570 to 700... my GMAT journey

HI,

Breifing about my GMAT experience

the SHOCK
I wrote gmat ,for the first time, somewhere around August 2011. Following were the results of the MOCK tests which i had given then:--

GMAT PREP1 620 (Q-48,V-28) Before preparation

I started off with my preparations. Had around 3months to go for the GMAT! Like every other Engineer, I was decent in quant and bad in Verbal.
Following are the books which i referred:--

SC - Manhattan SC
CR - Powerscore CR
RC - RC99
Quant - just practiced in grockit.com (hard questions in grockit are REALLY HARD!)

After reading the books and doing some questions I was kind of confident in SC and was VERY confident in CR.
CR - Powerscore is a really good book, it somehow helped me in clearing off the fear i had for CR!
SC - i was doing good in the starting but towards the end of my study time I was getting confused between last two options. And i always ended up picking up the wrong one!
RC - was horrible. I did a lot of practice from RC-99 (only easy passages) and grockit (their RCs were too tough for me!)
Quant - i did around 2000 (yes you read it right! its two thousand!) question from grockit and was kind of condident. Then i started off with mgmat tests and following are the scores.

MGMAT1 650 (Q-49,V-31)
MGMAT2 710 (Q-51,V-36)
MGMAT3 640 (Q-51,V-30)
MGMAT4 710 (Q-51,V-36)
MGMAT5 690 (Q-51,V-34)
MGMAT6 650 (Q-51,V-31)
GMAT PREP2 680 (Q-51,V-31)

Although, my Verbal scores were not bad but somehow i was not confident in SC. Was able to get to the last two options in SC but always ended up picking the wrong one!
With all these scores i was aiming to score somewhere around 700. But sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to! I was devastated to see the score! IT was a 570! i was SPEECHLESS!!!

Q-49, V-19 AWA-4.5. Trust me, I was not that bad in verbal! I agree that i was, but not that much! It took me a lot of time to accept the failure! I have no clue what went THAT WRONG in the test! And after the test i was not having the "guts" to give the test again! Seriously! It HURTS when you see a 19 in verbal!

I still remember what people said to me:--
Conversation with my girl
I said: i got 570, but its ok, one odd day!
She said: Accept the failure rather than giving an excuse!

Conversation with one friend(Ram)
I said: i got 650 ( i had to lie!)
He said: its ok, its not a bad score since it was your first attempt.


After a month or so I decided to take a break for 3-4 months and start my preparations again!

the RELIEF or probably more than that!

So the break has paid off. I forgot all the good things and all the bad things too! I forgot all the concepts and all the misconcepts. Started preparing again around Feb2012 and gave GMAT PREP1 before starting

GMAT PREP1 680 (Q-51,V-31)

I was happy with my score! I was like, good to see that its not a 570 atleast!
This time i used the following resources:--
SC - Manhattan SC, Thursdays with RON, Verbal Review, Kaplan 800, gmatclub
CR - Powerscore CR, Verbal Review, Kaplan 800, gmatclub
RC - RC99, Thursdays with RON, OG 10, OG11, Verbal Review, Kaplan 800, gmatclub
Quant - I did not practice much of quant this time. Did a couple of questions from grockit, OG12 and Kaplan 800, gmatclub

This time my focus was on Verbal. [i]I wanted to prove to myself that "dude, come on! You also know that you are not that bad in Verbal!"

SC - this time I was CONFIDENT in Verbal. I was able to crack almost all the SCs. Thanks to Thursdays with RON! (Please try that, it will really help you a LOT!)
CR - I was happy to see that am doing good in CR. Again, a BIG Thanks to powerscore CR!
RC - was bad as always but i was able to get atleast 50% right!
Quant - I was confident.
Following are the results of the MOCK tests which i gave this time:--

MGMAT1 650 (Q-51,V-31)
MGMAT2 640 (Q-51,V-29)
MGMAT3 680 (Q-51,V-33)
MGMAT4 700 (Q-50,V-35)
MGMAT5 740 (Q-51,V-40)
MGMAT6 700 (Q-51,V-35)
GMAT PREP2 720 (Q-50,V-36)[/i]

I would like to share my GMAT Experience
This time when I went for my gmat exam then I took a new center. I went there and was not sure about which room i need to go and I went and asked a girl about the way. She dint say a word and just pointed me to a room. All of her friends started laughing (god knows why!)
I went to the room and i was very early. (like 1 hour early)
So I came down and sat under a free. I saw that same girl playing with her (btw.. use of same was redundant as i already used "that"! ) friends with whom I had a talk.
She was so happy in her world talking and pulling around legs of her friends. Then I actually came to know that she cannot speak.
Then I thought see me. I have a good job. Am well educated, but still am tensed(tensed about the GMAT!) I can speak , i can see and i can do everything which probably she cannot(and obviously there will be 1000things which she can and i cannot! ), but still am NOT happy and she is. I mean whats there in this GMAT? (I know my preparations!) If I don't do well then that's not the end of the world right? I wont die if I don't do well right? So why to get scared of the exam? Its just an exam right? If I don't do well then nothing much will change right? My parents wont start hating me right? My friends wont discard me right? I wont get fired of the job right? Everything will remain just the wait it is at this very moment!
So why to get scared? Lets go there and give our best! Whatever happens will happen for GOOD! There is nothing bad which can happen to me! NOTHING!

With all these scores I was confident to get a 700+ (target was 720 to be precise). I ended up getting
700 ( 90 percentile)
Q - 51 (98percentile)
V - 31 (58 percentile - a bad score!)
AWA - 5.0

And am thankful to that girl. I got the courage to fight and be happy from her!

After all this i realized few things, which i would like to share:--
1. Be calm and confident in the exam! (You won't really do any good to yourself by being hyper!)
2. Don't prepare too much on the day before the exam. (To be frank it depends on what kind of person you are! Some guys prefer reading a lot before the exam and some don't. I am a kind of person who wants to study a LOT Of things before the exam, but i did not study too much on the day before the exam)
3. Be in the examination center well before the time.
4. Go and see the exam center atleast one week before the exam.
5. Keep some chocolates and water in your bag while going for the exam.
6. And please try Thursdays with RON (am not trying to promote it!) - it will help a LOT!

In the end, I wont say that am VERY happy with my result, But yes, seeing a 700 obviously makes you happy. And am happy that I finally proved to myself that even I can do it!

Now am starting off with my prep for TOEFL! And then will start off with my applications and stuff. I would like to thank gmatclub and would like to wish you all good luck for your exams!

Please ignore the bad usage of grammar in the above lines (as am still not good in verbal! )