Hi Guys,
Thought i should pen down at least a quick debrief before I get all too busy n forget abt this altogether.

Background:

Born and brought up in Delhi, I am presently working in singapore for a fortune 100 as a senior consultant, have been in singapore for the past 3 yrs. Hold a B.tech, PMP certified and a couple more certification, abt 7 yrs of exp, worked in US - short term, Hongkong - short term , Singapore - long term.
Into IT consulting,pre sales, CRM , BPM, ITIL and process consulting , Best practices and tool implementations.
I had appeared for my first GMAT long back in Dec, 2011 and was very casual about it, may be a bit overconfident , thus, obviously the GMAT nuclear bombed me for a 570. I still remember getting out of the lift after givin the exam and feeling like crap, but I am a very +ve person and nothing keeps me down for more than a couple of hrs. I thought over it for a day and knew exactly what went wrong. I underestimated the power of GMAT.
I had given the exam without much prep, I was banking on quant , but completely failed on verbal. Timing was all wrong, missed like 7 questions on both verbal and quant.

It took me an year before i could actually get my mind around things and finally decided to take the test on 14th mar,13 , and got 690.

Lesson Learned : Performance under pressure is a different ball game together. Its the timing in GMAT that you have to master. recognize patterns, question styles, know your shortcuts.
You need to realize when you are not going to get the right answer and you say, its too tough, and then you make a calculated guess and move on.



acknowledgements

I must acknowledge a few things , there is a quote that I heard from someone ," the secrets of life are hidden behind the work cliche", and this is so so so true. Continued efforts - Little by little over a period of time WILL lead you to success.
Another thing you hv 2 remember is valleys and mountains. What i mean is that there will be days when you feel like giving up , other days when you feel upbeat and motivated... This is what you need to manage , and never give up!

Study plan

I think i don't need to delve deep into this - Manhattan is the queen for SC, also for advanced quant. One imp point that i need to share for quant, the GMATCLUB's 700-800 Level questions are an excellent source, will get you up to Q50.
Manhattan Mock's are an excellent investment.

Before I end, I like to mention a trick , in order to reduce the pressure, take the GMAT in this way:
Its not so abnormal to take the test even 5 times , as along as you end up with a 730. So fist of all, tell ur self that you will never give up , no matter what. Give urself 5 chances and say to yourself that even if you miss it the first couple of times, its not the end of the world. Go in to the exam with this mindset and wonderful things will happen. Also, I would suggest not to sit for the GMAT unless you score 650+ consistently in mocks.

I know 690 is an avg score (specially for a Indian ) , and this is why i am under confident, but getting this score on the second try, and my first real try, feels good. I hope my debrief was helpful in some way to someone.
Finally, GMATCLUB , thank you so much for this great site, helped me alot i used to log in to gmatclub on my iphone all the time, and used to practice questions .
Thanks to all those the experts and members who helped me out so much.
and now ladies and gentlemen , its time to get on wid the applications .. good night\over and out
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GMATPrep 1: 670
GMATPrep 2 : 710

Hi nishant1006, thanks so much for your debrief. Very interesting perspective and I agree with pretty much everything you said. I want to highlight what you wrote for lesson learned, however, as I believe it's worth its weight in gold. Both points are very valid, and the GMAT is the type of test where you have to recognize what's being asked of you, or else you will fall in a trap.

Shortcuts, mental agility, adaptability, being able to solve the questions 3 different ways... these are some of the things that will get your score to that high level everyone wants. However, you will occasionally run into questions that you have no idea how to solve. These questions can make you waste your time and lose your confidence, so it's important to know how to deal with them. Sometimes, you just have to make an educated guess and move on with your test/life.

Thanks again for the debrief and best of luck in the future!
-Ron
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Ron Awad
Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor
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