Hi All
Here is my debrief. Oh lord! that feels good. I've been waiting for ages to get it over with and write a debrief.
Timeline:Jan 2015 - Started thinking about giving GMAT
1 Jul - I know I'll never get serious about anything unless I've fixed a date. So, I picked an exam date for Aug 12th. Wish score 780!!!. I was brought up in a background where scoring anything less than 100% in math is a crime and I've fortunately avoided that crime many times. With GMAT- same expectation on Quants section. Started Familiarizing myself with question types.
4 Jul - IR4 Q46 V25 T590 GMAT prep 1. Restated my target to 750+ (to be more realistic). Started preparing from
OG.
12 Jul - IR3 Q42 V31 T610 Manhattan test. I was clueless what is happening. Started studying various materials to build concepts.
20 Jul - IR_ Q48 V31 T650 Platinum GMAT. I thought it is working. So kept venturing into new materials like Kaplan guide and studied concepts.
1 Aug - IR4 Q49 V35 T700 GMAT prep 1 retake . Still not 750. So, I decided to reschedule my exam date to Oct 12. Continued to prepare from different books and concepts.
10 Aug - IR6 Q43 V30 T600 Veritas Prep Test 1. Disaster. Came to GMAT club to find out if this is common. One Valuable piece of advice I found in one of the posts was "DON'T take mock tests from multiple free sources. Even if you were to spend money to buy few mocks, keep taking from same source". That's it- Veritas prep all 7 mocks then!
(2 week break with limited study. US trip to visit colleges and vacation)
3 Sep - IR6 Q39 V27 T550 Veritas Prep Test 2. Dude! What the hell is happening with your scores? Total demotivation. Study study study again!!! pick up the pace. Revised mistakes from mocks.
11 Sep - IR6 Q45 V29 T610 Veritas Prep Test 3. Well now time to think. Even though Q is fluctuating between 39-49, I knew my mistakes are very silly and I could avoid. But verbal best score was V35 and I knew this is not enough. So, I registered for
e-GMAT verbal online.
19 Sep - IR6 Q47 V32 T650 Veritas Prep Test 4. Ok improvement. Lets give
e-GMAT some more time. Covered all the video lessons.
24 Sep - IR5 Q48 V35 T680 GMAT prep 2 . Hmmm..respectable but still something lacking. While I consciously know I could do better, somehow not showing up in the exam.
3 Sep - IR5 Q44 V29 T600 Veritas Prep Test 5. While you think things are going well, this happens!!! Only 2 weeks left and I had to pull myself together I vowed to myself, no more mocks for me
3- 11 Sep - Preparation from GMAT club and
egmat. A big thanks to GMATCLUB (especially Bunuel) and
e-GMAT (especially scholaranium). These 2 resources deserve special and detailed note.
12 Sep - IR8 Q49 V39 T710 (91st Percentile) Final GMAT.
Study Materials:1. GMAT Club:GMAT club is really a one-stop shop with huge amount of resources. I started reading Bunuel's topic wise posts and answered all the related questions (following hyperlinks in his posts). This exercise showed how much I really didn't know in math (even after 2 months of preparation). I liked timer feature. GMAT club posts helped me specialize in a topic before I moved to the next topic. Bunuel is simply great (going through all that pain in hyperlinking each and every related topic and categorizing them in various levels of difficulty). My only regret is that I didn't use GMAT club extensively all this while. After 2 days, GMAT started giving me personalised questions on a daily basis and it felt good to get lot of questions right. I came to a point where I could recognize all common question patterns and hence started focusing on rare question types (From Bunuel's collection again). Bunuel even has a topic on "common C-trap questions" which is amazing. Day before exam, I was confident in my math (Felt like high school days yet again). Read couple of AWA essays and templates from GMAT club.
2. e-GMAT:eGMAT has ONE OF THE BEST comprehensive materials out there for verbal. I watched all the videos. After every concept, there are application files and practice files that really make your concepts solid. I absolutely enjoyed scholaranium concept. I just wish I could have used up all my ability quizzes (60% I couldn't take because I had no time). Also, I couldn't use the resources available for IR, but I believe they're equally good. While I didn't a V40-42 as i had wished to, I was more confident than ever before with my verbal concepts and I could tell that V38 is a guarantee.
Exam experience:4 hours of High focus and concentration demands a lot of physical and mental stamina. Last 5 questions in both the sections I just wanted to get it over with. Math was extremely predictable- I could literally spot "Appearing correct but wrong" answer choices and pick the correct one and hence Q49 was really disappointing. I thought I answered all the questions correctly except for 30th question (for which I didn't know how to solve under 2 mins) and rushed through 37th question. With margin of error, I think I got max 5 questions wrong.
Does anyone here know if that is big enough to ding Quants score to 49?Take-aways:1. First and foremost, don't do "study material hopping". What I realised in my first 2 months of preparation was, I kept jumping from one resource to another resource to yet another. In the process, I realized that I'm putting in time but not learning anything new. All materials (Kaplan,
Magoosh, Princeton) are good and cover concepts well. But, depth is the key- Stick to one resource and keep focusing on application of concepts to GMAT type questions.
2. Don't do mocks if you're not prepared enough. Also, don't take too many mocks if you're not serious about it. You can focus on building concepts in 4 hours instead wasting time in taking a mock.
3. Mocks are meant for testing your stamina, not for polishing your concepts. i.e, you can't prepare just by taking mocks. Because, it might seem like "yea! now I know how to answer this problem". But you may not be able to apply it to similar problems.
4. GMAT prep algorithm is closest thing to real exam. But difficulty in GMAT prep was slightly lower than actual GMAT. Veritas prep has some real quality questions for both verbal and quants. I'm yet to break 700+ inveritas prep. May be I'll take a mock this weekend to set my personal best.
Personally, I think 2 GMAT prep mock tests should be good enough. However, if you want to take more tests, then buy few mocks from the same vendor to compare your progress (whichever company it is).
5. Don't under estimate GMAT club resources. Use them wisely. 15 days with Bunuel questions is enough to get your quants from 45-49 or 48-51 if used well.
6. I would suggest using GMAT apps (to refresh memory through flash cards and small quiz while travelling for work, lunch breaks etc).
7 Finally, if you think you can get 750 and mocks give you a 600, don't lose hope. It is good to identify your weakness before the real exam. Also, a low mock score is just a reminder to push yourself a bit further to go the extra mile.
Waiting for my AWA scores. So, can't comment much.
All the best everyone. Hope you found it useful.
Having said all that, I'm thinking if I should retake the GMAT or not. How realistic it is to move the scores from 710 to 750 and Q49 to Q51?
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13 Oct 2015, 02:39
