600 (Q50 V21) to 720 (Q50 V38) with Law of Conservation of Energy :)

Hi All,

The GMAT success stories have always inspired me a lot. There were times when I used to get demotivated after poor performance in mock tests. But each time I used to read success stories of students scoring 700+ on Crackverbal forum and GmatClub, I used to close my eyes and dream about myself writing a similar story. So here I am after lots of ups and down in this GMAT Journey.

Moral of the story: Never Give Up.

Let me start with my brief introduction.
Like every second person in Bangalore, I am also a software engineer with around 4 years of experience in data networking industry. Hoping to enter the business field and work in US, I decided to take the GMAT.

First Attempt:-
I did self-study for 2.5 months and used material such as GMAT official guide, MGMAT Quant PDFs and MGMAT Verbal PDFs. I relied on Kaplan and MGMAT mock tests for practice. My scores in these Mock Tests were never consistent and varied from 580 in MGMAT to 720 in Kaplan. I talked to few friends who had taken GMAT and discussed about my preparation. They suggested me that I should not worry about MGMAT scores because its Quant is tough. One of the biggest mistakes I did was I did not take the Official GMAT Practice test at the start of my preparation. So with only a week left for the exam when I scored 620 in GMATPrep, I was just hoping for some wonder to happen. However, GMAT has been designed in such a beautiful way that your practice scores from GMATPrep are direct reflections of your score in real exam. I ended up with 600 with verbal score of just 21 (27 percentile). Life seemed to be falling apart and more than sad, I was angry with myself for such a poor performance.

What I did after this attempt:-
I came out from Kormangala exam center and went to my friend’s place. I told him that I would retake the exam and asked some coaching centers in Bangalore. He suggested me to try Princeton, Byjus and Crackverbal. I joined Crackverbal as I found it as the best option and wanted to attend only the verbal classes.
This time I was looking for a structure approach for the exam. Also after attending the classes I realized that my concepts in Verbal were not clear. Although I had solved OG and verbal review, only this time I was able to see the patterns in questions. The strategies taught by Arun were excellent and his classes gave me the confidence that I was looking for.
I took GMAT Prep-3 at the Crackverbal center and scored 710. For me, this was huge improvement and decided to take Prep-4 after 2 weeks. But to my surprise, I scored 660 with a verbal score of 28 in Prep-4. I was not able to understand this kind of inconsistency, so I called my friend for his suggestions. He told me that my basics might not be clear. I disconnected the call and started thinking what was going wrong. Was it my approach or concepts? I realized that I have issues in RC as in Prep-3 I got the 1st RC question only after 20 SCs & CRs. Also my mental energy was too low in Verbal section.
I had attended one GMAT strategy session by Arun in which he discussed about conservation of energy for verbal section, the most important section for all of us. After Prep-4, I was able to relate with my approach. I was actually trying to attack all the sections in the same way. So whenever I used to start Verbal section, I used to get tired a lot and just wanted to finish the exam.
Now I knew why I was doing badly and who my enemies were. I decided to save my energy for verbal section and applied the same strategies going further. I scored 730 in the next GMAT Prep and booked the exam date.

Exam Day:-
Without even reading the AWA argument, I wrote the Chineseburned’s template given on Gmatclub and mentioned two faulty assumptions in the argument. In IR, I skipped multi source reasoning and almost all the verbal based questions. Took a break and told myself attempt 1st 15 questions carefully in Quant and take a guess on difficult questions. I think I made 3 guesses (in 20s, 30s). Believe me or not, this time the only section that mattered to me was the verbal and I did not want to leave any stone unturned. So I did not bother about AWA, IR and Quant. This technique did help as I was able to answer confidently in verbal. Even in verbal my approach was to take a guess on difficult question and move on.
I knew that I had done well in the exam and but because of previous experience I was little worried. So finally when I clicked on submit, I was delighted to see 720 (IR-6, Q-50 and V-38). I wanted to scream out loud and tell everyone in the world that I was finally done with the exam. No regrets in life now :D

My advice for my GMAT friends:-
1. Take the Diagnostic Test given in OG and get a feel of GMAT questions.
2. Take the GMAT Prep-1
3. Now as you know your Prep-1 scores, make a strategy for Quant & Verbal Separately.
4. Read concepts from anywhere but practice only Official GMAT questions.
5. Know your strengths and weaknesses
6. Keep in mind the law of conservation of energy for Verbal
7. Don’t try to hit on bouncers i.e. respect the difficult questions and move on.
8. Practice full length tests at regular intervals
9. Maintain an error log
10. Just take a deep breathe whenever you see dense RC passage and try to get the GIST

Other useful tips for Crackverbal students:-
1. Be 100% attentive in class and try to find out why the incorrect answers are wrong.
2. Do homework on time
3. Use Crackverbal forum as much as you can
4. Practice advance documents after you are done with OG and Review.
5. Take GMAT Preps at center

Believe in yourself. If you can’t then who will?
And never give up in life. Be it exam or any other thing in life. You are the champion and with hard work, you can beat any beast.

In my GMAT journey, my few friends and Arun’s updates were always the source of inspiration to me. They have always helped me and I believe that now it’s my time to help and motivate others. So please let me know if you need any additional information. I would be happy to help everyone.

All the best.

Amit