Quick summary: was hoping for/ wanted something around 740/750 but did an idiotic mistake on the test day, hence, ended with 710. Hopefully it is still (better than) average for most of the college I want, but being an Indian not sure how much 'negative' effect this score could have if shortlisting is at demographic level. Not planning to take it again at ANY cost whether colleges take me or not...
Biggest takeaway for those who dont want to read my blabbering :
don't change your strategy on the test dayAtleast for person with my background verbal in actual gmat is probably a tad harder than in any of the free sample testsThe 1st sample test: 680 Veritas: Q49, V34 (Knew can easily reach atleast 50 on Quant, Verbal wanted to reach around 38)
The Prep:
Took off from office for 20 odd days. I can multitask but cannot multitask between studies & work - its so much pain & tiring - ultimately it didn't really help much
and GMAT costed me $250 + my one month salary
Had free
OG and free materials etc. from net [Didnt want to spend a single paisa (cent) extra
) [ I strictly believe a company which is in the business of taking a costly test shouldn't atleast be making money by SELLING official guides X-(]
Did some questions and gave GMATPrep 1 - 720 Q50, V37 (very close to what I wanted - and the kind of errors i was doing in quant - I was sure if I can keep myself together on test day 51 shouldn't be an issue).
Verbal was almost 70-80% correct for CR & RC but 50% for SC. Started with essays and sample free tests 10 days before 30th Oct.
In all other tests I gave, I got Q50 and V34-V40 - so given my own knowledge of myself I was pretty sure that Q50-51 is on plate and atleast V37 despite my not that great English. One good thing that was happening was I was finishing my verbals approx 20-30 mins before time
with good CR & RC but SC being okayish and no matter how many practice question I couldn't get better in SC
. IR for some reason was going bad in most tests though... but had no option than believe in myself
Gave free Economist essay 2 days ago and they gave me a 4 - gave me confidence that 5 would be possible given - they must be giving little less score for obvious reasons. Anyways their suggestions were useful in term of some mistake I was making in essays.
2nd last day got 700 in GMATPrep 2 - was a little sad on the kind of mistakes
The test day:
Essay: Decent warm-up but in such a thing I never know what can happen. Didn't want to Jinx the score so didn't write this debrief until I get final score :D
IR: Strangely (As compared to samples, but as per my hope) went quite good and positive vibes were flowing
Quant: Started cautiously as I always did and as time passed more good feelings started flowing.. was almost sure am cracking it
Verbal: This was my biggest mistake - As stated earlier I was finishing sample tests early, I did a change in strategy that costed me DEARLY. I generally do it like this - read the question, see options, make a choice and move on...I thought lets do initial questions slowly and try to get a good accuracy on initial questions. What probably happened - I didn't improve much on accuracy or anything, or after initial good streak ultimately started doing in my own way.. Every 20 mins my mind was saying - speed up - this isn't right... alas!!! But, as a result, for last 10 questions didn't really have much time...So just somehow sort of ran over them very quickly to finish the test.
Once done waited for result - and as expected verbal spoiled the party..!!!
Not sure if I will be applying this year or next but that's it..!!