Hi All
I have not been active on Gmatclub in terms of posting, but I have used so much of your valuable knowledge, arguments, explanations and discussions to improve myself. I guess, at least now I should take my time to share my experience. I am not that good in writing detailed explanations, will try my best to keep it useful and informative.
650 - December 2018After failing miserably in my first attempt in 2017 (590), I got back into the process early October 2018. I worked hard for 3 months using the following material:
01. Manhattan 2017 books 1-8
02.
GMAT Official guide 2017
03. GMAT Quant Review 2017
04. GMAT Verbal Review 2017
05. GMAT and
MGMAT CATs
I ended up scoring 650 (Q44, V34). Looking back, the main issue was I did not have any strategy, just knowledge. I tried to answer all the questions, did not manage my time, did not use answer choices, did not use number picking (Test IT).
670 - January 2019I signed up for
EmpowerGMAT 3 months course. I completed the course within 6 weeks. Since I did not have enough unused materials left, had to try GMATClub questions. Unfortunately those questions were too tough for me. I had to revert to
official guide questions. Since I had already tried GMAC books at least once, I found them fairly easy. Just before the exam I was so confident that I could score 720. But I ended up scoring 670 (Q44, V38). The questions were way too hard compared to the ones I had tried during the latter part of my preparation. But, the biggest issue was I miscalculated the time I spent on the first 10-15 questions and panicked. I thought spent too much time and rushed through some questions. But that was not the case. Looking back I cannot believe I made such a silly mistake. But it's amazing how human beings crumble under pressure.
730 - February 2019As you can imagine, I was devastated after scoring 670. I knew I could score 720. But it seemed way off. I contacted
EmpowerGMAT and wanted to discuss what I should change. I have no experience with other prep companies, but I was amazed to see the advice I could get from
EMPOWERgmatRichC himself. Rich was prompt in his responses and help me address my issues with more than 20 emails back and forth. I honestly did not expect such a service and so thankful to Rich and his team (specially Stacy). Another change I did, again as recommended by Rich, I bought
VeritasPrep CATs (you get the question bank free with that). Those questions were much tougher than the questions in
the official guide but they were extremely useful in preparing me for the real exam. I scored between 670-690, but was able to keep my confidence going as Rich kept on encouraging me saying "you are much closer to your target score than you think you are". I was committing many silly mistakes in the CATs, if I can avoid those I knew I could get to 720. Further, as many previous users have suggested,
VeritasPrep questions are slightly on the harder side compared to the real GMAT test questions.
I took my official exam last week and scored 730 (Q49, V41)
I am sure most of you can imagine how I felt after 4+ months of hard work and sacrifices.
In summary what helped me the most were the strategies such as testing the answers, picking numbers (Test It!) and most importantly avoid spending too much time on tough questions in Quant and just guess (Triage) some questions.
Also, learning from your mistakes is key. Specially the valuable explanations given by GMATclub experts such as:
01.
Bunuel - without doubt the GOAT of GMAT Quant. Thank you.
02.
GMATNinja - Thank you for wonderful explanations on sentence correction questions, and for all NBA references
03.
VeritasKarishma - Thank you for unconventional methods to resolve Quant questions. For someone like myself who is not that strong in mathematics, those methods were immensely valuable
Of course as you can guess, my biggest appreciation goes to
EMPOWERgmatRichC! THANK YOU!
Good Luck!
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