As Hector told to Achilles in his final dual with him. I dreamed of this time everyday in my preparation. Finally its happening. I finally got GMAT 730 (Q50,V40, IR8). I will verify it after I get official score.
I also started my GMAT after getting low score in CAT. I started in May 2018. I gave my official GMAT with score 650(Q51,V26). I felt so sad and also little happy for my Q51. I took 1 month preparation time and gave again with utter disappointment with score of 640(Q50,V26). I had deadline for round 2 for ISB , I gave it again in gap of 15 days with same score of GMAT3 640(Q50, V26). ISB open its round 3 for last year with Jan 15 as deadline. Though everyone was teasing me by this time, I wanted to answer with score and gave again with no improvement GMAT4 650(Q50, V28). I became example for the term GMAT plateaued.
In,2019 May I again started my preparation. I went through several posts and got to know that High scorers use
Manhattan Prep SC for SC, Power-score CR for CR. I followed the same for my preparation. I followed Manhattan-prep RC Strategy guide for my preparation. I also saw videos of RON SC and GMAT NINJA.
The things I followed as normal guys during my futile attempts:
1.bought on-demand courses of high rated brands
2.Put 3 month plan
3. watch videos and solve problems in
OG( you may ask what will you after watching videos ?, I will explain)
4. Book slot (if we dont book slot , we dont get motivation ?)
5. Pressure builds , not scoring as desired and taking official exam and get low score.
Things I followed after 4 failures:
1. abandoned on-demand courses(I am not against them. I initially got good knowledge)
2. Took Manhattan SC-spent 1 month(I had time )
3. Devised a strategy for RC(I had not used any strategy, but to simply read RC and attempt questions)
4. Used GMAT practice questions thoroughly (I would use for root level topics such as Parallelism etc)
5. CR- Power Score-such a great under rated book ever
6. Booked slot when scoring around high scores.
This was my strategy for Verbal (V26 to V40):
Sentence Correction:
I still remember the boxing analogy of RON for Sentence Correction, which is to practice sub-topics one at a time not all at a time. I went through
Manhattan Prep SC once. Then I went through only Parallelism , saw videos of RON and GMAT Ninja( I really liked his acting, i get inspired whenever i see him, He can become an actor) on parallelism. Now i open Practice question banks in GMATCLUB and selected all
OG questions and selected Parallelism. Then Practice each question. when a question appears i see the options first for 10 seconds and figure what it is going to test. I then quickly read the question and cross off all incorrect answers( not pick the correct one). This strategy helped me a lot. I learned this from GMAT NINJA from his Youtube videos. When you are dealing V40 you will not questions for Only subject verb agreement, or "Not only but also " parallelisms. Also for every question find why each option wrong and go through GMAT NINJA explanations, or other explanations as RON does in his SC Videos. the idea here is our eyes finds pattern and react accordingly in the future( I read this in some
OG RC but I felt true).
I never saw SC question i could pick since i thought it was correct. I eliminated the 4 wrongs choices. Also, MahattanPrep SC is underrated book in GMAT World. off course, it is not with all exceptions and rules. But i felt it is the most comprehensive material than on-demand courses. So, Guys think V40+ , think about RON-SC, GMAT NINJA and
Manhattan Prep for SC.
CR:
Initially, all choices used to "I love you" and I would say" I love you too". but after reading so many posts from high scorers I went through Power Score CR Bible book. This book is GEM. I is most underrated for CR. I read this book for 10 times. I feel interesting each time. I felt on-demand courses derived for it. But it is still most comprehensive and tells why an option is correct and other is wrong. I really loved its causal analysis and Assumption supportive and defensive types. Guys, if you did not go through this book, you were cheating you. After this book, I was scoring V42 for CR sub-section.
My strategy was to read the argument and fact set and find out conclusion. Thats it, you are almost done. see the question now. pre-phrase the answer and find in the choices. DO NOT go to answer before finding conclusion and linking premises. In each CR arguments there will be premises/fact and a conclusion with new information. you would be finding link. causal sets will have different strategy. go find the book.
RC:
Since my Indian CAT preparation days i did not find a medicine for this disease until i found
Manhattan prep RC strategy. I went through couple of on-demand courses but they did not explain why we read and how we should read. Manhattan RC Strategy explains how should we read with Key words as road signs and finding main point.
My strategy was to find main point as you find in CR and linking information to it for every passage and linking all. Books tells you everything.
I used GMAT Club mocks and
Expert's global mocks.
Following were my 6 attempts:
GMAT1:650 (Q51, V26)- See my Q51 - i scored this precious only at my first exam.
GMAT2:640 (Q50, V26)
GMAT3:640 (Q50,V26)
GMAT4:650 (Q50,V28)
GMAT5:690 (Q50, V31) - I scored only 2 questions wrong for Q50
GMAT6:730(Q50,V40,IR8)- I want to show off my IR8. I felt i wrote verbal just before IR good, so i solved all IR problems( normal i dont aim for 8, i would settle for 6).But if you want 8, solve during your mocks. In this I sacrificed Q51 for V40. when I start exam I will have some friction for first 10 questions. I solved them slowly and missed 2 at the end for QA. But felt happy to see V40.
Finally If I did it, everyone could do it. But needs some patience and inspiration.
My inspirational words:
Do it with passion or do not do it all.
Stronger desires produce stronger results, weaker desires produce weaker results.
Right time is when your desire is stronger than your distractions.
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Updated on: 29 Jun 2020, 19:49
