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Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
06 Feb 2015, 03:14
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Hey guys,
I can’t believe I finally broke the dreaded 700 barrier. Phew. Well, I know that GMATCLUB has a lot of awesome people who managed to get real awesome scores, and in the grand scheme of things this post may not matter much. I am just a regular girl who had to tame the beast (GMAT) in order to get into the school of her choice. Over the last one year, I have read some amazing posts with great tips and super awesome de-briefs, came across some incredible people who manage to contribute a lot to the forums and offer plenty of insights into the exam as well as the admission process itself. So, I decided to do my bit and share my GMAT experience with you guys.
It all started in Feb when I decided to quit my job as a derivatives trader and do something else. I had a vague idea that this “something else” must be related to finance and so decided to get a formal degree in the same. (I majored in civil engineering in my UG btw). I decided to take the GMAT finally and booked an appointment for May19, 2014.
On Feb 21, I took a diagnostic test (MANHATTAN GMAT) and scored a 640(q44 v34). I was a little disappointed. Given my engineering background, I thought quant would be easy. Boy, was I wrong.The DS portion of the test was a great challenge. First lesson learnt. Never underestimate your opponent. So, I sincerely started reviewing the MANHATTAN GMAT quant guides one by one. This took me about a month. I was slowly improving, and the guides were absolutely fantastic. I started watching “Thursdays with Ron” videos . He is truly amazing. I especially loved his “avoiding c-trap” and “flexible quant” videos. Ron managed to clear up some pretty important concepts for me.
Unfortunately, my verbal experience was not that great. I went with a local test prep company that has an excellent reputation with business school tests in my country. I wasted my precious time learning things that hardly mattered on the GMAT. For instance, I was learning “GRAMMAR” but I wasn’t learning how to tackle “SC questions”. So, after about a month I picked up MANHATTAN GMAT sentence correction, POWERSCORE critical reasoning bible and MANHATTAN GMAT reading comprehension books and started reviewing them. I would read the guides, solve the questions provided after very lesson, and finally apply the method on the official questions.
After two months, I took my second full-test (GMATPREP) and scored a 670 (q49 v36). I was disheartened. I knew something was terribly wrong. I didn’t have enough time to take a lot of full-length tests. My learning method was completely screwed up. I knew I wasn’t doing it right. But, unfortunately I couldn’t fix it in time and scored a 640(q47 v31) on the actual exam. My verbal actually went down. And all I was thinking was that my chances of getting into a decent school were gone. It took me about a week to recover and re-consider my options.
I wanted to give it another shot. But, once again I was time-bound because I also had my CFA level 1 scheduled .So, I decided to take the GMAT after my CFA was done, simply because I neither had time nor energy to do both. I had less than a month to take my GMAT if I wanted to make the round 2 deadlines. The best thing I might have done this time around was to subscribe to e-gmat verbal live prep. The SC course was simply out of this world. It helped me build a structured approach to solving these questions and I could see visible improvement in my SC accuracy. Although, I did not make it to the live classes, I watched the recordings. This helped me tremendously. To improve my RC skills, I started reading the economist magazine cover to cover. I had realized early on that practicing a lot of passages from the GMAT prep books will not help me comprehend better. So, I took to reading international magazines. I would start with summarizing the entire article first. And then, I would pick a portion of the passage and understand how it fits into the entire context, and how the main points change when different parts are picked. This helped me understand how different articles are structured and what they convey. CR was my weakest area. For this section, I practiced a lot of questions and just hoped for the best. Luckily, I never had any timing issue on the GMAT.
I did not prepare much for the quant and the IR sections because of lack of time and so I did not perform exceptionally well in these areas.(quant improved by just one point and in IR went down by 3 points:
7->4)
I did not actually take any mock tests this time. I concentrated on perfecting my methods (Remember, timing was never an issue for me. But I don’t recommend this for everybody. I had to choose between focusing on my weak areas and taking mock exams. I chose the first). Now,all I knew was that I had to do my best on the exam day. So, I took it one question at a time. I did not bother with the timer, except at an interval of every 15 questions (worked amazingly for me). I concentrated on following the methods I had learnt during my practice. I applied them diligently throughout the exam. I did not let my mind wander at all. This was especially easy after studying for very long hours for the 6 hour long CFA exam!
When I saw the final score on the screen, I was ecstatic. All I felt in that moment was great joy, and a sense of accomplishment. I am even more delighted with the outcome now, especially because I am shortlisted for an interview at my dream school. So, all I can say is that my entire GMAT journey was a great experience, and I sincerely want to thank everybody that made it possible.
I would like to thank GMATCLUB for providing such an excellent platform for B-school aspirants to connect with peers and mentors from across the world, e-GMAT for providing world-class study material, Ron Purewal for his amazing “Thursdays with Ron” videos, and all the awesome people on this forum who have been providing valuable advice to all the prospective applicants.
I can’t believe I finally broke the dreaded 700 barrier. Phew. Well, I know that GMATCLUB has a lot of awesome people who managed to get real awesome scores, and in the grand scheme of things this post may not matter much. I am just a regular girl who had to tame the beast (GMAT) in order to get into the school of her choice. Over the last one year, I have read some amazing posts with great tips and super awesome de-briefs, came across some incredible people who manage to contribute a lot to the forums and offer plenty of insights into the exam as well as the admission process itself. So, I decided to do my bit and share my GMAT experience with you guys.
It all started in Feb when I decided to quit my job as a derivatives trader and do something else. I had a vague idea that this “something else” must be related to finance and so decided to get a formal degree in the same. (I majored in civil engineering in my UG btw). I decided to take the GMAT finally and booked an appointment for May19, 2014.
On Feb 21, I took a diagnostic test (MANHATTAN GMAT) and scored a 640(q44 v34). I was a little disappointed. Given my engineering background, I thought quant would be easy. Boy, was I wrong.The DS portion of the test was a great challenge. First lesson learnt. Never underestimate your opponent. So, I sincerely started reviewing the MANHATTAN GMAT quant guides one by one. This took me about a month. I was slowly improving, and the guides were absolutely fantastic. I started watching “Thursdays with Ron” videos . He is truly amazing. I especially loved his “avoiding c-trap” and “flexible quant” videos. Ron managed to clear up some pretty important concepts for me.
Unfortunately, my verbal experience was not that great. I went with a local test prep company that has an excellent reputation with business school tests in my country. I wasted my precious time learning things that hardly mattered on the GMAT. For instance, I was learning “GRAMMAR” but I wasn’t learning how to tackle “SC questions”. So, after about a month I picked up MANHATTAN GMAT sentence correction, POWERSCORE critical reasoning bible and MANHATTAN GMAT reading comprehension books and started reviewing them. I would read the guides, solve the questions provided after very lesson, and finally apply the method on the official questions.
After two months, I took my second full-test (GMATPREP) and scored a 670 (q49 v36). I was disheartened. I knew something was terribly wrong. I didn’t have enough time to take a lot of full-length tests. My learning method was completely screwed up. I knew I wasn’t doing it right. But, unfortunately I couldn’t fix it in time and scored a 640(q47 v31) on the actual exam. My verbal actually went down. And all I was thinking was that my chances of getting into a decent school were gone. It took me about a week to recover and re-consider my options.
I wanted to give it another shot. But, once again I was time-bound because I also had my CFA level 1 scheduled .So, I decided to take the GMAT after my CFA was done, simply because I neither had time nor energy to do both. I had less than a month to take my GMAT if I wanted to make the round 2 deadlines. The best thing I might have done this time around was to subscribe to e-gmat verbal live prep. The SC course was simply out of this world. It helped me build a structured approach to solving these questions and I could see visible improvement in my SC accuracy. Although, I did not make it to the live classes, I watched the recordings. This helped me tremendously. To improve my RC skills, I started reading the economist magazine cover to cover. I had realized early on that practicing a lot of passages from the GMAT prep books will not help me comprehend better. So, I took to reading international magazines. I would start with summarizing the entire article first. And then, I would pick a portion of the passage and understand how it fits into the entire context, and how the main points change when different parts are picked. This helped me understand how different articles are structured and what they convey. CR was my weakest area. For this section, I practiced a lot of questions and just hoped for the best. Luckily, I never had any timing issue on the GMAT.
I did not prepare much for the quant and the IR sections because of lack of time and so I did not perform exceptionally well in these areas.(quant improved by just one point and in IR went down by 3 points:
7->4)
I did not actually take any mock tests this time. I concentrated on perfecting my methods (Remember, timing was never an issue for me. But I don’t recommend this for everybody. I had to choose between focusing on my weak areas and taking mock exams. I chose the first). Now,all I knew was that I had to do my best on the exam day. So, I took it one question at a time. I did not bother with the timer, except at an interval of every 15 questions (worked amazingly for me). I concentrated on following the methods I had learnt during my practice. I applied them diligently throughout the exam. I did not let my mind wander at all. This was especially easy after studying for very long hours for the 6 hour long CFA exam!
When I saw the final score on the screen, I was ecstatic. All I felt in that moment was great joy, and a sense of accomplishment. I am even more delighted with the outcome now, especially because I am shortlisted for an interview at my dream school. So, all I can say is that my entire GMAT journey was a great experience, and I sincerely want to thank everybody that made it possible.
I would like to thank GMATCLUB for providing such an excellent platform for B-school aspirants to connect with peers and mentors from across the world, e-GMAT for providing world-class study material, Ron Purewal for his amazing “Thursdays with Ron” videos, and all the awesome people on this forum who have been providing valuable advice to all the prospective applicants.
keats
Joined: 28 Nov 2014
Last visit: 08 Jun 2019
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12 Feb 2015, 00:58
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Congrats Manasa91
All the best for your applications.
All the best for your applications.
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