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Hello everyone. I retook the gmat today, 22 days after my first attempt (630 Q42 V35 IR5) and scored a 720 (Q48 V40 IR7) I am a 22 year old Indian male with a background in commerce.
My score marks a 90 point overall increase in a matter of 3 weeks and I am elated. Knowing that I will probably never have to study for the GMAT again is an amazing feeling. After 5 months of hard work, disappointments, uncertainty, and some serious motivation issues, I feel rewarded in the best possible way!
Before I proceed, I would recommend that you have a look at my first debrief -
after-4-months-of-studying-630-q42-v35-ir5-disappointed-229321.html
What i did differently in the next 3 weeks
Here's the catch - nothing much
After my first attempt, I didn't know what to think or how to improve. I knew my capacity to study was waning and I was just stumped by my score. I wanted to believe that I was simply not good enough but having scored 740 and 700 respectively in my last two mocks(GMATprep 1 and 2 respectively) leading up to the first attempt, I knew I had the ability. I just had to work on composure and stamina, avoid getting flustered and just concentrate harder! Plus, I had to stop skipping AWA in my mocks.
A brief timeline of my post-first attempt preparation
Day 1,2,3 and after my first attempt - I just recollected myself and summoned the energy to go again! I had decided to start helping my dad his office work for 4 hours a day and study for about 2 hours each day. But first, I just wanted to take another CAT to really gauge where I'm at.
Day 4 - I took GMATprep5 - 640 - (Q39,V40,IR3) - The quant score was very low and it was clear that I had another bad day! IR was a disaster too. I knew this was well below my potential but I wasn't too deflated. Instead, I chose to focus on the positive! - my high verbal score!
Day 5,6 and 7 - Reviewed my mock and practiced 600 level questions from all quant topics on gmat club. I even did 500 level questions in some topics I wasn't comfortable with just to get some confidence back.
Day 8 - Took GMATprep 6 - 670 - (Q47,V35,IR5) - okay, some confusion here. I just went from 39 to 47 in quant, meaning that my effort was somewhat reward but a 5 point drop in verbal? Probably shouldn't have neglected it for 3 days.
Day 9-16 - I studied for 6 days out of these 8 and for about 2 hours each day, doing both verbal and quant. I changed my routine a bit as i've mentioned above, earlier I used to stay at home and study and then just while away time. I was rotting honestly. Now, I started going to my dad's workplace, studied a little and helped him out with his work (very basic research stuff) In short, I just kept myself busy to refrain from stressing out all the time. I also booked the date of my exam during this period.
Day 17 - GMATprep 3 - 700 (Q48,V38,IR7) Finally! I hit 700 again with a reasonably balance quant/verbal breakup!
Day 18 and 19 - Reviewed my mock and revised everything I knew I had difficulty in. I had kept an error log which I reviewed thoroughly. I had decided that I would take Prep4 next and would take it at the exact same time as my actual gmat.
Day 20- GMATprep4 - 710 - (Q47, V41, IR5) - Was happy with this score overall but I had a lot of concentration lapses in Quant. Felt really exhausted and burned out.
Day 21 and 22 - Reviewed mock and revised error long again. (CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT REVIEWING YOUR MISTAKES IS!)
DAY 23 - Test Day Experience
I told myself going into my exam that I am still only 22, I have a huge chunk of my life ahead of me! I promised that I would give it my all and walk out with my head held high, knowing that I gave my best. The target nonetheless, was a score of 700.
AWA
The AWA question was pretty long to be honest. It was around an organization that was planning to give up traditional advertising (through TV and Radio) for video based advertising on the internet.
It contained a lot of content and at first I couldn't really figure out how to attack it. I managed to conjure up 3 points which I feel were convincing. Hopefully, I can get more than 4.5. In case you don't know about it already, chineseburned's template is the best for AWA.
IR
I had a habit of not doing the Multi Source Reasoning questions in IR and settling for a score of 5. I decided to drop that habit today. My second question itself was a long MSR with 3 tabs containing a lot of content. I spent about 10 minutes on it but I feel I did well. Got some easy graphs toward the end and am happy with a score of 7.
I had half a chocolate bar and used the restroom during my break. I returned with a minute to spare.
I took the 1 minute time given to read instructions to tell myself I need to nail the first 10 questions.
Quant
Contrary to my previous exam, the first 5-6 questions were pretty straight forward (easy word problems, basic number properties and simple interest) I think I was quite comfortable with the next 10 questions as well. Q18-28 is probably where it started to get pretty tough and I had to make 2-3 educated guesses. I was hoping I hadn’t undone my good start with too many mistakes. The last 10 questions seemed to be of medium difficulty and my 36th question was on combinations. I have read that combinations is generally tested only when one is doing well so I was somewhat relieved. Overall though, I couldn’t tell how much better/worse I’d done than I did in my my last official GMAT.
Had the remaining half of my chocolate bar, used the restroom and returned for Verbal with only 10 seconds remaining!
Verbal
What I knew going into the verbal section – MY SC is strong, MY CR is erratic and my RC is good provided I read the essay like my best friend wrote it for me.
I got 4 SCs and 1 CR in my first 5 questions and then came a short RC. I had completed the first 20 questions in 30 minutes and knew I was doing well. After that though, I spent about 3 minutes each on two difficult CRs (The prompt of one was the exact same as that of a question I came across on one of my GMATPREP mocks, but I chose not to rely on memory)
The more SCs I encountered, the more my confidence grew. I felt I concentrated fully on the RCs and they were done by the 37th question. My 40th question was a boldfaced CR (had heard that these are rare and generally show up when you are doing well). Took 20 seconds on the last SC and frantically clicked ‘Next’ on each of the windows that showed up.
And there it was – 720! Sorry, not 720! Some might read that as 720 factorial and think that I am crazy!
It was only 720 or 6! (okay, enough with the jokes now)
I couldn’t help but tear up after seeing my score. I was in tears as I collected my unofficial report and the instructor even asked me if everything was okay.
Tips and Takeaways
1. Although the preparation time for GMAT ranges from 1 month to more than a few years in some cases, it all comes down to your mindset on that one day! Test day!
It is very very important to go into the test as calmly as possible! Cleanse your mind of all disconcerting thoughts.
2. Never Give Up! But If you have to for very valid reasons, have at least two cracks at the official test before you do. The first attempt can be a great learning experience and may not always reflect your true ability. (In my case at least)
3. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses, don’t focus only on your strengths and don’t run away from your weaknesses! I still had some weaknesses in quant I did not tend to, I could have scored better if I had worked more on them. In Verbal however, I used to be very poor in RCs but I really worked towards improving my performance in them. It is all about identifying patterns, understanding what the author wants to convey and avoiding falling for traps.
4 . Don’t abandon the methods that have always worked for you and don’t get so accustomed to a method that isn’t working so you cannot change your approach. For example, if simply reading the passage isn’t working for you in RC, start taking notes!
Be flexible and willing to learn new tricks. There is always more than one way to solve a question on the GMAT.
A question for the experts
I know a score of 720 falls In the 94th percentile, but my percentile in Verbal (91%) is considerably higher than my Quant percentile (71%). Could this disparity cause problems with my score?
And before I forget, a special thanks to EMPOWERgmatRichC for his advice and active responses on my last debrief!
My score marks a 90 point overall increase in a matter of 3 weeks and I am elated. Knowing that I will probably never have to study for the GMAT again is an amazing feeling. After 5 months of hard work, disappointments, uncertainty, and some serious motivation issues, I feel rewarded in the best possible way!
Before I proceed, I would recommend that you have a look at my first debrief -
after-4-months-of-studying-630-q42-v35-ir5-disappointed-229321.html
What i did differently in the next 3 weeks
Here's the catch - nothing much
After my first attempt, I didn't know what to think or how to improve. I knew my capacity to study was waning and I was just stumped by my score. I wanted to believe that I was simply not good enough but having scored 740 and 700 respectively in my last two mocks(GMATprep 1 and 2 respectively) leading up to the first attempt, I knew I had the ability. I just had to work on composure and stamina, avoid getting flustered and just concentrate harder! Plus, I had to stop skipping AWA in my mocks.
A brief timeline of my post-first attempt preparation
Day 1,2,3 and after my first attempt - I just recollected myself and summoned the energy to go again! I had decided to start helping my dad his office work for 4 hours a day and study for about 2 hours each day. But first, I just wanted to take another CAT to really gauge where I'm at.
Day 4 - I took GMATprep5 - 640 - (Q39,V40,IR3) - The quant score was very low and it was clear that I had another bad day! IR was a disaster too. I knew this was well below my potential but I wasn't too deflated. Instead, I chose to focus on the positive! - my high verbal score!
Day 5,6 and 7 - Reviewed my mock and practiced 600 level questions from all quant topics on gmat club. I even did 500 level questions in some topics I wasn't comfortable with just to get some confidence back.
Day 8 - Took GMATprep 6 - 670 - (Q47,V35,IR5) - okay, some confusion here. I just went from 39 to 47 in quant, meaning that my effort was somewhat reward but a 5 point drop in verbal? Probably shouldn't have neglected it for 3 days.
Day 9-16 - I studied for 6 days out of these 8 and for about 2 hours each day, doing both verbal and quant. I changed my routine a bit as i've mentioned above, earlier I used to stay at home and study and then just while away time. I was rotting honestly. Now, I started going to my dad's workplace, studied a little and helped him out with his work (very basic research stuff) In short, I just kept myself busy to refrain from stressing out all the time. I also booked the date of my exam during this period.
Day 17 - GMATprep 3 - 700 (Q48,V38,IR7) Finally! I hit 700 again with a reasonably balance quant/verbal breakup!
Day 18 and 19 - Reviewed my mock and revised everything I knew I had difficulty in. I had kept an error log which I reviewed thoroughly. I had decided that I would take Prep4 next and would take it at the exact same time as my actual gmat.
Day 20- GMATprep4 - 710 - (Q47, V41, IR5) - Was happy with this score overall but I had a lot of concentration lapses in Quant. Felt really exhausted and burned out.
Day 21 and 22 - Reviewed mock and revised error long again. (CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT REVIEWING YOUR MISTAKES IS!)
DAY 23 - Test Day Experience
I told myself going into my exam that I am still only 22, I have a huge chunk of my life ahead of me! I promised that I would give it my all and walk out with my head held high, knowing that I gave my best. The target nonetheless, was a score of 700.
AWA
The AWA question was pretty long to be honest. It was around an organization that was planning to give up traditional advertising (through TV and Radio) for video based advertising on the internet.
It contained a lot of content and at first I couldn't really figure out how to attack it. I managed to conjure up 3 points which I feel were convincing. Hopefully, I can get more than 4.5. In case you don't know about it already, chineseburned's template is the best for AWA.
IR
I had a habit of not doing the Multi Source Reasoning questions in IR and settling for a score of 5. I decided to drop that habit today. My second question itself was a long MSR with 3 tabs containing a lot of content. I spent about 10 minutes on it but I feel I did well. Got some easy graphs toward the end and am happy with a score of 7.
I had half a chocolate bar and used the restroom during my break. I returned with a minute to spare.
I took the 1 minute time given to read instructions to tell myself I need to nail the first 10 questions.
Quant
Contrary to my previous exam, the first 5-6 questions were pretty straight forward (easy word problems, basic number properties and simple interest) I think I was quite comfortable with the next 10 questions as well. Q18-28 is probably where it started to get pretty tough and I had to make 2-3 educated guesses. I was hoping I hadn’t undone my good start with too many mistakes. The last 10 questions seemed to be of medium difficulty and my 36th question was on combinations. I have read that combinations is generally tested only when one is doing well so I was somewhat relieved. Overall though, I couldn’t tell how much better/worse I’d done than I did in my my last official GMAT.
Had the remaining half of my chocolate bar, used the restroom and returned for Verbal with only 10 seconds remaining!
Verbal
What I knew going into the verbal section – MY SC is strong, MY CR is erratic and my RC is good provided I read the essay like my best friend wrote it for me.
I got 4 SCs and 1 CR in my first 5 questions and then came a short RC. I had completed the first 20 questions in 30 minutes and knew I was doing well. After that though, I spent about 3 minutes each on two difficult CRs (The prompt of one was the exact same as that of a question I came across on one of my GMATPREP mocks, but I chose not to rely on memory)
The more SCs I encountered, the more my confidence grew. I felt I concentrated fully on the RCs and they were done by the 37th question. My 40th question was a boldfaced CR (had heard that these are rare and generally show up when you are doing well). Took 20 seconds on the last SC and frantically clicked ‘Next’ on each of the windows that showed up.
And there it was – 720! Sorry, not 720! Some might read that as 720 factorial and think that I am crazy!
It was only 720 or 6! (okay, enough with the jokes now)
I couldn’t help but tear up after seeing my score. I was in tears as I collected my unofficial report and the instructor even asked me if everything was okay.
Tips and Takeaways
1. Although the preparation time for GMAT ranges from 1 month to more than a few years in some cases, it all comes down to your mindset on that one day! Test day!
It is very very important to go into the test as calmly as possible! Cleanse your mind of all disconcerting thoughts.
2. Never Give Up! But If you have to for very valid reasons, have at least two cracks at the official test before you do. The first attempt can be a great learning experience and may not always reflect your true ability. (In my case at least)
3. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses, don’t focus only on your strengths and don’t run away from your weaknesses! I still had some weaknesses in quant I did not tend to, I could have scored better if I had worked more on them. In Verbal however, I used to be very poor in RCs but I really worked towards improving my performance in them. It is all about identifying patterns, understanding what the author wants to convey and avoiding falling for traps.
4 . Don’t abandon the methods that have always worked for you and don’t get so accustomed to a method that isn’t working so you cannot change your approach. For example, if simply reading the passage isn’t working for you in RC, start taking notes!
Be flexible and willing to learn new tricks. There is always more than one way to solve a question on the GMAT.
A question for the experts
I know a score of 720 falls In the 94th percentile, but my percentile in Verbal (91%) is considerably higher than my Quant percentile (71%). Could this disparity cause problems with my score?
And before I forget, a special thanks to EMPOWERgmatRichC for his advice and active responses on my last debrief!
Kurai
Joined: 18 Apr 2016
Last visit: 31 May 2021
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Schools: Stanford '24 Anderson (UCLA)
GMAT 1: 610 Q47 V27
GMAT 2: 710 Q50 V37
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15 Dec 2016, 11:30
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Congratulations on finally breaking the 700+ barrier!
Seems like you put in a lot of work and the score is well deserved!
Good luck on your application now!
Seems like you put in a lot of work and the score is well deserved!
Good luck on your application now!
24 Dec 2016, 06:34
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Hello ,
Nice to read this post.Great inspiration.COngrats
Regards,
Abhishek
Nice to read this post.Great inspiration.COngrats
Regards,
Abhishek
Theragz23
Hello everyone. I retook the gmat today, 22 days after my first attempt (630 Q42 V35 IR5) and scored a 720 (Q48 V40 IR7) I am a 22 year old Indian male with a background in commerce.
My score marks a 90 point overall increase in a matter of 3 weeks and I am elated. Knowing that I will probably never have to study for the GMAT again is an amazing feeling. After 5 months of hard work, disappointments, uncertainty, and some serious motivation issues, I feel rewarded in the best possible way!
Before I proceed, I would recommend that you have a look at my first debrief -
after-4-months-of-studying-630-q42-v35-ir5-disappointed-229321.html
What i did differently in the next 3 weeks
Here's the catch - nothing much
After my first attempt, I didn't know what to think or how to improve. I knew my capacity to study was waning and I was just stumped by my score. I wanted to believe that I was simply not good enough but having scored 740 and 700 respectively in my last two mocks(GMATprep 1 and 2 respectively) leading up to the first attempt, I knew I had the ability. I just had to work on composure and stamina, avoid getting flustered and just concentrate harder! Plus, I had to stop skipping AWA in my mocks.
A brief timeline of my post-first attempt preparation
Day 1,2,3 and after my first attempt - I just recollected myself and summoned the energy to go again! I had decided to start helping my dad his office work for 4 hours a day and study for about 2 hours each day. But first, I just wanted to take another CAT to really gauge where I'm at.
Day 4 - I took GMATprep5 - 640 - (Q39,V40,IR3) - The quant score was very low and it was clear that I had another bad day! IR was a disaster too. I knew this was well below my potential but I wasn't too deflated. Instead, I chose to focus on the positive! - my high verbal score!
Day 5,6 and 7 - Reviewed my mock and practiced 600 level questions from all quant topics on gmat club. I even did 500 level questions in some topics I wasn't comfortable with just to get some confidence back.
Day 8 - Took GMATprep 6 - 670 - (Q47,V35,IR5) - okay, some confusion here. I just went from 39 to 47 in quant, meaning that my effort was somewhat reward but a 5 point drop in verbal? Probably shouldn't have neglected it for 3 days.
Day 9-16 - I studied for 6 days out of these 8 and for about 2 hours each day, doing both verbal and quant. I changed my routine a bit as i've mentioned above, earlier I used to stay at home and study and then just while away time. I was rotting honestly. Now, I started going to my dad's workplace, studied a little and helped him out with his work (very basic research stuff) In short, I just kept myself busy to refrain from stressing out all the time. I also booked the date of my exam during this period.
Day 17 - GMATprep 3 - 700 (Q48,V38,IR7) Finally! I hit 700 again with a reasonably balance quant/verbal breakup!
Day 18 and 19 - Reviewed my mock and revised everything I knew I had difficulty in. I had kept an error log which I reviewed thoroughly. I had decided that I would take Prep4 next and would take it at the exact same time as my actual gmat.
Day 20- GMATprep4 - 710 - (Q47, V41, IR5) - Was happy with this score overall but I had a lot of concentration lapses in Quant. Felt really exhausted and burned out.
Day 21 and 22 - Reviewed mock and revised error long again. (CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT REVIEWING YOUR MISTAKES IS!)
DAY 23 - Test Day Experience
I told myself going into my exam that I am still only 22, I have a huge chunk of my life ahead of me! I promised that I would give it my all and walk out with my head held high, knowing that I gave my best. The target nonetheless, was a score of 700.
AWA
The AWA question was pretty long to be honest. It was around an organization that was planning to give up traditional advertising (through TV and Radio) for video based advertising on the internet.
It contained a lot of content and at first I couldn't really figure out how to attack it. I managed to conjure up 3 points which I feel were convincing. Hopefully, I can get more than 4.5. In case you don't know about it already, chineseburned's template is the best for AWA.
IR
I had a habit of not doing the Multi Source Reasoning questions in IR and settling for a score of 5. I decided to drop that habit today. My second question itself was a long MSR with 3 tabs containing a lot of content. I spent about 10 minutes on it but I feel I did well. Got some easy graphs toward the end and am happy with a score of 7.
I had half a chocolate bar and used the restroom during my break. I returned with a minute to spare.
I took the 1 minute time given to read instructions to tell myself I need to nail the first 10 questions.
Quant
Contrary to my previous exam, the first 5-6 questions were pretty straight forward (easy word problems, basic number properties and simple interest) I think I was quite comfortable with the next 10 questions as well. Q18-28 is probably where it started to get pretty tough and I had to make 2-3 educated guesses. I was hoping I hadn’t undone my good start with too many mistakes. The last 10 questions seemed to be of medium difficulty and my 36th question was on combinations. I have read that combinations is generally tested only when one is doing well so I was somewhat relieved. Overall though, I couldn’t tell how much better/worse I’d done than I did in my my last official GMAT.
Had the remaining half of my chocolate bar, used the restroom and returned for Verbal with only 10 seconds remaining!
Verbal
What I knew going into the verbal section – MY SC is strong, MY CR is erratic and my RC is good provided I read the essay like my best friend wrote it for me.
I got 4 SCs and 1 CR in my first 5 questions and then came a short RC. I had completed the first 20 questions in 30 minutes and knew I was doing well. After that though, I spent about 3 minutes each on two difficult CRs (The prompt of one was the exact same as that of a question I came across on one of my GMATPREP mocks, but I chose not to rely on memory)
The more SCs I encountered, the more my confidence grew. I felt I concentrated fully on the RCs and they were done by the 37th question. My 40th question was a boldfaced CR (had heard that these are rare and generally show up when you are doing well). Took 20 seconds on the last SC and frantically clicked ‘Next’ on each of the windows that showed up.
And there it was – 720! Sorry, not 720! Some might read that as 720 factorial and think that I am crazy!
It was only 720 or 6! (okay, enough with the jokes now)
I couldn’t help but tear up after seeing my score. I was in tears as I collected my unofficial report and the instructor even asked me if everything was okay.
Tips and Takeaways
1. Although the preparation time for GMAT ranges from 1 month to more than a few years in some cases, it all comes down to your mindset on that one day! Test day!
It is very very important to go into the test as calmly as possible! Cleanse your mind of all disconcerting thoughts.
2. Never Give Up! But If you have to for very valid reasons, have at least two cracks at the official test before you do. The first attempt can be a great learning experience and may not always reflect your true ability. (In my case at least)
3. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses, don’t focus only on your strengths and don’t run away from your weaknesses! I still had some weaknesses in quant I did not tend to, I could have scored better if I had worked more on them. In Verbal however, I used to be very poor in RCs but I really worked towards improving my performance in them. It is all about identifying patterns, understanding what the author wants to convey and avoiding falling for traps.
4 . Don’t abandon the methods that have always worked for you and don’t get so accustomed to a method that isn’t working so you cannot change your approach. For example, if simply reading the passage isn’t working for you in RC, start taking notes!
Be flexible and willing to learn new tricks. There is always more than one way to solve a question on the GMAT.
A question for the experts
I know a score of 720 falls In the 94th percentile, but my percentile in Verbal (91%) is considerably higher than my Quant percentile (71%). Could this disparity cause problems with my score?
And before I forget, a special thanks to EMPOWERgmatRichC for his advice and active responses on my last debrief!
My score marks a 90 point overall increase in a matter of 3 weeks and I am elated. Knowing that I will probably never have to study for the GMAT again is an amazing feeling. After 5 months of hard work, disappointments, uncertainty, and some serious motivation issues, I feel rewarded in the best possible way!
Before I proceed, I would recommend that you have a look at my first debrief -
after-4-months-of-studying-630-q42-v35-ir5-disappointed-229321.html
What i did differently in the next 3 weeks
Here's the catch - nothing much
After my first attempt, I didn't know what to think or how to improve. I knew my capacity to study was waning and I was just stumped by my score. I wanted to believe that I was simply not good enough but having scored 740 and 700 respectively in my last two mocks(GMATprep 1 and 2 respectively) leading up to the first attempt, I knew I had the ability. I just had to work on composure and stamina, avoid getting flustered and just concentrate harder! Plus, I had to stop skipping AWA in my mocks.
A brief timeline of my post-first attempt preparation
Day 1,2,3 and after my first attempt - I just recollected myself and summoned the energy to go again! I had decided to start helping my dad his office work for 4 hours a day and study for about 2 hours each day. But first, I just wanted to take another CAT to really gauge where I'm at.
Day 4 - I took GMATprep5 - 640 - (Q39,V40,IR3) - The quant score was very low and it was clear that I had another bad day! IR was a disaster too. I knew this was well below my potential but I wasn't too deflated. Instead, I chose to focus on the positive! - my high verbal score!
Day 5,6 and 7 - Reviewed my mock and practiced 600 level questions from all quant topics on gmat club. I even did 500 level questions in some topics I wasn't comfortable with just to get some confidence back.
Day 8 - Took GMATprep 6 - 670 - (Q47,V35,IR5) - okay, some confusion here. I just went from 39 to 47 in quant, meaning that my effort was somewhat reward but a 5 point drop in verbal? Probably shouldn't have neglected it for 3 days.
Day 9-16 - I studied for 6 days out of these 8 and for about 2 hours each day, doing both verbal and quant. I changed my routine a bit as i've mentioned above, earlier I used to stay at home and study and then just while away time. I was rotting honestly. Now, I started going to my dad's workplace, studied a little and helped him out with his work (very basic research stuff) In short, I just kept myself busy to refrain from stressing out all the time. I also booked the date of my exam during this period.
Day 17 - GMATprep 3 - 700 (Q48,V38,IR7) Finally! I hit 700 again with a reasonably balance quant/verbal breakup!
Day 18 and 19 - Reviewed my mock and revised everything I knew I had difficulty in. I had kept an error log which I reviewed thoroughly. I had decided that I would take Prep4 next and would take it at the exact same time as my actual gmat.
Day 20- GMATprep4 - 710 - (Q47, V41, IR5) - Was happy with this score overall but I had a lot of concentration lapses in Quant. Felt really exhausted and burned out.
Day 21 and 22 - Reviewed mock and revised error long again. (CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT REVIEWING YOUR MISTAKES IS!)
DAY 23 - Test Day Experience
I told myself going into my exam that I am still only 22, I have a huge chunk of my life ahead of me! I promised that I would give it my all and walk out with my head held high, knowing that I gave my best. The target nonetheless, was a score of 700.
AWA
The AWA question was pretty long to be honest. It was around an organization that was planning to give up traditional advertising (through TV and Radio) for video based advertising on the internet.
It contained a lot of content and at first I couldn't really figure out how to attack it. I managed to conjure up 3 points which I feel were convincing. Hopefully, I can get more than 4.5. In case you don't know about it already, chineseburned's template is the best for AWA.
IR
I had a habit of not doing the Multi Source Reasoning questions in IR and settling for a score of 5. I decided to drop that habit today. My second question itself was a long MSR with 3 tabs containing a lot of content. I spent about 10 minutes on it but I feel I did well. Got some easy graphs toward the end and am happy with a score of 7.
I had half a chocolate bar and used the restroom during my break. I returned with a minute to spare.
I took the 1 minute time given to read instructions to tell myself I need to nail the first 10 questions.
Quant
Contrary to my previous exam, the first 5-6 questions were pretty straight forward (easy word problems, basic number properties and simple interest) I think I was quite comfortable with the next 10 questions as well. Q18-28 is probably where it started to get pretty tough and I had to make 2-3 educated guesses. I was hoping I hadn’t undone my good start with too many mistakes. The last 10 questions seemed to be of medium difficulty and my 36th question was on combinations. I have read that combinations is generally tested only when one is doing well so I was somewhat relieved. Overall though, I couldn’t tell how much better/worse I’d done than I did in my my last official GMAT.
Had the remaining half of my chocolate bar, used the restroom and returned for Verbal with only 10 seconds remaining!
Verbal
What I knew going into the verbal section – MY SC is strong, MY CR is erratic and my RC is good provided I read the essay like my best friend wrote it for me.
I got 4 SCs and 1 CR in my first 5 questions and then came a short RC. I had completed the first 20 questions in 30 minutes and knew I was doing well. After that though, I spent about 3 minutes each on two difficult CRs (The prompt of one was the exact same as that of a question I came across on one of my GMATPREP mocks, but I chose not to rely on memory)
The more SCs I encountered, the more my confidence grew. I felt I concentrated fully on the RCs and they were done by the 37th question. My 40th question was a boldfaced CR (had heard that these are rare and generally show up when you are doing well). Took 20 seconds on the last SC and frantically clicked ‘Next’ on each of the windows that showed up.
And there it was – 720! Sorry, not 720! Some might read that as 720 factorial and think that I am crazy!
It was only 720 or 6! (okay, enough with the jokes now)
I couldn’t help but tear up after seeing my score. I was in tears as I collected my unofficial report and the instructor even asked me if everything was okay.
Tips and Takeaways
1. Although the preparation time for GMAT ranges from 1 month to more than a few years in some cases, it all comes down to your mindset on that one day! Test day!
It is very very important to go into the test as calmly as possible! Cleanse your mind of all disconcerting thoughts.
2. Never Give Up! But If you have to for very valid reasons, have at least two cracks at the official test before you do. The first attempt can be a great learning experience and may not always reflect your true ability. (In my case at least)
3. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses, don’t focus only on your strengths and don’t run away from your weaknesses! I still had some weaknesses in quant I did not tend to, I could have scored better if I had worked more on them. In Verbal however, I used to be very poor in RCs but I really worked towards improving my performance in them. It is all about identifying patterns, understanding what the author wants to convey and avoiding falling for traps.
4 . Don’t abandon the methods that have always worked for you and don’t get so accustomed to a method that isn’t working so you cannot change your approach. For example, if simply reading the passage isn’t working for you in RC, start taking notes!
Be flexible and willing to learn new tricks. There is always more than one way to solve a question on the GMAT.
A question for the experts
I know a score of 720 falls In the 94th percentile, but my percentile in Verbal (91%) is considerably higher than my Quant percentile (71%). Could this disparity cause problems with my score?
And before I forget, a special thanks to EMPOWERgmatRichC for his advice and active responses on my last debrief!
