GMAT: What NOT to do(My experience)

Most people here give advice and tips on what to do. I figured I should tell you what not to do so that you can learn from my mistakes.

I just came home after taking the GMAT 570 43Q 26V .I will start with my story now.

Late August 2014: I decided to take the GMAT. I was fascinated by the exam. I started my prep with a local prep company. After spending 3 months with them, I realized that they had no idea what GMAT was! Allow me to elaborate. The GMAT and GRE classes were combined. The quant instructor focused on a very formula based approach to all the questions. The questions were of poor quality as they involved complex calculations(maybe that was for the GRE students). The institution taught me some quant topics that have never appeared on the real test. e.g Logarithms. The worst part was that out of the total 36 hours of classes, only 30 minutes were used for Data Sufficiency. Yes! You read that right 30 minutes! The instructor did not even know about the official guide and had good knowledge of mathematics but he failed to teach me any strategies.
The verbal instructor was decent at best but he used the 1000 series material with very bad explanations.

Key Takeaway: If you are going to join a test prep company, research beforehand.

December 2014: After finding out about the "real GMAT". I decided to use a different approach. I ordered the Manhattan strategy guides( Except the CR and RC guides ) and the Powerscore CR Bible. I started self study but was only able to complete the number properties book( without OG questions). I was very satisfied with the material.
Manhattan Test: 620 ( without AWA and IR)
Veritas: 690

December 2014 to May 2015: I let procrastination get the best of me. Yes, I did not study for 7 months! I knew that i had to study so I took the date. June 2015. I do not know why i was acting like that but even after taking a test date I could not get myself to study.

Key Takeaway: Do not procrastinate! I know it is tempting but trust me it will not get you anywhere.

June 2015: 2 days before the test I realized that I had not studied at all, there was no time to take a practice test. I just tried to read all the content from the strategy guides. Skim might be a better word. I skimmed all the strategy guides the night before the test. Got barely 2 hours of sleep. Went to the test center tired. Rushed to reach on time. I barely got there in time.

Test Experience: Sat there and read the AWA template by chineseburned. It is excellent in my opinion. Of course i do not have to tell you guys. A lot of you swear by it. Kept my stuff into the locker and went inside. Started with the AWA. This was the first time I was writing an essay for the GMAT. I had never bothered to try to do it at home. I just wrote anything that I could remember from the template.
I just sat through the IR section.I did not even try to attempt any question. Just sat there enjoying my 30 minute break doodling on the scratch pad.

The quant section was okayish. I could find some answers. Data sufficiency seemed good. I was doing fine until I noticed something about myself. On some questions that i did not know, I had this strong urge to press confirm and move on to the next question. I am not talking about the questions that i couldn't do or those which were time consuming. I actually did not feel like doing some questions. I know it sounds stupid. I know the importance of my score and I would never intentionally do that. I just could not stop myself from doing it. I just wanted to get out of there.

Verbal Section was hard. Harder than the practice tests. I saw that the underlined portion was longer. I later found out that it was the recent GMAT trend in which they test meaning of the sentence. I was am very good at critical reasoning so that was good. Reading Comprehension was so difficult for me. The same impulse just kept forcing me to get over with the passage and get to the CR or SC questions. I had to take a deep breath and convince myself to not do that. It was very difficult and I could not concentrate on the passage at all. This was probably the reason for my low verbal score. Also I am not very good with sentence correction. I often cannot decide between the last two answer choices but I tried my best.

580 43Q 27V. Frankly i was not too surprised. My time management was poor. But i was not expecting such a low score in verbal.I took my belongings and went home.

Key Takeaway: Sleep is very important

Retake Strategy:
I decided to take the GMAT again as I knew that I had not performed as well as i could. I booked the test for September 2015. I had close to 3 months for my preparation. I decided i won't make the same mistake twice. I started studying diligently from that day( 8 hours a day including weekends). I started from the Manhattan Foundations Book. I even paid attention to the first page which is about addition. 7+5=13 i think. I was determined to learn all the basics and do well this time. Went through all the quant guides and the verbal guides. Trust me Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible is a excellent!

I did all the questions from the official guide. BUT i could not get myself to analyze my mistakes. I knew this then. I know this now. Analyzing mistakes is very important. Every top scorer here attributes his or her success to error analysis. I did questions from GmatPrep( 90 Questions) and was doing good on them. I practiced from OG, Magoosh( trial), Gmatprep, Manhattan Question Bank,Gmat paper tests.( without analysis). Not analyzing mistakes was the stupidest decision I made. I was so scared to look at my mistakes. I would get nightmares relating to the GMAT. I actually started losing hair( so many on my desk). I was so tensed but I did not stop practicing. I was so scared to take a practice test. I did not take any. I thought i would break down if the score was too low.

GMAT Retake( September 2015):

I knew that sleep was important. I did not study the last two days and spent those two days relaxing and doing a little bit of IR. I slept for a solid 8 hours 1 day before the test day but I could not sleep the night before the test day. I just lay in bed thinking about the test. It was weird. I wanted to take the exam. I was excited. I barely slept 3 hours. AGAIN!. The test center in my city closed down so I had to go to another center 3 hours away. The drive was stressful. By the time I reached for my 2 pm appointment I was very tired and hungry but it was too late I just went in and started the identification process. After the picture and the palm vein scan, I proceeded to the testing room.

Quant Section: The first question was a PS question that i could not solve! I had not expected that. The next 7 questions were data sufficiency.I could easily spot the con( the part where they trick you). I could see through the questions. The quant seemed challenging but at a certain point I got a question that was so basic I got scared. It was so basic couldn't even be experimental. It was something like what is 250% of 568.( Not the real question. I hope its okay to post this) It seemed too basic to me. I got scared a little. I was ahead in time. I got 5 probability questions which i could solve with ease. I ended the section with 6 minutes remaining. I felt very confident. I thought that I was acing this section. After the section, I took the optional break. Went to the toilet and jumped. I was beating the GMAT. I did a little boxing like hand movements just to get my confidence up. I felt like i was beating the GMAT. I was so happy.

Verbal: Got in late. i had exceeded my break by 1 minute. No big deal. I thought i would catch up. The SC seemed harder than usual. Harder than OG. I took it as a good sign.Not that i spent too much time thinking about how i was doing. The dreadful Reading Comprehension came. The biggest i had ever seen. I started trembling and felt the same urge again. I just wanted to select the answer that sounded right and just get over with the passage. I did not practice with many passages in my preparation. I just selected some answers and moved on. I don't know if it was bad luck or something else. The thing i was running from came back at me. I got 5 Reading comprehension passages. I have never heard anybody get that many passages on the actual test. It was dreadful.I finished the section. Quickly responded to the survey. The moment had come. 570 Q43 V 26. I was not staring at the screen I had turned my eyes away. At first glace i thought it was a 750. I had read that people find the GMAT challenging and they feel like they are not doing well and boom 99th percentile.(Not a usual occurrence but i was elated nonetheless) . I looked again and my heart started sinking. I could suddenly see the flashback of the time when i sacrificed my social life for the exam. All the effort i put in. I could not believe. Even after putting in so much effort. I had failed.

The drive back home was dreadful. I called my father and gave him the bad news. He was not expecting it as he had seen me put in so much hard work for the test. I cried on the way back. I was contemplating suicide. I know people say that the GMAT does not define who you are but I was so upset. I could feel the 50th percentile mocking me. The term average has always scared me. Id rather be bad at something than be average at it. Don't we all have our little ideologies? Here I am now. I do not know if i'll be able to take the test again. I have already spent 500$ for the test fee plus all the tutoring fee and the study material costs and I do not want to spend any more on the test. But i badly want to get into a good business school. I may try again when I am completely sure after taking many practice tests. My only aim is to tell you what can go wrong,what can happen, how your anxiety can overpower you and make you take bad decisions. Just watch out my friends! I wish you all the best for your future endeavors and do not make the same mistakes i did.

I know I'm in no position to give any advice as I have failed miserably but I am sure you can learn something from my mistakes.


Also,I would love to get an expert opinion on my situation. I know the content but I probably need to know my mistakes. Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you!


Bonus Tip: Try to find all the grammatical errors I made in this post