640 to 730 in two months with a Q51

I ended my GMAT journey a while back but thought of listing down what helped me give back to this community that has been instrumental in getting me to the point I am at today. Opposed to an MBA for over five years, the pandemic gave me enough time to reflect on what I wanted from my career and how to achieve that. As my research concluded that an MBA provided the most value in the fastest time to reach my aim, I started preparing for the GMAT. I gave a cold mock in Dec 2020 and scored a 640, but I had to put off my preparation due to personal commitments for another three months before starting mid-march.

Initial Preparation
I look back incredulously at the unpreparedness I had going into it; I believed it would be a breeze back then. My math was a strong suit, I scored 47 on my cold mock, but my verbal base level was 31, which showed the amount of effort I needed to put in. My understanding of the basics of verbal was weak; I had to brush up on my parts of speech and catch up on my reading comprehension. I took up Magoosh premium for my verbal basics refresher and used it exclusively for quant and verbal individual and full mock tests. My quant and verbal scores were near the baseline for the first test prep period, ranging from 46-48 in quant and Verbal in the low 30s. I used free mocks provided by Kaplan and Veritas and scored around 650 for each full mock test. My first test was at the end of April, and I was barely prepared but needed a target to gauge my real-time testing preparedness as I had not participated in a competitive exam for over five years. I scored a 640 (Q48, V30) on my first test and pretty shook since I scored the same score four months back in my cold mock. Since 650 was the target, I cancelled the score. A few things I realised that I could improve upon from this test after getting back on the preparation horse were:

Test preparedness: The exam centre can vary in standards. The one I got had monitors ranging from 14 inches to 24 inches, power cuts, and AC blowing right in my face, which impacted my score.

Material: My verbal needed a lot of work still, and quant required a level upping, and even though Magoosh had helped with the basics, I needed to add more material to my roaster. For my next try, I subscribed to GMATClub tests, Manhattan tests and many of the resources GMATClub would offer.

Methodology: GMAT is more than reproducing your understanding of quant and verbal; it requires good timing and test-taking strategy for a good score. I was unaware of how GMAT exam scoring worked, what added to the score and what didn't and playing to one's strengths. I researched these matters thoroughly and tweaked my strategy to help me get better.

Second Test

It took me a day or two to get back to studying again with the usual self-doubt phase after a harrowing exam experience. On further analysis, I had made silly mistakes in quant, which I needed to eliminate. For my second attempt, I subscribed to the GMATClub test series and Manhattan test series and my verbal studies with Magoosh and the ever-awesome GMATNinja. I also took up the streak method mentioned by TTP, which helped me improve my topic understanding and accuracy. Usage of the error log was the most significant change and one that made the most difference in my preparation. In quant, since my level and topic understanding was already at a good baseline, enhancing my accuracy and solving different questions were the key to improving. In congruence with the error log method, I attempted problems on a Monday-Thursday cycle and revised them on Friday and Saturday. For questions that I got wrong multiple times, I used the notes to describe my strategy until I got it right, which gave me the chain of thought process each time. Also, in questions that exposed me to new concepts, I created flashcards notes which helped me in my final revision.

The key to my journey from Q48 to Q51 was improving accuracy and paying attention to tiny details in questions. The GMAT has the trickery to put vital information in unremarkable passing phrases. For Eg, in algebra, this takes the form of figuring out whether there are details such as integers, whole numbers, real numbers, properties of 0, inequalities etc. Attention to detail was the difference for me. The GMATClub and Manhattan tests had a much higher quant level, which helped me prepare well.

For Verbal, It was again getting back to basics for sentence correction and more practice in RC and CR. I solved at least two problems from the GMATClub RC butler series daily, which improved my reading speed and concentration. The series covers many topics that prepared me to deal with supposedly uninteresting and challenging passages. My CR was at a good baseline, so I followed the streak and error log methods mentioned above. Charles's aka GMATNinja's videos were instrumental in gaining an understanding of SC, and topic-based question solving from the GMATClub archives helped me with SC. My mock test scores improved from mid 600s to 700-720 throughout the next couple of months; my last mock scores were 630 and 720, which was doubt inducing to say the least.

The test day was normal, I had a morning 9 am slot, and I was up from 5 onwards to ward off the sleepiness. I had gotten acquainted with the test centre invigilator last time and hence was able to request him for a bigger monitor and better chair this time around. This time around, I switched the order to V-Q-IR-AWA, hoping it would give me the extra freshness in verbal. Time management was the biggest issue I faced in the verbal section; unnecessarily spending precious seconds on a few questions repeatedly and ending up with eight questions in the last 10 minutes forced me to give up an entire RC to guesses. I wasn't satisfied with my verbal performance, and it took an effort to keep that from not interfering with my quant section. The quant section was a literal breeze through. I finished the first 20 questions with 25 minutes to spare and spent the next 10 with enough time to spare. Although the initial quant questions seemed more straightforward than usual, the latter half was more challenging. IR didn't start well as I took a full 5 minutes for the first question but ended the section with three minutes to spare. The final score ( 730, Q51 V37 IR7 AWA 5) had exceeded my expectations since verbal ended up being a disaster for me.

Going from a 640 to 730 in two months and five months of preparation was indeed challenging, and luck played a big part. There were multiple moments of doubt, and people in communities such as GMATClub were gracious and ever helping to get you through these journeys. Thanks for reading through, and do PM if I can help any further!