.

This spreadsheet took a long time to be build but it’s been the corner stone of my preparation, because I know that I no longer need to worry about the universities just about the GMAT and applications. I hope this advice can help anybody.

Well, this week I also started to work on the Kaplan GMAT and GRE Math workbook, and I also started to work on the Manhattan GMAT SC.

The Economist MBA Fair

2006-04-24T13:55:00.000-05:00

I think this is an event everybody should look at... The Economist MBA virtual fair... All you have to do is sign up and you can have only access to MBA info.

Long Time no Posts

2006-04-24T09:58:00.000-05:00

It’s been quite a long time without a post from me... Of course this situation is caused because the tons of work that I had lately and the days off from Easter.

O.k., I will make a little recount of what I´ve done this last few days:

1.I organized all of my GMAT files. Threw away a lot of things that I know I won’t use, or who are not so important.
2.Organized again my information about the programs that I want to study.
3.Finished all of my arithmetic’s notes.
4. Received my new books: OG 11th edition. Manhattan SC and Kaplan Math for GMAT and GRE.
5.Finished Fractions and decimals exercises. The hit rate wasn’t really good, only 63% of the questions where good, but the good part on the other side is that I did all the questions at gmat pace, something that I’ve never did before, so I think that by making less careless mistakes and practicing more I will improve this numbers.

This Tuesday is my final date to finish Arithmetic... So I can start with algebra, thank god... I remember that Algebra and Geometry were easier for me at school... So I think that things will go better...

Beat the Gmat Forum

2006-04-10T14:49:00.000-05:00

Today, when I entered to check out this site I found out that the Beat the Gmat Forum was opened today. I will take a closer look this next few days, but so far looks nice. Check it out.

Fractions and Decimals

2006-04-10T08:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I finished my flashcards about fractions and decimals. I hope that by Wednesday I can finish also the percents, rations and proportions, so I can work on the exercises of those subjects and then finish the arithmetic’s part and jump into algebra. The cool thing is that Thursday and Friday are off because of eastern, so I will have a good amount of time to study and get a good rest.

Test Date Set: July 21st.

2006-04-03T08:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday night, I registered for the GMAT; my test date will be July 21st at 9:00a.m.

I think that by setting up a test date I will start to work harder on this test because now I have a deadline that I can’t keep delaying, so I think that this is going to be really healthy for my studies. These last few months have been really hard for me, because of some issues with my family and in my office, so I think that having a date will help me put these things away and just focus on the test.

I took July 21st as a test date, because July 20th is our national holiday, so is a day off to rest and chill out before I take the test on the 21st (I am more of a morning person that is what I wanted to take it early). The good thing is that the center is in the city so it will be easier for me to get there. I will visit it in a few days to check it out.

Books

2006-04-03T08:16:00.000-05:00

This weekend was dedicated to shopping, more exactly, books shop. I bought 3 books to complete my GMAT preparation: OG 11th edition (I already have the 10th), Kaplan GRE and GMAT Exams Math Workbook and Manhattan’s Sentence Correction.

I also finished my numbers devil book and I prepared some flashcards with the most important points of the book. I know that this is not the book that will help you pass GMAT math, but at least helped me getting in the mood.

I want to thank Andres for his sponsorship =)

MBA Tour

2006-03-28T14:14:00.000-05:00

I don’t know how many people has visited this site, but today I found out about it... I think that it’s pretty neat (especially for people like me who doesn’t live in a USA or Europe) to find out about it. If you are not subscribed, I recommend to try it out.

P.S. If you get subscribed and send an invitation to 3 friends they let you download a recruitment and salary report between 1990 and 2005.

A baby just arrived

2006-03-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

One really big success happened to our home... a new family member just came in... it's a little baby... a baby cat! His name is Mufasa (yes, just like in the lion king) and he is just the cutest little thing ever. It's great having him around because he really helps getting the stress out and it's just great to have a pet... And this little baby (he is only 7 weeks old) is the reason why I haven't really studied this weekend.

TIME OFF

2006-03-21T15:39:00.000-05:00

Last few days I’ve been out of the blogging scenario, because just got back from a small vacation that I took in Cartagena.

Studies will be resumed this week, after this new breeze of freshness and enthusiasm that I needed so much. =)

P.S: Eventough I´ve been on vacation, I haven´t left GMAT totally behind, these days I´ve been reading Sophie´s World and The Number Devil (almost at the half part of both books)

Coming Home

2006-03-07T16:26:00.000-05:00

This week I haven’t been able to study a word, because my parents are coming to visit me... since they don’t know my house and it is the first time that they come to Bogotá in two years, There’s been a lot of things to do...

Next Saturday the study sessions will be resumed...

New Method

2006-02-28T18:42:00.000-05:00

Last Monday, was my first week under my new method, and I have to say that I feel really pleased with the results. So far, I haven’t advanced too much in the exercises field, but I feel that I am learning more and that I am getting things in a better and much faster way.

The new method that I’ve been following is to make flashcards of all the concepts that I think I will want to review later, now, I am making the first set of exercises, I got 3 questions wrong out of 9 for a hit rate of 77% right and 33% wrong, but the good thing is that this questions are more GMAT focused, so I think that this is going to really help me improving my math-test-logic.

Bye Bye Baldor

2006-02-19T13:46:00.000-05:00

Today I made a major decision, I decided to quit Baldor’s Arithmetic Book. Why is this decision so big? Because I’ve never been a quitter, but this #$@% book took me out of my mind… I still have a long way to finish it, and by this rhythm I will never finish it.

I know that my math basis are in a terrible status right now, but what I am going to do to solve this situation is that for Arithmetic, I will go through Barron’s math review, this is not my favorite book for GMAT preparation, but the math review at the GRE book, is really good, so I am going to go trough all the arithmetic review I will go trough my Algebra Self Teaching Guide book, which is more comprehensive and shorter.

Another reason for this change is that the other book is in Spanish and it is a good moment to start attacking math in English… so will see how this new strategy works, I will be posting about this change.

TOEFL SCORE: 273

2006-02-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I got tired of not receiving my scores... so I called ETS trying to find out my final result, the score, as you can see is 273, I am really happy with that score, because taking into account all the hard days, conditions, lack of preparation and stuff, I think that the score is more than good...

Something really nice is that I got 5.5 on my essay... why is it so good? Because I had no time to check grammar, spelling and all that stuff, I used the whole 30 minutes just to type it, so it went trough just the way I typed, and that means that it wasn’t so bad, with more time, I might received a 6.0

Another good thing about the score, is that now I can see that my English isn’t so rusty after all and that the whole blogging thing really helps

I would like to say thanks to all the people who kept my moral up this last of stressful days... Piyu, Ryan, and of course my dear Andres... =)

Robbed :(

2006-02-01T13:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I got robbed.

It wasn’t a guy with a gun, but somehow they managed to copy the magnetic band of my savings account card, and I have no idea how they got my pin number, but they did, so they took all my money away from an ATM.

Right now I am in the middle of a fight with the bank, so they can help me to get my money back... I don’t know if it would happen, but I really hope so.

Anyway, this has a been a major set back at least for my spirit, but anyway, I hope I can get back on track soon.

So far, I’ve been reviewing all the math stuff that I did in the last months, and I started to study new things. Right now, I am studying fractions.

My GMAT Strategy

2006-01-16T09:24:00.000-05:00

After a good amount of days organizing my new home, I can finally say that I finished my work in that area. The house looks neat and very comfortable, so I am really happy that I don’t have to spend more time on it.

Well back in business, Today, I will start my GMAT preparation again, yesterday I planned my strategy and the time frame for it.

First, I thought that I would take the test on May 27th, but then I realized, that it is too early, plus, taking into account that I am applying for fall 2.007, so I settled July 8th as a possible date to take the test.

I know some people could say that it is a very long preparation period, but the problem is that my math is very very rusty, and I think that the most important part for this subject is to have clear concepts before practicing OG or anything else, so I am going to spend a really good amount of time in this part.

Also, since English is not my native language, there are three skills that I really need to work on in order to make things easy for the test, those skills are: Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading.

So well, here is my strategy for each section:

General GMAT Strategy:

Get an OG´s general approach to each section of the test.
Go through Kaplan’s GMAT Book.

Math Strategy:

Go through Barron’s GRE Math review (is a really good one)
And use the rest of my Math books in order to review the different parts of the test, here is the schedule:

January: Arithmetic’s. I will use my Baldor´s book in order to finish it.

February: From 01.02.06 till 14.02.06: Numbers Theory. I don’t have the materials yet, but I have my book El Diablo de los numeros (the numbers devil, in Spanish) as an introduction, and I hope to get a good amount of numbers theory material for that date.

February – March: From 15.02.06 till 16.03.06: Algebra. I will use my Practical Algebra book from Wiley Editorial.

March - April: From 17.03.06 till 10.04.06: Geometry. I will use my Geometry book from Schaum´s.

April: From 11.04.06 till the end of the month: Statistics. I don’t have a statistics book in English, I have a good one in Spanish, but I think that for this subject I will hire a teacher to help me with this stuff.

May: 02.05.06 till 15.05.06: Combination and Permutations. I don’t have a book in any language for this matter, but I think that for this subject I will hire a teacher to help me with this stuff or maybe I will go through Delta Course Material, which is supposed to be good.

Verbal Strategy:

Get good grammar basis build by using some online material that I got, and also my Grammar in Use book from Cambridge Editorial.

For Vocabulary, I have the Barron’s GRE Vocabulary list. It is a very good list of words, consisting in 3.000 words, some of them I know already, but I want to go trough the whole stuff, I already checked and if I learn 19 words a day, on the way to my office, I will have the whole document ready by the time the test comes.

And for reading, I will go trough The economist (I’ve been subscribed to them for some time now), Mc Kinsey Quarterly (which is supposed to be good) and also Scientific American. And also my books in English: Sophie’s world and the Lord of the Rings (both already started).

The only verbal part that I would like to start before touching OG is the Grammar Building, because for the Vocabulary and Reading parts, I think will develop them trough time.

AWA Strategy:

Create and practice a template for each kind of essay and then write 1 timed essay of each kind every 15 days.

OG and other materials:

After all of these actions, I will start working on the OG eventually I think that for the verbal part at the middle of March and the math part at the middle of May. I will mix OG with other materials that I have in order to get the maximum amount of practice before the test.

For my preparation, I have an approximate amount of 165 days, from 16.01.06 until 30.06.06 I will leave the first week of July for review and relax.

Back to Reality

2006-01-10T14:22:00.000-05:00

My vacations are officially off. I got back from Barranquilla yesterday night, and today I returned to my office, I am feeling kind of sad because I had to leave my parents, and since I am an only child, we have created a very special bound, it’s very hard saying good-bye to the people you love. But on the other hand, all the good times that I enjoyed these last vacations helped me to see things in a different and more laid back perspective.

I know I have to work hard in order to get a good GMAT score and of course my ultimate goal which is the admission in one of the universities that I am interested in. But I also need to enjoy other things and manage the stress around me in a better way.

After my vacations, I feel renovated and full of energy with a lot of projects. This week all of my energy is going to be focused in two words: Planning and Organization. I have to organize my house, studio and decoration and I also need to plan and organize a study schedule and my diet { new year’s resolution =) }

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to post my GMAT working schedule...!

Merry Christmas

2005-12-26T13:24:00.000-05:00

I just want to wish all Gmatters a great christmas and the best on the year 2.006
I also want to wish all my family and friends a great time this holidays =)

A big hug for everybody!
Catalina.

TOEFL: 213-273

2005-12-26T12:48:00.000-05:00

Last week I presented the TOEFL test, the result is not the best, since I consider that my english is better than what is shown on this range. But, taking into account all the stress that I went trough the last few days I feel o.k. with the score and the best part, is that it means one thing less to worry about.

The only thing that makes me really sad is my essay, I had a wonderfull subject and I had a lot of examples and arguments, the bad thing is that I spend too much time writing the essay and I didn´t had enough time to check for spelling or grammar mistakes, I really hope that they give me a good grade in order to improve my final score.

About the test day and the test site, I found that even though it was a very nice place, the staff wasn´t so nice, it seemed like inquisition or something...

Right now I will spend holidays in Barranquilla, at my parents´house. Their computer is presenting a lot of problems and I will try to fix it. Until then I will work on a GMAT prepartion schedule, I will keep reading my sophie´s world book and I will get a great amount of rest so I can start the year 2006 with tons of energy =)

Freaking Out

2005-12-12T12:56:00.000-05:00

This last few days have really been a nut case, with all the packing and the preparation for the moving I haven’t been able to do any study, which is making me kind of nervous, because I know that there are a few things that I still need to polish in order to get a good score on the TOEFL, the other problem is that I also need to study for my Red Cross class, on Thursday, we are having a really big test about CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Reanimation) we need to get a really good grade in order to get a diploma for this subject and I haven’t studied a thing and there are a lot of things to study =(

I also need to move, I haven’t done it yet, and I also need to prepare my TOEFL template, anyway, I am trying to keep my cool and be confident that I will get a good score. Yesterday, I thought about rescheduling my test, but the thing is that it would cost me $40 and they don’t have any dates for January, and February is too late since I want to dedicate the whole first semester 2.006 to GMAT, so all I have left is try to keep my cool and pray for the best.

TOEFL LISTENING

2005-12-07T08:07:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I finished my listening exercises, it’s just that I had no time before to write about it. In total, I did 109 listening questions, from them, I had 8 questions wrong… most of my mistakes were caused because I wasn’t really concentrated, but I think that it was kind of a good rate…7% wrong and 93% right… The strategy to improve this section is just to stay focused and very concentrated, at this time of the preparation there is no way that I can improve my listening, so I think that this is the best way to go for it.

READING COMPREHENSION / NEW HOME

2005-12-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

In total I did 99 exercises of reading comprehension and with, for a hit rate of 10% wrong and 90% right. My main problems are focused in four areas: Problems with main idea questions, problem with meaning of words and guessing what the next paragraph will be about and the rest of the problems are concentration problems. Of the 10 questions that I got wrong, 8 I was able to answer right if I had a second chance, this means that I need to be more focused and relaxed when working on this exercises.

I know that a lot of the problem is the fact that I’ve been under a lot of stress, so I am trying to do my best to finish the whole moving and packing business as soon as possible, and in this way being able to concentrate on the test before the T-Day. The good news is that we have a new home, is in a very nice area close to my favorite mall and also with a good amount of nature, the other great thing about this new place is that now I am going to have my own studio, which will really improve my study habits.

My strategy for the reading comprehension part is to improve the main idea part and try to stay more focused, to improve my vocabulary I would need a big amount of time, which I don’t have for the Toefl, but I do for GMAT, so this part would have to wait for this other test.

TOEFL SITE

2005-12-04T12:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I took a trip to see where my TOEFL is going to take place, I am really happy that I did it, because the site is far from where I live, is around 45 minutes to get there, maybe less if the traffic is not so heavy, and the problem was to find the place since the location is at Chia, which is at Bogotá’s rural area, the good thing is that a guy from the town helped with the address and draw us a map. The location looks nice and I am really happy that I took the advice from everybody at testmagic to find the place ahead of time, because it took us some time to find the place.

MOVING AWAY

2005-12-04T10:50:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, I got terrible news, the owner of the apartment where we live is coming back to Bogota and he is asking for the apartment and he gave us one month to do all the new apartment search and the moving, but the big problem is that we are going to Barranquilla for Christmas so we only have 19 days left to do all this stuff. Of course, this is becoming a major issue for any study plan that I had this last month, so I am really hoping to find a place to live soon. =(

Out of business and back…

2005-11-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

These last days I’ve been out of business… the thing is that this month it’s been a really hard, tons of work to do, and I’ve been really tired.

I made one little progress… Finally I finished the Multiples, divisors and stuff like that chapter… In total I did 18 exercises and 3 were wrong with a hit rate of 82%, which is not bad, taking into account that I wasn’t really into that subject. Now, I will start the fractions chapter.

Another reason why I was so out of everything is that I’ve been traveling a lot this last month, since there’s been a lot of holidays… and one really strong is that I’ve been questioning a lot my math strategy, since so far, I haven’t progressed as much as I wanted.. I was thinking about changing books, since I realized that the idea of going through all the books from Mr. Baldor was really ambicious… In Colombia we spend 4 years through both books, with teachers, and time to study and do homework, and now I wanted to finish them in 4 months, studying by myself? So I started to search for books to finish my arithmetic’s study, but after searching I realized that there is not such book like the Baldor one, so I decided to try as hard as I can and finish this book… the good part is that after going through all the book I realized that the only long chapter that I have left is the fractions one… the rest are really important things that I need to learn in order to get a good result in the GMAT… The good thing is that I have different books for geometry and algebra, they are in English, and away from the Baldor series.

But making a good analysis with Andres we realized that the big problem is that I didn’t had a place where to study, so went shopping this weekend I we bought a desk and since then I been feeling great, I went back to study, finished one listening session for the TOEFL and also a little bit of other stuff, so now I feel like a new start =)

I am really sorry for being out so many days!

TOEFL STRATEGY / ESTRATEGIA PARA EL TOEFL

2005-11-01T07:47:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, I had my TOEFL simulation and on Sunday took the Grammar in Use evaluation, to see which units I should study, and to see which are my weak grammar points.

In 142 questions, I had 28 questions wrong and 114 questions right for a hit rate of 80% this is a good number, since I haven’t touched a grammar book in quite a long time. After the TOEFL simulation and the Grammar in Use test, I was able to prepare my strategy for this test.

First I will go through the Kaplan TOEFL workbook, they have something called powerlessons they have some for listening, structure and reading comprehension… they seem good and not too long, so I already classified them and if nothing weird goes on, I will be able to complete all of them in14 days.

After working on the kaplan’s workbook, I will go through my grammar in use lessons, the good thing is that they tell specifically the things that you have to work on, so there is no need to go through all of the book. Parallel to the grammar part, I will also work on the GMAT Reading Comprehension, so I can work on this verbal point for both tests.

On the listening section, my biggest concern is the concentration part, for this problem, I already got a good strategy… close my eyes. I also need to get my ear a little bit more used to English, but I think that I am o.k. in that department.

In top of all that I will be also working my vocabulary skills, for this a I have a very big set of words that are contained on my GRE book, I know that I won’t be able to finish this whole set, but it’s good to start building a stronger vocabulary. And for the Essay part, I will build a Template and then I will start to write some essays based on it.

My whole idea for the TOEFL is to get this test as an opportunity to build good basis for my GMAT test which is my final and biggest challenge.

El sábado tuve mi simulación del TOEFL y el domingo tome el examen de auto evaluación del libro de Gramática en Uso, para ver que unidades debo estudiar y ver mis puntos gramaticales débiles.

De 142 preguntas, tuve 28 preguntas equivocadas y 114 buenas, para una tasa del 80%, este es un buen numero, ya que no he tocado un libro de gramática en mucho tiempo. Después de la simulación del TOEFL y del libro de Gramática en Uso, pude preparar mi estrategia para este examen.

Primero, voy a trabajar en libro de ejercicios de Kaplan. Ellos tienen algo llamado Lecciones poderosas, para cada sección del examen, ellas parecen buenas y no son tan largas, ya las clasifique y si nada raro pasa, las podré completar en 14 días.

Después de esto, voy a trabajar a en mi libro de Gramática en uso, lo bueno es que ellos en la evaluación muestran cuales son las unidades con problemas y no hay que mirar todo el libro. Paralela a la parte gramatical, también voy a trabajar en la parte de comprensión de lectura para el GMAT y así estudiar esta parte verbal para ambos exámenes.

Para la parte de escucha, mi gran preocupación es la parte de concentración, ya para esto tengo una Buena estrategia, la cual es cerrar mis ojos, lo que necesito es también acostumbrar un poco mas mi oído al ingles, pero creo que estoy bien en ese departamento.

Además de todo esto, también estaré trabajando en mis habilidades de vocabulario, para esto tengo mi libro de GRE, el cual tiene una gran lista de palabras, las cuales no creo que vaya a poder terminar para el examen, pero si me va a ayudar a mejorar mi vocabulario. Para el ensayo, voy a construir un modelo y luego voy a empezar a trabajar en algunos ensayos basándome en el.

Mi idea con el TOEFL, es el poder tomar este examen como una oportunidad de construir buenas bases para el GMAT el cual es mi final y más grande reto.

TOEFL Simulation / Simulación de TOEFL

2005-10-31T18:22:00.000-05:00

This weekend I decided to take a TOEFL test under simulated circumstances, the result was actually better than I first thought, taking into account several factors against me like the fact that I had to reboot my computer two times, that it rained like hell, and that I had an appointment with my cousin to go out shopping and I was kind of late for the meeting so I had to answer faster in order to get there on time. Another important factor is that I decided to take the test without having any prior information about the different kind of questions or length.

I started the simulation with the listening part, I found a big distractor in this section and it was presented to me in the form of the little pictures with guys with a really stupid face or terrible clothes, so I couldn’t help to stop thinking about it… but at the end of this section I found a good way to correct this problem and it was to close my eyes and just focus on the conversations.

Then came the structure part, at this point a terrible storm started and since I live on the last floor of my building the noise was really loud and I thought that my little birds were calling me or something so I was very distracted.

After a little break I went to the bathroom and I had some chokis those are a small balls of corn covered with chocolate. I think I will have them too on the real test, because they don´t make you feel too full and they are very tasty.

Then the reading comprehension part… I got 6 readings, all of them very interesting except one about Native American Construction… this sole reading took a lot of my time and since there was a lot of unknown vocabulary for me it was a very stressful lecture.

At the end I got to write an essay about the most interesting class that I ever had and why… of course I wrote about my beloved Art History Class, which I loved with all my heart, I really hope I get such a pleasant essay to write on the actual TOEFL.

Well at the end of all this stuff my final result on each section (with a max. score of 30 points on each section):

Listening: 26
Reading: 25
Structure / Writing: 08 to 26 depending on my essay.

For a total range of 197 to 257.

I think of this range a really nice one because I haven’t studied anything about this test methodology and the fact that I had no idea what they were going to ask me I had a good result and also taking into account that I didn’t just sit to answer the test but I also took notes about the questions and how they were asked.

Strategy for the TOEFL test will follow…

Este fin de semana decide hacer un simulacro de TOEFL, y el resultado fue mucho mejor de lo que esperaba, teniendo en cuenta, que hubieron varios factores en mi contra, como fue el hecho que me tocara reiniciar dos veces mi computador o el que lloviera como loco o el que tuviera una cita con mi prima para irme de compras y que se me estaba haciendo tarde para la cita, así que me toco responder mas rápido para poder llegar a tiempo. Otro factor importante fue que decidí tomar el examen sin tener ningún tipo de información previa sobre el diferente tipo de preguntas o el largo.

La simulación la empecé con la parte de escucha. En ella, encontré una gran distracción, la cual se me presento en forma de las horribles fotos de los tipos con cara de bobos y con ropas feísimas, así que no pude evitar pensar en todo eso… pero al final de la sección encontré una buena manera de corregir este problema y fue cerrando mis ojos y concentrándome solamente en las conversaciones.

Luego, vino la parte de estructura, justamente en este punto empezó una terrible tormenta, y dado que vivo en el ultimo piso del mi edificio, el ruido era bastante fuerte, y en algún momento también pensé que mis pajaritos me llamaban, así que me distraje mucho.

Después de un pequeño break, fui al baño, y me comí unos chokis, los cuales me los voy a comer también en el día del examen de verdad por que son muy ricos y llenan pero no tanto.

Después vino la parte de comprensión de lectura… me tocaron 6 lecturas, todas ellas muy interesante, excepto una sobre las construcciones de los indios gringos, la cual me tomo mucho tiempo y como había mucho vocabulario que no conocía fue una lectura muy estresante.

Luego, al final me toco escribir un ensayo sobre la clase mas interesante que hubiera tenido, y claro yo escribí sobre mi clase de Historia del Arte, la cual ame con todo mi corazón, en realidad espero que en el día del examen me toque un tema tan agradable para escribir.

Al final de todo esto mis resultados de cada sección fueron (de un máximo de 30 puntos en cada sección).
Escucha: 26
Lectura: 25
Estructura / Escritura: 08 a 26 dependiendo del ensayo.

Todo esto para un rango total de 197 a 257.

Creo que este rango es muy bueno ya que no he estudiado nada sobre metodología del examen y además no tenia ni idea de que me iban a preguntar, además teniendo en cuenta que durante el examen también me dedique a tomar notas sobre la forma de preguntar los diferentes tipos de preguntas.

Mas información sobre mi estrategia, próximamente…

New Start / Nuevo Inicio

2005-10-26T18:28:00.000-05:00

I am kinda of totally worried about how I didn’t study at all this last month of October, o.k. I know I had a lot of events that made me get away from my old track… at one hand I traveled to Barranquilla, and getting ready for the trip and the trip it self took away a lot of time, and also my birthday (which was yesterday) took away a lot of my time too… and also a lot of work at the office.

Maybe it’s all about getting older or the fact that now I have a date for a test (the TOEFL), but the thing is that from tomorrow I will be working harder about getting things done quickly and fine. Tonight I will get a good night sleep (I am a little tired after yesterday’s celebration) so I can start again with my studying discipline… It might be true that is hard to keep focus if you start studying for the GMAT very early, but the problem is that I really need to since my math is in a very critical state.

Estoy súper preocupada ya que en este ultimo mes de octubre no he estudiado nada, claro, esto en gran parte se debe a varios eventos que he tenido, como el viaje a Barranquilla, tan solo el hecho de viajar a esta ciudad y prepararme me quito mucho tiempo, y también mi cumpleaños (el cual fue ayer) me quito mucho tiempo en celebraciones… y claro el trabajo en la oficina.

Tal vez sea por que me estoy poniendo vieja, o por que ya tengo fecha para hacer un examen (TOEFL) el cuento es que a partir de mañana voy a trabajar mas duro para hacer las cosas más rápido y mejor. Esta noche voy a dormir bastante (Estoy un poco cansada después de la celebración de ayer) para asi poder empezar de nuevo con mi disciplina de estudios… tal vez sea verdad que es difícil el poder mantenerse concentrado en el estudio del GMAT con tanto tiempo de anticipación, pero el problema es que mis matemáticas están en un estado realmente critico.

TOEFL DATE: DEC 20 / FECHA DEL TOEFL: DIC 20

2005-10-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

My TOEFL date has been set, yesterday I registered for the test and I will take it on December 20th, that is a Tuesday at 13.30 hrs, at first I wanted to take it a Saturday, but no positions were free for that date, so I had to take that date, the good thing is that I am over with that scheduling chapter and all I have to do now is study… I will try to study not just for the TOEFL but also as a way to start getting ready for the GMAT Verbal Section.

More details of my TOEFL preparation will follow.

Mi fecha para tomar el TOEFL ya ha sido alistada, ayer, me registre para el examen y lo estaré realizando el 20 de diciembre, el cual es un martes a las 13.30, al principio quería hacerlo un sábado, ,pero no había puestos libres para ese día, así que lo tuve que cambiar, pero lo bueno es que ya termine la parte de registro y ahora todo lo que debo hacer es estudiar… tratare de estudiar no solo para el TOEFL pero también para la parte verbal del GMAT.

Luego, daré mas detalles de mi preparación para el TOEFL.

The Missing Dollar / El Dolar Faltante

2005-10-18T08:57:00.000-05:00

This is a problem that seems very popular, the truth is that I never heard it before, is the missing dollar puzzle

3 guys in a hotel ask for room service and they ask for 2 large pizzas… the delivery boy, gives them a bill for exact 30 dollars and each guy gives him a $10 dollar bill, and then the delivery guy goes away.When the delivery guy gives the 30 dollars to the cashier he says that there’s been a mistake, and the bill was supposed to be for only $25 bucks, and the cashier gives the delivery boy 5 one dollar bills for the difference so he could give it back to the guys. The delivery boy goes back but on the way to the hotel he realizes that they didn’t give him any tip, so he thinks that since there is no way to split the5 dollar bills between the 3 guys, he is going to keep two dollar bills and he is going to return to the guys the other 3 bills.When he gets back to the room one of the boys opens the door and the delivery guy tells him that there’s been a mistake and he gives to the boy the 3 one dollarbills and he keeps the other two bills for himself. So far everything is fine, but here comes the fun…Remember: $30 - $25 = $5 Right? and $5 -$3 = $2 Right?Then what is the problem? If everything seems to be all right… Well, the thing is:Each boy originally gave $10 each and then each one of the guys get 1dollar bill on return.This would mean that each guy paid $9 each, which multiplied by 3 equals $ 27. And the delivery guy keeps two dollars bills as a tip.So, $27 + $2 = $29

Then, where is the missing dollar?
I couldn’t solve it so I send it to the testmagic forum, and in there I received a very good explanation in which they introduced me the concept of faulty arithmetic. Here is the explanation:

This is a case of faulty arithmetic. The 3 guys are effectively out by $27. The hotel has been paid $25 and the delivery guy has pocketed $2. 27 = 25 + 2 ---> CorrectAdding the $27 effectively paid by the 3 guys and the $2 that the delivery guy pockets is incorrect because the $2 actually comes out of the $27 paid.You could also just trace the $30 dollars in the pot. The two sides of the balancing equation are:
1) The 3 guys ---> X2) Hotel and Staff
--->.......X......Y...Total
Initially...0.....30....30..
Finally....3.....27....30..

The missing-dollar "puzzle" tries to confuse the reader with faulty arithmetic

I know I won’t find this kind of situation on the real thing but is a very good thing to see how things can be solved some other way the importance of being cool to find the easy side.

Este es un problema según parece bastante popular.. la verdad nunca habia oido de el, es el problema del dolar perdido...

Este problema fue una vez planteado por Pitagoras, claro,
explicado de acuerdo a su epoca...

Tres chicos en un hotel piden room service y piden 2 pizzas
familiares.
El repartidor les lleva una nota por exactamente 30 dolares.
Cada chico le da un billete de 10, y el se va.

Cuando el repartidor le da los 30 dolares al cajero, este le
dice que hubo un error. La nota era solo por 25,no por 30. El
cajero le da al repartidor cinco billetes de 1 dolar y le dice
que les de el cambio a los tres chicos que ordenaron las pizzas.
De camino a la habitacion, se da cuenta que no le dieron propina.
Piensa que como no hay manera de dividir $5 entre 3, se va a
quedar con 2 y les va a regresar los otros 3.

Hasta ahora todo va bien!

Toca la puerta y uno de los chicos abre, el le explica que hubo
una confusion con las notas, le da al chico los 3 dolares, y
se va con sus 2 dolares en la bolsa.

Ahora comienza la diversion!!!!!!

Recuerda $30 - $25 = $5 correcto??
$5 -$3 = $2 correcto???

Entonces, cual es el problema? Todo esta bien, verdad????

De ninguna forma. Contesteme esto:

Cada chico originalmente dio $10 cada uno, y se les dio de cambio 1
dolar.

Esto significa que pagaron $9 cada uno,
que multiplicado por 3 es $ 27.

El repartidor se quedo con $2 dolares de propina.

27 + 2 = 29

Entonces... ???Donde quedo el otro dolar???????

Yo en realidad no pude resolverlo, pero lo envie al foro de testmagic, y alli recibi una muy buena explicación en la cual me hablaban de un concepto conocido como aritmetica con fallas por asi decirlo, en el cual se trata de confundir al lector con un problema mal planteado.

Si lo resolvemos de otra forma, los tres jóvenes se quedan efectivamente con $27, al hotel se ha pagado $25 y al muchacho del domicilio $2.
27 = 25 + 2

Asi que añadir los $27 efectivamente pagado por los jóvenes y los $2 que recibio el repartidor es incorrecto, ya que estos $2 vienen en realidad de los 27 pagados.

Entonces, 25 + 3 + 2 = 30

Este concepto me ha parecido muy interesante y aunque se que en el GMAT no voy a encontrar este tipo de casos, si es bueno uno ver la importancia de plantear las cosas de otra manera para así resolverlas mas fácilmente.

... Still divisibility / Todavia Divisibilidad

2005-10-04T22:11:00.000-05:00

Again divisibility… well, I finished the chapter with all the rules of how to know if you can divide this number by other and all that stuff so that is pretty nice, I also finished the prime factors separation and now I am working on the MCD and MCM chapters which I am planning to finish really soon.

De Nuevo sigo con divisibilidad… Pero bueno, ya termine este capitulo sobre todas las reglas y como se pueden dividir ciertos números con otros, así que eso esta full chévere, también termine el capitulo sobre la separación en factores primos y ahora estoy trabajando en el MCM y el MCD, los cuales planeo terminar muy pronto.

TOEFL Scheduling / Programacion del TOEFL

2005-10-04T11:32:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to take the TOEFL this year, in this way I will be able to get trough with it and also start focusing only on the GMAT for the next year, of course I will continue with my Math preparation, but also the good thing is that by taking the TOEFL this year I will force myself to work on my verbal skills.

There are some things that kind of concern me about this test, one is that I took it before on 2.002, I don’t know if it changed since then… I hope not! Because I don’t want to spend any more money in books (at least not for this test) and also the location is kind of far from my home, is in Chia, so I am trying to take a trip to see where exactly this place is and how far it really is from home and taking times (in Bogotá, distances are pretty big)

Calling ETS Bogotá, they told me that they give the test everyday in the mornings at 9:30 a.m. but only on Tuesdays they can give it in the evenings, at 1:30 too, so I think that I will be taking the test on December 6th or 20th, because I would like to take not so early, so I can get a better rest, now all I have to do is register for the test. At this moment I am doing some research about which way is easier if online or by phone, but I think that online will be fastest.

Hoy, he decidido que voy a tomar el TOEFL este año, así podré salir de eso mas rápidamente y así concentrarme en el GMAT para el próximo año, claro que de todas maneras voy a seguir con mi preparación en matemáticas, pero lo bueno es que si tomo el TOEFL este año, me voy a forzar a mi misma a trabajar en mis aptitudes verbales.

Hay algunas cosas que me preocupan de este examen. Una es que yo ya lo tome en el 2.002, y no se si haya cambiado desde entonces… espero que no, ya que no quiero gastar mas plata en libros (aunque sea no en libros para este examen), también me preocupa que el sitio del examen queda lejos de mi casa, en Chia, por eso voy a ver si puedo ir a el sitio este fin de semana y ver que tan lejos es y tomar tiempos (en Bogota, las distancias son muy grandes).

Llamando a ETS Bogota, me comentaron que el examen solo lo administran todos los días en las mañanas a las 9:30, pero solamente los martes también lo dan en la tarde a la 1:30 también, así que estoy pensando en tomar el examen martes, y como fecha tentativa tengo el 6 y el 20 de diciembre por que me gustaría tomarlo tardecito para no madrugar. Ahora todo lo que tengo que hacer es registrarme para tomar el examen. Ahora mismo estoy mirando que forma de registro es mas fácil si por Internet o si telefónicamente, pero por Internet se ve mas fácil.

Strategy Changes / Cambios en la estrategia.

2005-09-25T08:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was thinking about all the lessons that I have left to finish my arithmetic’s book and then all the lessons that I have ahead on my algebra book, well I know I am not a math guru, but I have other things to study: English grammar, vocabulary, and also TOEFL and then of course the GMAT itself.

So my new strategy is that I am going to speed up the math part, and also start to combine this part by studying other stuff two times a week, I think that one day I will study English grammar and the other vocabulary. I am also going to work harder on my GMAT flashcards from the OG strategies, and in that way I will be getting more in touch with the test, because I am kind of concerned that it seems that I’m preparing for a Math test rather than the GMAT test.

Ayer, estuve pensando en todas las lecciones que me faltan para terminar mi libro de aritmética y luego en todas las que me falta para terminar mi libro de algebra, y bueno, yo se que no soy un guru para las matemáticas, pero también hay otras cosas que tengo que estudiar, como es gramática inglesa, vocabulario, TOEFL y el GMAT.

Así que mi nueva estrategia es que voy a tratar de trabajar mas rápido la parte de matemáticas y también empezar a combinarlo con otras cosas dos veces por semana, así que un día puedo estudiar gramática inglesa y el otro vocabulario. También voy a trabajar mas duro para terminar mis tarjetas de estudio con estrategias contenidas en el OG y en esta forma podré estar mas en contacto con el examen, ya que estaba un poco preocupada que parecía que me estaba preparando mas para un examen de matemáticas que para el GMAT.

Divisibility / Divisibilidad

2005-09-20T08:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finished two chapters of my arithmetic’s book; both of them were about prime numbers, compound numbers, divisors and the fundamental principles of divisibility. Both chapters were all about theory and no exercises, in fact these few days I won’t be doing much exercises, it is going to be just theory, which is necessary to understand in order to achieve a better performance.

Ayer, termine dos capítulos de mi libro de aritmética, ambos fueron sobre números primos, números compuestos, divisores y los principios fundamentales de la divisibilidad. Ambos capítulos fueron sobre teoría y no realice ejercicios, es mas estos días, todo lo que voy a estudiar va a ser teoría y no realizare muchos ejercicios, lo cual de todas formas es necesario para obtener un buen rendimiento.

750 score link / Link a un puntaje de 750

2005-09-18T22:15:00.000-05:00

I would like to congratulate a very special GMAT friend, Piyusht, for a great GMAT score… 750. Here is a link to his TestMagic debriefing

http://www.urch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34966&page=3&pp=10

Quisiera aprovechar la oportunidad para felicitar a un amigo de GMAT muy especial, Piyusht, por un gran puntaje en este examen de 750. Aquí encontraran el link al resumen de su experiencia

Layout Changes / Cambios en el diseño

2005-09-18T22:05:00.000-05:00

For those who have visited my site in the past, might have noticed that I’ve changed this blog layout a lot, but this time I think that I finally found one that I really like and that I won’t change… I think is reader-friendly and I also customized it in a way that I could place some of my favorite links…

Todos aquellos que en alguna ocasión anterior hayan visitado mi blog, se han podido dar cuenta que he cambiado mucho de diseño, pero finalmente creo que he encontrado uno que me gusta mucho y que no pienso cambiar. Creo que es mas amigable para la lectura y además lo pude personalizar para que tenga alguno de mis links preferidos…

Radication and FlashCards / Radicacion y Tarjetas

2005-09-18T21:35:00.000-05:00

I just finished my roots, logarithms and powers chapter. I am really happy because I always had problems with those subjects in the past, but today, I finally understood those concepts. This chapter hit rate after 70 exercises was 1 question wrong (1,5%) and 69 questions right (98,5%)

I also made a good bunch of flashcards with GMAT general information and also started my TOEFL flashcards…

Hoy finalice el capitulo de radicación, logaritmacion y potenciación. Estoy muy feliz por que finalmente pude entender estos conceptos con los que antiguamente tenia problemas. En este capitulo después de 70 ejercicios, me equivoque en uno para un porcentaje del 1,5% mal y 69 ejercicios bien, para un porcentaje del 98,5% bien.

También hice un buen grupo de tarjetas con información general del GMAT, además, inicie mis tarjetas sobre el TOEFL

Chapter Over / Capitulo Finalizado

2005-09-13T09:19:00.000-05:00

I finally finished that horrible exercises chapter. At the beginning I was really excited to work those exercises, Now, I am really tired of them. The good news is that I didn’t do half so bad taking into account all the amount of work that I had at my office and also all the extra events that I had this last few days. The bad news is that I keep doing the same mistakes, which are: 1. Taking some problems by the wrong scope, 2. Careless mistakes (my biggest problem) 3. Not answer what the problem wants, even tough I do everything right. But also the good thing is that if I keep doing the same mistakes, is easier to correct them.

My final hit rate with these exercises was:

Total amount of exercises: 70.
Problems Wrong: 13 - 18%
Problems Right: 57 – 82%

Between those 13 problems, there were 3 that almost drove me crazy, but thanks to test magic forum and a good friend of mine who explained me the exercises I was finally able to work it all out.

I am really looking forward to change a little bit of my old routine, because those exercises were really killing me =)

Finalmente pude terminar este terrible capitulo de ejercicios. Me acuerdo que al principio estaba muy feliz de trabajar estos ejercicios, ahora estoy aburrida de ellos. Lo bueno es que no me fue tan mal teniendo en cuenta la cantidad de trabajo que he tenido estos últimos días en la oficina y además los eventos extra. Lo malo es que sigo teniendo los mismos errores, los cuales son: 1. Tomo algunos problemas por el lado que no es, 2. Errores por desconcentración o por hacer mal una operación (mi mayor problema) 3. No contestar lo que el problema me pide, a pesar que hago todas las operaciones bien. De todas formas, si sigo cometiendo los mismos errores es más fácil el poder arreglarlos.

Mi desempeño final fue:

Cantidad total de ejercicios: 70
Problemas Equivocados: 13 – 18%
Problemas Correctos: 57 – 82%

De esos 13 problemas, 3 casi me vuelven loca, pero gracias a foro de test magic y a un buen amigo mío, quienes me explicaron los ejercicios finalmente pude sacarlos adelante.

Estoy muy contenta de poder cambiar mi antigua rutina de ejercicios, ya que ellos me estaban enloqueciendo =)

Red Cross Training / Entrenamiento en la Cruz Roja

2005-09-08T18:36:00.000-05:00

Hi, I am very sorry that this last few days I’ve been off for a while, I’ve been doing a bunch of math exercises, I will post the result later, but the main reason why I’ve been out of the market is because I’ve been on training on the Red Cross so I can be able to help others in case of emergency or natural disaster (this is just a standard training) I will be working on this training once a month and is a really cool activity, we are learning a big bunch of interesting stuff, today, for instance I learned a lot about burning, intoxication... we also runned a lot, and I am feeling incredibly tired. I will be on training until June 2006 or something like that, so I really have to improve my physical shape =)

After all the things that I did today I can only say that the guys from the Red Cross are amazing they really rock!
Hola, lo siento mucho por estar perdida, he hecho algunos ejercicios de matemáticas, estaré escribiendo sobre los resultados luego, pero la razón principal de mi desaparición es que he estado en entrenamiento en la Cruz Roja para ser brigadista y así poder ayudar a otros en caso de desastre natural o alguna emergencia (este es el entrenamiento estándar) y estaré trabajando en esto una vez al mes. Esta es una actividad muy chévere, estamos aprendiendo muchas cosas interesantes como hoy, por ejemplo, que aprendimos sobre quemaduras e intoxicación. También estuvimos corriendo por un rato, y claro me estoy sintiendo muy cansada. Estaré entrenándome hasta mas o menos junio del 2.006, así que tengo que mejorar mi estado físico =)

Después de todo lo que hice hoy, tan solo puedo decir que los socorristas de la Cruz Roja son increíbles!

Lord of the Rings Weekend / Fin de semana del Sr. de los Anillos

2005-09-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

Since this weekend I am going away for a little trip, I’m not bringing any math materials, so I can get some real rest, the only real study (if you can call it like that) thing that I am taking is my Lord of the Rings book. I found out that by reading it, I can put my critical reading skills into test, because I saw the movie a lot of different times and it is really good to see why wasn’t this part included in the movie, how different it was, and how different the characters are, this is really helping me to improve not only my verbal and vocabulary skills, but also read in a good critical way, which will help my with Reading Comprehension ad Critical Reasoning sections.

I hope everybody can get a great relaxing weekend!

Ya que este fin de semana me voy de paseito, no voy a llevarme nada de matemáticas, para así poder descansar realmente, el único material de estudio (si es que así se le puede llamar) que llevo es mi libro del Señor de los Anillos. He descubierto que por medio de su lectura puedo poner en practica mis habilidades de leer críticamente, ya que vi la película muchas veces y es muy bueno ver por que tal parte no fue incluida en la película o que tan diferente fue o como son los diferentes personajes realmente y esto me he ayudado no solo en mis habilidades verbales y de vocabulario, sino también a leer de forma critica, lo cual me ayudara en las secciones de comprensión de lectura y razonamiento critico.

Espero que todos tengan un muy relajante fin de semana!

A hard day’s night / Noche de un dia dificil

2005-08-31T11:02:00.000-05:00

Only some geniuses like the Beatles could express so well my feelings this last month. The thing is that I’ve been very busy at the office, and that of course is taking a lot of my time and energy away. The bad news is that in this month I haven’t been able to advance as much as I would want to, but the great news, is that next month won’t be so hard (or at least that is what it seems like)

Today I finished the first part of exercises, now the other part missing is the mix of all of them. The results from the last set of exercises are:

The first set, was about when you buy something to a certain price, and then you sell it to other, and you loose money, then how many did you bought and stuff like that. At first, I really enjoyed that set, since I have a business administration major, but then, I got really tired, and everything started to go wrong. The final results were devastating, out of 17 problems, I got 4 wrong and 13 right, and my hit rate was 23% wrong and 77% right. After watching those results, I decided to review my mistakes, and on the way to the office, I reviewed and did all the exercises again, and I did them all right in just a matter of 20 blocks. My conclusion is that I did those exercises wrong because I was too tired to think. (Since I love sleeping so much, doing exercises Sunday night at 12.30 p.m. is not a good timing).

The other set was about those problems where you hire somebody to do a job, and if he goes you pay a certain amount of money but if that person don’t show up, then you pay other amount of money, then how many days did the person went. I made 10 exercises, 9 of them were right and 1 wrong, so I my hit rate was 90% right, 10% wrong. My mistake was only one careless little mistake.

Well, right now, I’m thrilled to see that I am finally finishing this first part of this set of problems; I hope I can finish them soon!

Solo unos genios como los Beatles, podrían expresar mis sentimientos de este último mes. El tema, es que he estado muy ocupada en la oficina, y esto claro me ha quitado mucho de mi tiempo y mi energía. Las malas noticias es que no he podido avanzar tanto como deseo, pero las buenas es que el próximo mes no será tan difícil (o al menos eso es lo que parece).

Hoy, termine la primera parte de ejercicios, ahora lo que me falta es la mezcla de todos ellos. Los resultados de los últimos grupos de ejercicios son:

El primer grupo que fue sobre comprar algo a cierto precio y luego venderlo a otro y luego ver cuanto fue que vendí, y ese tipo de cosas. Al principio, disfrute mucho este grupo, ya que estudie administración de empresas, pero luego, me sentí muy cansada y me empezó a ir mal. Al final los resultados fueron terribles, de 17 ejercicios, tuve 4 malos y 13 buenos, para un porcentaje de 23% mal y 77% bien. Después de ver estos resultados, decidí revisar mis errores, y de camino a la oficina, pude revisar y hacer estos ejercicios de nuevo y en cuestión de 20 cuadras los pude hacer bien de nuevo. Mi conclusión, es que me fue mal en estos ejercicios, por que estaba muy cansada para pensar (ya que a mi me encanta dormir, el hacer los ejercicios el domingo a las 12.30 p.m. no es muy buen momento).

El otro grupo de problemas, fue sobre aquellos en los cuales se contrata a alguien para hacer un trabajo, y si el va, le das una cierta cantidad de dinero y si no va, le das otra, entonces cuantos días fue? En total realice 10 ejercicios, 9 de ellos estuvieron bien y uno mal, para una tasa de 90% bien y 10% pm. Mi error, fue pequeño y por despiste.

Bueno, ahora estoy muy emocionada de ver que finalmente he terminado esta parte del grupo de problemas, no veo la hora de terminarlos todos.

Problems Frist part / Primera parte sobre problemas

2005-08-24T15:52:00.001-05:00

After a few days of sickness I am back on track… I’ve done some exercises, but not as much as I would like to… I hope that I can study hard the rest of the week, because yesterday I was taking a look to the rest of the arithmetic’s book, and I still have a long way to go, and If I want to accomplish my goal of finishing the math review by this year I need to study harder.

Here is the recap of what I’ve done so far… The first set of exercises was about those kind of problems where you have two different amounts and you have the difference and addition, and you have to find out the quantities and also with ages. In this set, I got 12 questions and 2 were wrong (hit rate: 84% right, 16% wrong). The problem was that I got those problems in a bad way, with a wrong scope. The thing is that I got the main idea right, but some things were taking wrong, like for instance instead of adding, I subtracted.

The other two sets were about those problems of two times something kind of stuff and ages again… those problems were good, and I got them all fine, what I think that I did right is that I was really concentrated, and with any distractions. In total I solved 12 exercises (hit rate: 100% right).

The other two sets were about those problems were a car comes from some city and goes to the other and the other one goes to the same city, but from some other city and goes to the same place but parts from a different hour, and from all the problems, that I have worked on this is the first set that I can really tell that I enjoyed. This was a really interesting set, and I loved learning about all this stuff. In total I got 15 problems, and I got 3 wrong.(hit rate 20% wrong and 80% right) One of the mistakes was really silly, a careless addition error. The other two were errors that made me really worried, because one, was that I didn’t read the problem right, and I did a complete different thing, so of course the answer was wrong. The other problem is that I did all of the things right, all of the analysis right, but I gave other different answer, what I mean is that I answered a complete different thing that the problem asked. (Let’s say for instance that I said that I answered about the amount of Kilometers, and the problem asked for the amount of hours) I think that all of these problems came out of lack of concentration. I REALLY HAVE TO WORK ON THAT AREA!

The other two sets were about all those problems, when you have some bags with money and then you want to know how much money you had on those bags, the other set was one of those horrible exercises, when you had some money at the beginning, and you loose some, you gain some but you have to find out how much money did you had at the beginning of some days…. That last set of problems, was really hard for me, I think that it was in part the fact that I was very tired from the office…. Amount of problems: 9. Problems wrong 3. (hit rate: 33% wrong, 77% right.) the other thing problem is that in one really easy exercise, I confused one of the names of the answers that I had to give, so, the other recommendation is not to be too confident about easy exercises, you have to treat them all has hard.

PS: Does anybody here know how to add files to the blog? I have a lot of good GMAT stuff, but I just don’t know how to enter it into the blog.

Después de unos días de enfermedad, estoy de regreso. He hecho algunos ejercicios, pero no tanto como me hubiera gustado…. Espero poder estudiar duro el resto de la semana, por que ayer, estaba echándole una mirada a mi libro de aritmética y todavía me falta mucho por estudiar y si quiero lograr mi objetivo de terminar mi revisión de matemáticas este año tengo que estudiar duramente.

Este es un resumen de lo que he hecho hasta ahora, el primer grupo de ejercicios, fue sobre ese tipo de problemas en los cuales se tienen diferentes cantidades y tienes su diferencia y suma y tienes que encontrar las cantidades o las edades. En este grupo, de 12 preguntas, tuve 2 malas por lo tanto 84% estuvo bien y 16% mal. El problema fue que tome algunos problemas de una manera no adecuada, o por donde no era, por ejemplo en vez de sumar algo lo restaba.aunque entendía bien los problemas de manera general.

Los otros dos grupos de preguntas fue también sobre tantas veces algo y sobre edades. Todos estos problemas los tuve correctos, I creo que lo que en realidad me ayudo, fue el hecho que estuve muy concentrada y sin distracciones. En total resolví 12 ejercicios, 100% bien.

Los otros dos sets, fueron sobre ese tipo de problemas en los cuales dos carros parten de distintas ciudades hacia un punto en común y salen a distintas horas y velocidades, y de todos los problemas que he realizado se puede decir que esta es la primera vez en la que he disfrutado algún grupo. Me ha parecido un grupo de ejercicios muy interesante y me ha encantado aprender sobre ellos. En un total de 15 problemas me la embarre en 3, por lo tanto, el 20% estuvo mal y el 80% restante estuvo bien. Uno de los errores que tuve fue muy tonto, fue un error en una suma. Pero los otros dos si me preocuparon mucho, ya que uno tuvo que ver con el hecho que leí el problema mal, y la respuesta por supuesto salio mala. El otro problema fue que hice todo bien, análisis, operaciones, etc. Pero di otra respuesta a la que me solicitaban en este problema. (por ejemplo, en el problema me preguntaban por distancia y respondí horas) lo que creo es que estos problemas se deben a falta de concentración. TENGO QUE TRABAJAR EN ESTA AREA!

Los otros dos grupos de problemas, trataban sobre los problemas en los cuales se tienen varias bolsas con dinero y tienes que decir cuanta plata hay en esas bolsas. Y el otro grupo, fue sobre esos horribles ejercicios, en los cuales tienes una cierta cantidad de dinero al principio y luego ganas otro tanto y pierdes otro tanto y al final tienes que decir cuanta platas tenias al inicio de todo este tiempo. Este último grupo de problemas fue muy difícil para mi, creo en gran parte por que estaba cansada del trabajo. Cantidad de problemas: 9. Problemas malos: 3, por lo tanto, 33% estuvo mal y 77% bien. El otro problema que vi es que en un ejercicio que estaba fácil, confundí los nombres de las respuestas que debía dar, así que otra recomendación es no confiarse mucho en los problemas fáciles y tratarlos a todos como difíciles.

P.D: Alguien sabe como añadir archivos al blog? Tengo una buena cantidad de cosas practicas del GMAT, pero no se como añadirlas a la pagina.

Food Poisoning / Intoxicacion

2005-08-20T12:41:00.000-05:00

Well, when you really want to study, have the time and the willing to, something happens... well as the title of this post says, I got a problem with food poisoning... just for eating a thing that is not supposed to be eaten frozen... anyway, now I'm recovering, but the worst part is that I the pill that the doctor gave me, made me even sicker.

I hope I can get better soon, so I can go back to my studies again. =(

Cuando uno en realidad quiere estudiar, tiene el tiempo y el empuje, algo pasa… bueno, como bien lo dice el nombre de este mensaje, tuve un problema por intoxicación, ya que me comí algo que no se debe comer una vez congelado… bueno ni modo, ahora me estoy recuperando y lo peor de todo es que la pastilla que me recetaron me hizo sentir mas enferma.

Espero ponerme bien pronto, para que así pueda volver a mis estudios = (

Posting is back / Los mensajes han regresado

2005-08-17T08:31:00.000-05:00

Hi, after a week off, I started my GMAT studies again. I’ve had been reviewing my grammar books and also my flashcards with general information about the test. Yesterday, I finally
finished the division chapter, and the indicated division operations.

I divided this division chapter in 3 sessions, the 2 first ones was all about all the
different operations combined (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), I did an o.k. job, one session with 4
mistakes out of 22 questions, and in the other set I got 3 mistakes out of
24 questions. In the final 30 questions set which was about division properties, I got
all of the questions right, which made me really happy. The final numbers
are 91% of the questions right and 9% wrong.

The main problem was that I got confused with the order of the operations. I
have to remember that division is not commutative (I know that it might
sound silly, but I need to remember this kind of things)

Now, I am really happy to move on, I will be working this whole week in a
very expected chapter of the book, is all about those little annoying
problems, of somebody’s age or distances between two points, or differences between numbers.. this problems are all about
the things that I’ve already learned but applied, I am looking forward to attack this section, it looks really challenging. I will be
updating about my progress with this kind of problems, because this is going
a very long set of 176 problems.

P.S: I’m amazed to see that my site already got more than 200 visits, thanks to you all!

Hola, después de una semana de receso, he empezado mis estudios para el GMAT de nuevo. He estado revisando mis libros de gramática y también mis notas con información general del examen. Ayer, finalmente pude terminar el capitulo de la división y de las operaciones indicadas de división.

Dividí el capitulo de la división en 3 sesiones, los dos primeras sesiones eran sobre todas las distintas operaciones combinadas (adición, sustracción, multiplicación y división), y me fue o.k., ya que en una sesión tuve 4 errores en 22 preguntas y en la otra tuve 3 errores de 24 preguntas. En la última sesión, de 30 preguntas, que era sobre las propiedades de la división, no tuve errores, lo que me hizo muy feliz. Al final de cuentas tuve 9% de las preguntas equivocadas y 91% correctas.

El problema fue que me confundí con el orden de las operaciones. Tengo que recordar que la división no es conmutativa (yo se que puede sonar tonto, pero necesito recordar este tipo de cosas).

Ahora, estoy muy feliz de seguir adelante. Toda esta semana estaré trabajando en un capitulo que venia esperando con mucha ansiedad, este capitulo trata todos esos problemitas que a uno no le gustan, como los de las diferencias de edades, las distintas distancias entre 2 puntos o las diferencias entre dos números. En estos problemas voy a ve aplicadas todos los conceptos que ya he podido aprender. Tengo muchas ganas de atacar esta sección ya que me parece un reto muy interesante. En estos próximos días estaré comentando mis progresos en esta sección, ya que va a ser muy larga con 176 problemas.

P.D: Me parece increíble que mi pagina ya lleve mas de 200 visitas, gracias a todos!

A week off / Una semana de receso

2005-08-09T11:03:00.000-05:00

This week I won’t be doing a lot of progress in my GMAT preparation, since I’m feeling a little bit with flu, and I also have a very busy agenda, with birthdays, anniversary, and my grandma visiting me. I hope I can do some study next Monday, which is a national holiday. Anyway, I am taking this week to rest, and take a little break because I am having tons of work at the office. But in the meantime I am trying to study a little bit of grammar in the mornings on the way to work.

Esta semana no creo que vaya a hacer muchos progresos en mi preparación para el GMAT, ya que me siento un poquito agripada y además tengo una agenda muy apretada, con cumpleaños, aniversario y la visita de mi abuelita. Espero que el próximo lunes pueda estudiar un poco, ya que es festivo. De todas formas, me estoy tomando esta semana para descansar, ya que tengo mucho trabajo en la oficina. Pero mientras tanto, voy a tratar de estudiar un poquito de gramática en las mañanas de camino a la oficina.

What I´ve done so far / Que he hecho hasta ahora

2005-08-05T14:14:00.000-05:00

This is a very brief summary of what I´ve done so far... these are the results of my work with Baldor´s Arithmetic.

SUBJECT: Subtraction / Page 73
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 11
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 3
HIT RATE: Wrong 27%, Right 73%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Wrong Scope, Calculation Mistakes (careless errors).

SUBJECT: Addition / Page 81
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 44
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 4
HIT RATE: Wrong 9%, Right 91%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Forgot to simplify expressions, in the squares subtractions case I have problems organizing the second part of the expression.

SUBJECT: Addition and Subtraction Indicated operations / Page 85
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 14
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 0
HIT RATE: Wrong 0%, Right 100%

SUBJECT: Multiplication / Page 94
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 15
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 3
HIT RATE: Wrong 18%, Right 82%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Calculation Mistakes (careless errors). Problems with the question types of cars parting from different cities. Good problems formulation.

SUBJECT: Multiplication Indicated operations / Page 103
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 38
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 7
HIT RATE: Wrong 18%, Right 82%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Calculation Mistakes (careless errors), I have to be more careful with the parenthesis and also with the indicated operations.

SUBJECT: Multiplication Indicated operations / Page 106
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 28
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 6
HIT RATE: Wrong 21%, Right 79%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Calculation Mistakes (careless errors), No simplification.

SUBJECT: Multiplication Indicated operations / Page 109
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 23
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 0
HIT RATE: Wrong 0%, Right 100%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Remember to reduce to the minimum expression.

SUBJECT: Multiplication Indicated operations / Page 111
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 20
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 2
HIT RATE: Wrong 10%, Right 90%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Calculation Mistakes (careless errors).
SUBJECT: Multiplication Indicated operations / Page 112
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 10
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 1
HIT RATE: Wrong 10%, Right 90%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Calculation Mistakes (careless errors), No simplification.

SUBJECT: Division / Page 120
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 11
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 1
HIT RATE: Wrong 9%, Right 91%
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Wrong Scope.

SUMMARY
AMOUNT OF PROBLEMS: 214
WRONGO QUESTIONS: 27
HIT RATE: Wrong 13%, Right 87%º

Conclusions: I have to be more careful with the different operations and calculations. I also need to be more focused, but I think that with time and practice I will improve this aspect.

Este es un pequeño resumen de lo que he hecho hasta ahora... estos son mis resultados del trabajo realizado con el libro de Aritmetica de Baldor.

TEMA: Sustracción / Pag. 73
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 11
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 3
PORCENTAJES:Mal 27%, Bien 73%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: No entendí bien el problema. Problemas de calculación.

TEMA: Problemas indicados de suma y resta / Pag. 81
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 14
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 0
PORCENTAJES: Bien 100%

TEMA: Problemas indicados de suma y resta / Pag. 85
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 44
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 4
PORCENTAJES: Mal 9%, Bien 91%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Es necesario mejorar en el caso de la resta de cuadrados, la segunda parte de la expresión. No estoy simplificando.

TEMA: Multiplicación / Pag. 94
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 15
PREGUNTAS MALAS:3
PORCENTAJES:Mal 18% , Bien 82%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Buenos planteamientos. Dificultad con el problema de los carros de distintas ciudades. Mejorar la calculación.

TEMA: Operaciones indicadas de multiplicación / Pag. 103
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 38
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 7
PORCENTAJES:Mal 18%, Bien 82%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Problemas de atención – calculación. Cuidado con los paréntesis de las operaciones indicadas. Cuidado con las multiplicaciones.

TEMA: Operaciones indicadas de multiplicación / Pag. 106
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS:28
PREGUNTAS MALAS:6
PORCENTAJES:Mal 21%, Bien 79%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Problemas de atención – calculación. No simplificar lo que esta dentro de los paréntesis. No dejar operaciones indicadas.

TEMA: Operaciones indicadas de multiplicación / Pag. 109
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 23
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 0
PORCENTAJES: Bien 100%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Cuidado con no reducir a la mínima expresión.

TEMA: Operaciones indicadas de multiplicación / Pag. 111
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 20
PREGUNTAS MALAS:2
PORCENTAJES:Mal 10%, Bien 90%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Problemas de atención – calculación.

TEMA: Operaciones indicadas de multiplicación / Pag. 112
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 10
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 1
PORCENTAJES:Mal 10%, Bien 90%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: Problemas de atención – calculación.

TEMA: División / Pag. 120
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 11
PREGUNTAS MALAS:1
PORCENTAJES:Mal 9%, Bien 91%
DESCRIPCION ERRORES: No entendí bien el problema.

RESUMEN:
CANTIDAD DE PROBLEMAS: 214
PREGUNTAS MALAS: 27
PORCENTAJES:Mal 13%, Bien 87%

Conclusiones: Debo tener más cuidado con las diferentes operaciones y calculaciones. También necesito estar más concentrada, pero creo que con tiempo y práctica mejoraré este aspecto.

My past actions / Mis acciones pasadas

2005-08-05T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hi,

Well, Now that I wrote about my reasons to start this blog , and what is this test about, my preparation plans, and the material that I’m using, I would like to write about what have I done so far, and where I am in this moment, so I can start to make posts in present time. I will divide this story in time periods, to make it easier to organize.

MAY: I first found out that I had to start my GMAT preparation about in the middle of this month. I was really angry to find out that I had to start my preparation right away in order to have enough time to prepare in a good way, and also to have enough time to repeat the test in case that I got a bad score. The reason why this made me angry, is because at that time, I was taking French lessons, and this time, I was doing a great job with this language, but right now GMAT is more urgent than French =( … anyway, someday I will finish my French studies.

JUNE: After making the decision between French and GMAT (which took me about 15 days) I started my research over GMAT. I started it on the internet, forums and books; I also started to do some research about the GRE, because about that time I thought that I had to take the GMAT and the GRE. I couldn’t dedicate too much time to this labor, because between work and putting everything in order in my new home I was kind of busy, but after some weeks, I was able to get a good amount of information together, and it helped me to get a good idea of what this test was about.

After this research, I drew some conclusions:

In Math, GMAT is harder than GRE.
In Verbal, GRE is harder than GMAT.
This is not good for me, since math is my weakest are and I enjoy learning verbal stuff more than math stuff.

The good thing is that those days I found out that I had no need to take the GRE. Now I only have to prepare for one test. This is great, because if GMAT alone is hard, now imagine preparing for two tests.

I also went to the Kaplan institute in Bogotá, I first thought that this could be a really good place for my preparation, but the price was really high (USD$799), and the method didn’t convinced me. I am not saying that Kaplan is bad, I have their books which I love but the Bogotá center didn’t convinced me very much, so I decided to prepare myself.

JULY: after all this initial research and approaches to the test, I started to organize all the information that I downloaded from different sites, read all this info and make my flashcards of these materials. I also took a diagnose test to see how I was doing and off course it came out horrible, first because I had no idea of how approach some type of questions, and also my math is terrible way, but the good thing about it is that this test reinforced the idea that before preparing too much for the questions I have to build good bases in order to get a good score. That is how my preparation plan came out.

In this month I also started my preparation with arithmetic’s and this is the point where I am in the present moment.

Hola,

Bueno, ahora que ya he escrito sobre mis rezones para iniciar este blog, sobre de que trata este examen, mis planes de preparación y el material que estoy usando, me gustaría relatar que he hecho hasta ahora y en donde estoy en este momento para así poder empezar a crear mensajes de manera presente. Dividiré esta historia en periodos de tiempo, para así hacerlo mas fácil de organizar.

MAYO: En este mes me di cuenta que tenia que empezar mi preparación para el GMAT. Esto me hizo sentir muy molesta, ya que debía empezar la preparación lo mas pronto posible para así tener la suficiente cantidad de tiempo para prepararme solidamente y además tener suficiente tiempo para repetir el examen en caso que me fuera mal. La razón por la cual me sentí molesta, fue por que en ese momento estaba en clases de Francés y me estaba yendo muy bien, pero en este momento GMAT es mas urgente que Francés =(… de todas formas algún día terminare mis estudios de este idioma.

JUNIO: después de mi decisión entre Francés y GMAT (la cual me tomo como 15 días) empecé mi investigación sobre este examen, la cual inicie en Internet, foros y libros; además empecé a investigar sobre el GRE, ya que en esa época creía que tenia que hacer el GRE también. Desafortunadamente no pude dedicar mucho tiempo a esta labor, ya que entre el trabajo y poner todo en orden en mi nuevo hogar, estaba medio ocupada, pero después de algunas semanas, pude reunir una buena cantidad de información, y esto me ayudo a tener una buena idea de que se trataba este examen.

Después de mi investigación, llegue a algunas conclusiones:

En matemáticas, GMAT es más difícil que el GRE.
En la parte verbal, GRE es más difícil que el GMAT.
Esto en realidad no es bueno para mi, ya que matemáticas es mi área mas sensible, y disfruto mas aprendiendo cosas verbales.

Además de esto, fui al instituto Kaplan de Bogota, ya que al principio creí que este seria un buen sitio para empezar una buena preparación, pero el precio es muy alto (USD $ 799) y además, el método no me convenció. No es que este diciendo que Kaplan sea malo, al contrario, yo tengo sus libros y me gustan mucho y todo, pero el centro de preparación de Bogota no me convenció de a mucho, así que decidí prepararme yo misma.

JULIO: Después de toda esta investigación inicial, y mis acercamientos al examen, empecé a organizar la información que baje de distintos sitios, leerla y hacer notas. También tome un examen de diagnostico para ver como estaba y obviamente salio terrible, primero por que no sabia muy bien como tomar algunos tipos de preguntas, y además mis matemáticas estaban muy mal, pero lo bueno es que este examen de diagnostico reforzó mi idea que antes de prepararme mucho en los distintos tipos de preguntas, debía crear buenas bases para así obtener un buen resultado, y así fue como mi plan de preparación fue trazado.

En este mes además, inicie mi preparación en aritmética y este es el punto en donde estoy ahora mismo.

Sadness / Tristeza

2005-08-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

Today I had the saddest Blog moment until now… I was talking to a friend of mine and he told me that this whole blog idea was kind of silly… and if I really wanted people to see my work and how I was doing.

I didn’t create this site to show people how good I am with something (in fact I know that I have problems with a lot of points for this test), I just create it to encourage myself to get a better score, and to write in a better way… It is really hard to show in front of everybody your weakness and your strengths. I hope this site can help future GMAT takers, with all the good and bad stuff of the process.

Hoy, he tenido el momento mas triste desde que tengo mi blog, hablando con un amigo, me comento que toda esta idea del blog era como medio tonta y si en realidad quería que la gente viera mi trabajo y como me estaba yendo.

Yo no cree este sitio para andar mostrando que tan buena soy en algo (es mas yo se que tengo problemas con muchas cosas para este examen), yo tan solo lo he creado para animarme a mi misma para tener un mejor resultado y además escribir mejor… De por si es bastante difícil el mostrar en frente de todo el mundo tus fortalezas y dificultades. De todas formas espero que este sitio pueda servir a futuros evaluados, con todas las cosas buenas y malas del proceso.

Information Resources / Fuentes de Informacion:

2005-08-03T08:29:00.000-05:00

I would like to point which materials I’m using in my GMAT preparation:

Practical Algebra / Wiley Editorial.
Grammar in use (intermediate) / Cambridge
Arithmetic / Baldor (in Spanish)
Algebra / Baldor (in Spanish)
Geometry / Schaum´s
GMAT / Kaplan 2004 edition.
GRE test / Barron´s 15th edition.
GMAT / Barron´s 12th edition.
Fundamentos de Matematicas.
GRE math review (from the GRE site)
OG (Official Guide) 10Th edition. (also known as the bible for GMAT).
PowerPrep.
GMATPrep.
Test Magic Forums (this site is the best, I highly recommend it).
Score Top Forum (a lot of goodies)
Tons of downloads from some sites… GMAT Plus books 1 to 6 and also OG paper test (all the 6 of them)
And also some math books from high school, that I got from my cousin’s library (thanks Lala)

Me gustaría referenciar los materiales que estoy utilizando en mi preparación para el GMAT:

Practical Algebra / Wiley Editorial.
Grammar in use (intermediate) / Cambridge
Arithmetic / Baldor (en español)
Algebra / Baldor (en español)
Geometry / Schaum´s
GMAT / Kaplan 2004 edicion.
GRE test / Barron´s 15 edicion.
GMAT / Barron´s 12 edicion.
Fundamentos de Matematicas.
GRE math review (tomado de la pagina oficial del GRE)
OG (Official Guide) 10 edicion. (también conocido como la Biblia del GMAT).
PowerPrep.
GMATPrep.
Test Magic Forums (esta pagina es increíble, la súper recomiendo).
Score Top Forum (muchas cosas cheveres)
Varios documentos que he bajado de muchos sitios como por ejemplo los libros de GMAT Plus del 1 to 6 y tambien OG examenes en formato papel (todos los 6)
Y tambien algunos libros de matematicas de bachillerato que me tome prestado de la biblioteca de mi prima (gracias Lala).

Posting Changes / Cambios en los mensajes

2005-07-31T22:10:00.000-05:00

Since I started this blog, I thought that it would be nice to be written in English, so in that way more people could reach it, and I could also practice my writing skills, but by building this site in English, I left 2 very important persons away... my parents. I know that they would love to check this site since they are far away and this also would be a nice way for them to know what is going on with me, so from now on, this will be a bilingual site, and the posts will be written in English and Spanish.
P.S: The posts won't be a word by word translation; the plan is to translate the ideas.

Cuando empecé esta pagina, primero lo hice en ingles, para que mas gente pudiera accederlo, y además para practicar mis habilidades de escritura en este idioma, pero al construir este sitio en ingles, deje atrás a dos personas muy importantes, mis papas y se que a ellos les gustaría mucho entrar a esta pagina ya que estamos lejos, y además de esta forma se pueden enterar un poquito mas de que esta pasando en mi vida, así que de ahora en adelante, esta pagina será bilingüe, y los mensajes serán escritos en ingles y en español.
P.D: Los mensajes no serán traducidos de un idioma al otro palabra por palabra, sino que el plan es traducir las ideas.

My preparation plans

2005-07-29T09:56:00.000-05:00

I really don’t know when I will take the test. What I know for sure is that I will take the test between April and June 2.006, so I can have enough time to re-take it if I get a bad score.

Taking this into account, I have a good amount of time to prepare myself. The good thing about it is that I can get a strong preparation, but the bad thing about it, is that with all that time ahead, I might forget something that I learn at the beginning, and I have also read in some forums, that people who usually starts their preparation really early gets discouraged very quick.

To avoid discourage, and also get a good preparation, I made up a plan that I am trying to stick to…

First, I have to start with math, since this is my weakest area, I decided to begin by reviewing the basics in Spanish and later on I will review my math in English, but I think that starting with Baldor´s Arithmetic, I will get good arithmetic basic skills. After that I will continue with Baldor´s Algebra (yeah I know I might sound addicted to this author’s books, but they are definitely the best ones).

On the other hand, I am also preparing to take the TOEFL this year before it changes to its new format, so I planning to study for this test on weekends, and also review my English grammar. After that, I will continue reviewing Geometry and Probability, and I really hope that I can finish with all those concepts by December or maximum, January next year.

Then, I will continue with my preparation books, to review test taking techniques and how to ace each section of the test and also improve my verbal skills. After all that work, I hope that I can beat the GMAT and get a great score… my goal is a score of 700+.

What is the GMAT about

2005-07-29T09:53:00.000-05:00

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) examination is a standardized test designed to measure basic verbal, mathematical, and analytical writing skills that have been developed over a long period of time through education and work.

Analytical Writing Assessment Section
The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is designed as a direct measure of the test taker's ability to think critically and communicate ideas. The AWA consists of two writing tasks—Analysis of an Issue and Analysis of an Argument.
The issue and argument that are found on the test concern topics of general interest related to business or a variety of other subjects. A specific knowledge of the essay topic is not necessary. Only the test taker’s capacity to write analytically is assessed.

Verbal Section
The Verbal section of the GMATexam measures the test taker's ability to—
read and comprehend written material
reason and evaluate arguments
correct written material to conform to standard written English
Three types of multiple-choice questions are used in the Verbal section of the GMAT: Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction.

Quantitative Section
The Quantitative section of the GMAT exam measures basic mathematical skills and understanding of elementary concepts and the ability to reason quantitatively, solve quantitative problems, and interpret graphic data. Two types of multiple-choice questions are used in the Quantitative section of the GMAT exam: Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency.
Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency questions are intermingled throughout the section. Both types of questions require knowledge of the following:
arithmetic
elementary algebra
commonly known concepts of geometry

The Reason for a Blog

2005-07-28T14:41:00.001-05:00

It’s been a while since I first got the idea of creating my own blog… after a lot of thinking, I decided to create this site as a way of inspiring myself on my Journey to get a good GMAT score (that is off course the reason why I gave this site it’s name).

I had the intention of taking this test a long while ago, but until May, I realized that I have to take it soon, in order to take advantage of the scholarships that I want to get.

And the main reason to create this site, is that I study everywhere, on my lunch breaks, on the way home, at home, and everywhere possible… so this is a good way for me to keep track of where am I in my preparation in a certain moment. And of course, this site will help me to improve my writing skills, so please post if you have any comments.