GMAT Debrief 665 GMAT Focus EditionA journey that has given me a lot of life lessons is over ( or is it?. More on this below). I hope this inspires those who are starting off, who have given gmat a few times but couldn’t score good, who are just feeling low and came to read a debrief. Disclaimer 720 is converted from 665 FE. First 3 scores are of classical gmat and then moved to FE
BackgroundI am an IIT Bombay graduate batch of 2015 ( for non-Indians this is one of the top most under-graduate colleges ) and had a decent job in consulting (not big 4) but a niche consulting firm. Had a very good career full of learnings and good promotions too. Math has always been strong for me ( or I thought so) and verbal decent. Worked across 2 startups by building them from scratch and taking it to newer levels
Story of the Journey (This is just the story doesn’t have details of how to prepare etc)Mid 2018- Gave gmat for the first time and prepared vaguely from OG. I saw a few questions on the gmat club and got a mock score of 630, thought I am ready since I am a graduate from a prestigious college and all this is easy.
Got kicked on my face with a 620 in dec 2018Mistake 1 - Thinking that you know everything just because you had success sometime back. Keep your ego away and really try to learn. Research, speak with people. This gmat club is such an amazing platform and I wish I get such a forum for so many other things.
Mid 2019- Got back on the ground. In Fact was way too humbled and lost a lot of my confidence but still started again as I never quit. Took
E-gmat course and prepared for Verbal with all the video lessons Got a decent grasp on SC. It's good to get you started for SC. Solved a few OG questions again and gave mocks of
Expert Global. Was scoring 650 on that and thought again that 50 more points is nothing. Went on to give gmat on 3rd dec 2019 and had a plan to apply in ISB on 15th dec 2019 ( in 12 days ! Still hadn’t learnt the lessons of staying on ground and being fully prepared. Got a
580 on the exam and canceled it immediately.Mistake 2- Lost too much confidence and did not do deep analysis of mistakes. Started to think that I am not made for this since I put effort but did not achieve a good score. Did not even know what the official mock is still! Never seeked help from anyone as they would think that I am stupid for asking ( all my peers had scored 720+ and almost everyone went to US/Europe schools.
Please speak up with relevant people and if you don’t have them just come on debrief section and read. You are not alone. And everyone has a different storyMid 2023- Few years went by in covid and I was excelling in work so never thought about doing gmat but somewhere in the back of my mind it was always there that I needed to crack GMAT. I moved to a newer country (UAE) as I got a very nice opportunity (An automobile digital firm who needed somebody to lead one whole vertical and be responsible for growth , p&l etc) But whenever I would see any consultants or my peers who achieved so much more than me then the thought would bug me that I need to do GMAT not to show to anyone but for myself not to score good but to justify the process of learning and really give a good try. So I decided to study for it. No pressure, just get back to basics and let's learn and enjoy the process. I was more mature and humble and more structured as a person by this time
Joined a coaching institute without any expectation but wanted somebody as a mentor and also a place to give mocks in exam mode. Diligently attended all the classes, solved ques 2 hours a day early morning. Started enjoying solving CR and could see that I can actually solve it. Without too much focus on the “method” or “strategy” I just started to understand what is written and what is being asked. ( Is usage of being wrong here?

) My focus was on verbal since quant I was okay. But did not take it for granted and solved 15-20 questions every alternate day to stay in good shape
Whatever questions I was getting wrong while solving I started reading the expert comments and questions of other students about what doubt they had etc. This gave me exposure to
GMATNinja, AndrewN daagh KarishmaB, MartyTargetTestPrep, @AjiteshArun, . (If only I had come to gmat club properly earlier and read their comments and the way they do things my approach would have been so different. The way these people write is so awesome
Due to these reading sessions on gmat club and also their YT channel I understood how much
error log is important. How to analyze mistakes and what to solve, where to solve. What are official mocks etc.
I gave all 6 mocks. I had scored an average 670 across 5 exams. The first one I got 710 so I thought maybe I could pull it off and went for the exam on Sep23 but scored 660 (Q50 V29). Happy that I learnt and I scored so much better than before. Nothing in life is so difficult that you can’t get up to 80% of the level.
Was disappointed though that why I couldn’t do it! But still did not give up. All those debriefs helped. Sometimes it's a bad day or sometimes anxiety kicks in or maybe you are not prepared than what you think.
Mistake 3- My analysis only reviewed wrong questions. Made an error log for name sake and did not revisit it. Was just solving questions over and over again. Was unable to eliminate questions in the actual exam and need to work on thisLate 2023 Change in strategy.- See what I am mistaking. And exactly see what is the mistake. Like literally. Why did I choose the option? What was I thinking? How is my approach wrong? Is it a knowledge gap or is it not reading properly or is it rushing etc. I started writing answers to every option like charles would do or some other tutor. My idea was that for the question of OG, I should write which I can post and help others. This took too much time but I went through. 10-10 questions each day. Even If I got it right I would still write and read explanations on gmat club. This process helped me way too much. I stumbled upon great explanations, great links to a lot of new things and the approach slowly got embedded in my head.
And Yes I was meditating all this time ( not very periodically but whenever felt like it)
2nd Jan’24 So now I have done everything correctly. My last gmat mock I scored 740 with 1 RC which I kind of remembered. I was so confident of scoring at least 700 and went on to give gmat.I scored average 670 on manhattan mocks and average 710 on official mocks where ofcourse repeat questions were coming but mostly I had forgotten lot of questions.
You would be surprised I got 580! Yes you read that correct. The gmat classic exam felt so tough. I was unsure about everything and couldn’t really eliminate. May be I got afraid or something just didn’t work
This day was my lowest. I was literally shattered. Took a night off. Wiped everything off my mind and just thought what is wrong. My analysis was that I was struggling to eliminate options. I probably panicked and every option started to look correct to me.
So I again started . I tried to understand what went wrong and let’s try to solve it. Probably we are not doing things correctly/ just took a few CR ques each day which were 700+ level and started eliminating options. Did 1 RC also everyday. In few days I decided to move to FE. Maybe this will help but i knew issue is not with exam but with what I am doing. Meditated everyday from here and started running also to keep the mind calm.
My only aim was to do the correct elimination at this point of time and stay calm.
Gave two mocks of FE and scored 655 and 645 on both of them and booked my exam. Since math was good for me so I was somehow very comfortable in DI though it is tough. By this time I thought I am putting too much pressure on myself and need to just let go. For every question I only saw did I eliminate everything properly in verbal or not or did I guess. Forced to think through every option. Things that were done earlier had a compounded affect. Saw a video of
MartyMurray of how to be a good executioner during the exam
18th Jan 2024 Went for the exam with no pressure and told nobody about it. I felt questions were a little easy but went with the flow and was only focused on eliminating. Literally eliminate every incorrect option in verbal and go smoothly
Quant and DI were tough but stood strong and solved it. One question at a time. Relaxed every minute and I mean it. Though I was under tremendous time pressure in all sections but I kept calm and focussed on reading what is in front of me
At the end I saw 665 on the screen and was very happy. Satisfied I would say that the aim of having no regrets of not trying will now not be there.
Takeaways- (Life lessons and overall approach)1.
Don’t give up. Everyone’s journey is different. There could be ups and downs but take this journey as a fun learning one and it will not seem too difficult
2.
Analyze mistakes deeply. Just dont think “oh okay I did not think about this while solving CR”, “oh I rushed through the question”. If you don’t solve this the issues will be exposed in the main exam
3.
You read only success stories and not the failures and so it seems everyone gets a high score. Yes there are people who can do everything in a month and there are who could do in 1 year. See who you are and plan accordingly. Knowing yourself is the biggest learning.
4. Don’t be over confident with your past victories. Achieving something once will never do anything for you. The key is to achieve each day and keep on moving forward. Ronaldo, Messi are legends because they scored every season every week and every practice session and not just once
5. Exam is difficult. I come from a highly strong educational background where I had cracked IIT-JEE previously with a under 2000 rank and still I am saying GMAT is different and difficult and amazingly made. Don’t take anything for granted.
6. Everyone’s story is different and not everyone’s approach will fit for you. Take exposure to what people do and see if it works for you. Or in the past when you studied how did you study do the same thing. Usually for verbal your comprehension skill has to be good. You don’t need to mug up what assumption question is or any “strategy” on how to approach RC question. Though these things do help but upto a certain level
7.
There are no tricks. You need to understand the concepts well and have good comprehension skill for verbal which can be attained
8.
Exercise and meditate. I can’t stress enough how much it helps
Important things (Preparation related) Most of it is repeated in a lot of good debriefs but still read if you haven’t given the exam yet.
1.
Make a timetable (weekly) or monthly whatever works. So that you don’t waste time in thinking what to study. Set time aside when you will only do this. This would vary person to person and how your schedule is but make one
2.
Make a error log. Many good examples are given. I will attach mine for reference. And really see why you made the mistake.
3.
Quant a. Megathread of quant is good and covers everything. Go topic by topic and solve 10-10 questions of every topic
b. Quickly solve the OG
c. Get the
gmat club test. These are good. Many say tough but questions are smart
4.
DI a. Look up for experts who would be explaining how to practice. Pick
TTP or any megathread of DI. For me very honestly CR and RC helped in this
section apparently. Also I have a mentality that the longer the question length, the easier it is to solve. This helped in tackling all big questions of
DI. Also I analyze lot of data on daily basis professionally so this section was easy for me
b.
Gmat club tests are good but I found them too tough. GMAT was much easier
5.
Verbal a.
Since SC is not relevant anymore so not mentioning anything about it but
GMATNinja, utmost respect for making this section so much
easy and fun with your reviews and videos
b.
For CR, Power score CR bible is good to kick off things. Practice OG questions and really eliminate options. Don’t take this lightly, really
think through all the options. If you can do this consistently even when you have found the right answer you will never fail
c.
For CR Blind review technique is amazing. Read what
nightblade354 says about CR. Btw you are an amazing person full of energy and your YT
videos have helped me so much. Best wishes with whatever you do in life and hope you pass on your energy levels to everyone around you[/list]
d. I started writing my option analysis as if I am going to post it on GC for students to learn and this helped in working problems out. For reference
attached a screen shot
e.
RC- Read one article everyday. Before going to sleep I read one article through various channels. scientificamerican, nationalgeographic,
smithsonianmag,harvardmagazine, academicjournals,ft. Eventually I started reading
economist which is good and I wanted to read daily
happenings around the world too[/list]
f. Solve RC everyday. Start with simple ones and then move to tougher ones. Cover all different topics. Can do LSAT also if needed more practice
6.
Mock test a. Use official mocks wisely and only use those. Manhattan can be used for timing and general practice. If you do good here then good if you do bad
here its okay
b. Go to your office or some other place or a library and mimic the exam conditions as much as possible
c. My mock test results before Sept’23 attempt were 710, 690, 630, 670, 660 ( all official mocks). Finally I scored 660
d. My mock results before Jan '24 attempt were
710, 700, 640, 740. Finally here I scored disastrous 580
e. Mock results for before FE
655 and 645. Finally got 665 FE 94th percentile (report attached)
7.
Whenever you are not doing anything come on gmat club read some debrief read what others are going through and you will know you are
not alone. You will reach something that is relevant for you. I made a habit of reading something here rather than scrolling on instagram. Or just
listen to a good debrief on the YT channel of gmatclub rather than watching Netflix (personal choice)[/list][/list]
It sounds too much but it really isn’t. Usually try to cut out wasteful time and use that for gmat
Love for GMATNinja ( Charles and entire team)The explanations that GMATNINJA writes are funny and witty so it is not boring at all. I have read so many of his explanations that in my mind I would start automatically analyzing arguments the way he writes and the way he eliminates every answer. Reading explanations even if you got it correct or wrong helps
You do amazing work and put out so much genuine content for free. Whoever is reading this! Please read what he and his team are telling. They don’t tell you any random gimmicks which really don’t work on the actual exam. Your comprehension skills have to be improved and you will see drastic differences. You might be sad but they are telling you the truth
I haven’t seen any person so selfless and passionate about teaching. I don’t know you and probably our path won’t ever cross but wow you are an amazing person (You also look so much similar to
AthleanX another person whom I love so much and both of you have so much impact on my life)
Cheers if you read until this point. I am currently writing my essays and applying for b school. See how it goes but whatever happens the learning of this time has helped me to become a better version of myself. Lastly
bb I don't know who you are but I wish the best for you. May our paths cross someday. This platform is so good. I am truly inspired to create something like this which could inspire and change the lives of so many people. Kudos to you.
Attachments
File comment: sample of line by line analysis

Screenshot 2024-01-25 233711.png [ 220.9 KiB | Viewed 3188 times ]

Final GMAT Score 18th Jan 2024.png [ 50.81 KiB | Viewed 3194 times ]