50 Point Difference in GMAT Prep and Actual GMAT in Two days!

Hey Cabel and Prabhakar,

Sad to hear that you guys had the same experience as mine though before posting this query I thought it's not very common to see such huge variations in mocks (especially GMAT Prep tests) and the actual GMAT. And now I'm sure there would be a lot of other test takers who'd be sailing in the same boat.

So, after surfing through zillions of forums on billion of sites and talking to some GMAT 750+ scorers and professionals (with similar scores) what I've understood is that there are two types of test takers -

1. Ones who go through the regular material (that we all use) such as Manhattan Guides, Kaplan Guides, OGs and the likes of Aristotle Prep. They develop a sense of understanding of each type of question that they see on the GMAT and they know how to tackle each question. A mix of intelligence+Prep+own methodology.

2. Ones who join professional courses (online or offline) and learn to adapt to the process that need to be followed when they see a type of question on the screen, be it quants or verbal. They follow a step-by-step process to break down each question - apply the ingrained methods that involve rejection of obvious choices, choose the best answer and move on. Mind you, the strategies suggested by these professionals are not only restricted to solving questions, but also on how to approach the whole section where time management plays a very very vital role (can't emphasis more).

So, hitherto, I've been trying to crack GMAT using the first approach and I found it a bit difficult to get a score I wanted as I was approaching every new question as a new contest in itself, while in reality using some of the methods that these professionals teach it's actually not and you just need to follow the PROCESS and that's it!

Keeping this in mind and after testing plethora of courses available, I've decided to go with the Verbal Live Prep course of eGMAT. I reckon what I'm lacking is a PROCESS to approach the GMAT verbal section, especially since I'm a non-native. Till now, from the sessions I've attended, it seems to be a good course and I feel I'm on the right track but only time will tell

This was just my opinion after doing a lot of introspection and talking to some experts but for sure this approach might change for you. So, in short, I would say that the most important thing you guys need to do is to look inside and see what are your pain points and basis that start attending the Free Trial of all leading test prep providers and ultimately choose the one that suits your needs.


Thanks!
Atul