Hi Guys,
It feels so good to score above your initial expectation. Hard work and consistency paid off.
I thought of sharing my experience with the community. Since there are already great debriefs here I would like to share some of the tips and feedback that helped me.
Journey:
Around April I decided that MBA is my next journey and I geared up for the GMAT. It took more than a month to get serious. Scheduling my GMAT helped me kick-start my study plans. I gave first mock to access my level (Q49, V25). I was good in quant but I needed to improve verbal a lot.
I started with
Manhattan books for sentence correction while solving OGs simultaneously. May be I was not that good but the
Manhattan books didn’t helped me. I got almost all exercise questions correct in the book, yet in
official guide my accuracy was bad around 50-60% (particularly for SC). With one and half months to go I desperately needed to improve more, and therefore I took
e-gmat verbal online. It was really good. I improved my basics a lot. But since it took a month for the course I was unable to practice much. With strong basics and no practice I went to give my GMAT and I flopped big time. As I thought a magic will occur. There was no magic. Official Exam - try 1 - Aug 1, 580 (Q50 V(27, don't remember exactly)). I cancelled the scores without thinking a second.
Now after resting for couple of days I was ready for my second innings. This time I knew I need a lot of time for applying to universities and cannot afford to waste much time. I started practicing again. After
e-gmat course basics of SC was strong. I studied only
e-gmat documents for CR, as videos would have consumed more time, and CR was not that bad. Solved Official guides again (All). My accuracy was around 80-90% this time. I could not believe that. Yes practice helps big time. I realized when I was getting questions wrong initially, solving them again without time constraints will get them right. So in all, after strong basics, practice improved my accuracy percentage and timing. I bought official exam pack 2. This time I gave 6 exams. 2 free GMAT preps again. 2 official new exams, and repeated them as well. I was always solving IR and AWA as well just to hack my brain to function till the end, after 3.5 hours of exam. This is important since I was getting the questions wrong in last part as my brain would not be functional till the end. Official Exam - try 2 - Sep 11, 700 (Q50, V33). This time I was feeling better, despite guessing last 3 questions due to lack of time I managed 700. Immediately after coming home I thought 700 for Indian, engineering male will not get me to top 10 universities and I don't wanted to be waitlisted. I had already made up my mind to go for MBA this year. For me 730 was the target score. This time I scheduled my exam immediately for Oct 19 (to give me a month for practice). I could not afford to give more time than this, considering how much other things we need to focus on.
I was geared up for my final try now. Scheduled each and every day what and how much I will be practicing. My targets were aggressive. I bought exam pack 1. I planned every Sunday for an exam. Two new exams + repeating them, 4 Sundays were planned. This time I was practicing a lot. This time my
error log was better as I was writing details about why I was getting the questions wrong and even had links of questions to GMAT club to practice them again in last days. Even this time I practiced quant questions that I got wrong when I solved them before my first exam to improve my quant score, which was always 50. I revised
e-gmat concepts a week before exam. Yes even for interactive lectures they have a summary. Believe me I learned at least a new thing from summary every time I revised them. This time I was ready for my exam. Official Exam -try 3 - Oct 19, 760 (Q51, V41). Before my score flashed I knew it went well. I was hoping for 730. I was like please don't give me 720. I was so happy that hard work paid off. Even I told to the administrator who gave me the score print out that this was my third time. And he was like congrats. I remember you.
Well to summarize my experience I will say do not even think of a magic on test day. There are only handful of people who experience this. Expect you won't be one. You need to learn basics first, and then practice and practice and practice. Keep tab on the errors you are making. Also I would like to thank souvik101990. His all official questions material gave me everything I needed to practice, yes everything official. This has some repeat questions from
OG but many questions were new, since it has prep and
official guide questions that are removed for the new ones, ideal material for practice. Keep in mind it contains question from exam pack 1. Your score will inflate. Link to the material is in [1], [2] and [3]
Some other tips:
- I dedicated 3 days in my first test to Integrated Reasoning. Before this practice I was getting IR 4,5 kind of score. So learn the key concepts once and then practicing with mocks is only what you will need. For me
e-gmat integrated reasoning course did the trick - came free with verbal online.
- Initial Manhattan tests brought down my confidence. They are difficult. May be I was not prepared at that time but I never did them again, especially full tests. I tried to give only official full tests. By full I mean all 4 sections. Yes we should get used to them. I used only verbal test from Manhattan for practice.
- Gmat club Quant tests are most close to real GMAT quant. I tried 4-5 of them in my first test to improve to Q50 and even Q51 (sometimes).
- Since my verbal was weak and I needed more practice in it, I practiced verbal section of all free tests (
Kaplan,
Veritas, Economist). Yes this helped
- Repeating the tests gave me confidence as well. My final mock score was 800 (Q51,V41). Yes that was a repeat test. And even in the material in [1] in encountered questions from these, but still this boosted my confidence as for me I will always solve the questions logically.
-For SC practicing the questions again is ok, since the process is applying basics. For CR though practicing again is not that good, as we remember the argument and flaws.
-Also my real improvement for SC might be related to one of the emails send by
e-gmat to me. I wrote them about my first test and how I somehow choked. I received a spread sheet in return to explain what was my score in their practices, if I completed my full exercises ,and most importantly if I am applying the three step process they are teaching. This was an eye opener as I was not understanding the meaning of sentence completely at that time. From the practice I started for my second exam understanding the meaning of the sentence was most important for me.
- I was really bad at writing. For Analytical Writing I guess everyone is aware of and if not should be aware of chineseburned template in[4], but what to write actually came from this lecture in [5] for me, super helpful and that too really short. Also I learned template in [6] by heart. I believe it is enough to get 6 in AWA. For me typos must have been responsible for 5 score as I made a lot of typos in practice as well.
- For the verbal prep questions explanation or even for the official question which were not having good explanations I will just Google and open the explanations in the order mentioned below.
e-gmat (detailed experts solutions)> manhattan (solutions always by an expert) > gmat club (requires time)
-For quant questions explanation gmat club is best. You’ll find Bunuel (math expert) on almost every question with one of the best solution.
- For me reaching to 51 from 50 in quant required a lot of practice. Gmat club quant handbook helped. Although I spent as little time on it as possible just seeing the topics and formulas helped.
-The easiest of 700 level questions on quant are from standard deviation, though I was getting them wrong. [7] and [8] were really helpful to get them right.
- Last tip, you really need to breathe GMAT. It should be your soul focus. The day before my final GMAT I actually was dreaming about the exam. It didn’t went well in dreams as I faced admin problems: P, but I just want to say, GMAT was my soul priority.
I am unable to post urls so attaching description that you can google
[1] the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-sc gmatclub
[2] the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr gmatclub
[3] the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-rc gmatclub
[4] how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327 gmatclub
[5] gmat-analytical-writing-assessment/video/765 gmatprepnow
[6] awa_essay_template#text-argument platinumgmat
[7] ps-questions-about-standard-deviation-85897 gmatclub
[8] standard-deviation-on-the-gmat magossh 2012
PS: What kept me going? - "the one who practices again and again will eventually succeed"
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