Hi guys,
Just want to share my personal GMAT experience today and contribute to this amazing forum. Although my final GMAT score is nothing to shout about, I am nevertheless relieved with the outcome. This is actually my second GMAT experience - the first was almost 10 years ago when I applied and successfully got into Wharton. Yes, I am doing the GMAT again now (definitely not for the fun of it) to apply for a Phd program. Certainly, going through the gruelling GMAT test experience was not something I was thrilled about. If I may stretch the analogy somehow, it is akin to getting a retired Navy SEAL to go through hell week again or getting a CFA charterholder to retake the CFA exam!
For my GMAT this time, I had less than 2 months to get into shape.
Resources used & preparation:
1)
MGMAT strategy guides - self study
2) Free GMAT club practice questions (verbal and quant) - I should have discovered GMAT Club earlier! Only learnt about it a few weeks before my GMAT.
3) Free online resources/introductory classes provided by Veritas Prep and
eGMAT - I believe I would do better if I had attended one of the prep courses
4) Free GMACPrep tests (did 2) and
MGMAT CATs (did 4)
Exam Day Experience & Takeaways:
1) I arrived at the exam venue almost one hour before the scheduled exam time. For some reason, I had somehow made the almost fatalistic assumption that my country's national ID card (prevalently used as proof of identify) would be acceptable by the test centre but only to learn that a passport was required (yes - I had neglected to read the fine print somewhere in the test confirmation email that a signature needs to appear somewhere on the identification document). Thankfully, as there was still time remaining, I was able to get help from my wife who drove down and managed to pass me the document in the nick of time. However, that heart stopping episode gave me an adrenaline rush and almost derail my psyche. My advice is therefore to get to the test venue early - sometimes you'll be thankful for that.
2) AWA & IR - before the test day, I had decided that I would try to reserve my mental energy for the main Quant and Verbal sections, as I understand how draining the IR segment can be frustratingly confusing and exhausting. For the AWA, I was able to quickly put together a few simple counter-arguments and went on to complete without much fuss. As for the IR, I treated it primarily as a warm up to the Quant segment that comes right after, and guessed randomly for 2-3 tough questions - especially those requiring 3 correct answers each (no partial credit). I focused on getting those I believed to be low hanging fruits right. I also gave 2 questions away by randomly guessing as the amount of energy to figure out the data was not worth the trade-off.
3) Quant - this was the section I was most focused on. I never felt that I was 100% prepared for Quant going into the test, and knowing how high Quant scores test takers are scoring these days and the immense amount of preparation typically put by test takers made me all the more uneasy (I did not even buy the
OG and relied mainly on GMAT club practice math questions). My priority was to minimize careless mistakes in the easier questions and focus on time management. For the DS questions, I would remind myself to look out for famous traps especially when the answer seems to come too easy. So, I started off well enough and kept to the time limits I set for myself. However, midway through, I got somewhat embroiled in a few tougher questions which I believed was 700 level questions. My mistake was not cutting losses on them early (despite reminding myself a few times before finally dropping them) and this threw my timing off. I subsequently had to rush through some of the later questions in order to make up for lost time. I was also somewhat disappointed when I saw a late DS question that looked too easy.
4) Verbal - the section I often count on to give me a boost. I had gone into the test believing that my Verbal section would be the key to getting a 700 or higher score. My verbal score had also been consistently higher than Quant during my mock tests. However, for this segment, my time management almost went to the sink again as I spent too much time on a few CR questions. The RC passages I encountered were generally manageable except one which was so dense that getting through a sentence in it required a few re-reading. I decided to make educated guesses for 3 questions related to this particular RC passage. Overall, the rest of the SC and CR questions were not too bad and I finished relatively stronger.
Overall, I have to say that my second GMAT preparation and test experience has been memorable nonetheless. Putting the time and effort to condition myself for the test certainly pays off. Once again, I am thankful for the GMAT Club community for the wonderful support (I don't recall that there was such a forum 10 years ago!).
All the best to future GMAT takers. Bless you.