Hello Everyone,
I finally gave my GMAT today and have to say that the preparation has been a true Roller Coaster for me with days of joy, anxiety, sadness, self doubt, pity and urge to leave it all..
Introduction
I start with a brief introduction about myself - I am a one of the senior citizens of this community ..
- 33 years of age, 12 years' of experience and already working as a Mid Level leader for my firm (Technology domain). About a year ago I felt the need of expanding my horizons and getting out of my comfort zone. Did some research and got to know that there are few programs specifically designed for people like me (Stanford MSX ,MIT and LBS Sloan). Though I was aware that GMAT is a requirement for these courses but for some unknown and very strange reasons I just assumed that with my experience and profile I would need a 650 to be a competitive candidate. (Severely underestimated the acceptance criteria of these colleges and may be a little overestimated my profile ...
). I started with a target score of 650 and got the books people were suggesting in Gmatclub forums. Meanwhile as my research on my target colleges moved ahead it became extremely clear that it's no cake walk and competition is really stiff. I had to revise my target score to a minimum of 700.
Preperation
With 700+ score in sight I started with OG12 edition and honestly for each section as I moved from easier to more difficult questions in
OG (For ex if CR section has 100 questions from 60th question) my accuracy took a nose dive and also I was not timing my answers so situation was very grim. It became clear that I need to understand the concept and develop a framework for each section.
With that thought in mind I bought Manhattan SC guide - It's a great book and I enjoyed reading it. I like to think myself as a good speaker of English language but as I was reading this book, I had to unlearn several things..
. Also one more problem was that book had too much information, so I had to read it 3-4 times. It took me around 3 weeks to get a hang of it.
CR Bible - Another great book and it helped me understand what Gmat tries to ask in CR section. I competed this book in a week's time and got a good hang of the concept.
RC - Never bothered to read anything and this overconfidence costed me around 10 points in my final score.
Maths - (My biggest mistake in preparation)- Being an engineer by training I consider myself 'Good' in maths. While browsing through Gmatclub I came across a collection of most difficult maths problems and I tried it. I could hardly get 20% correct and my confidence just vanished. I felt heartbroken and for few days did not study anything.
Gathered myself and ordered a book ' AK Sharma' - Mostly available in India. It had topic wise questions and these questions were further categorized by levels (Easy, Medium and hard). Took a month to finish it(Only easy and Medium level) and by the time I finished the book, I was feeling pretty confident.
GMAT club - (Another mistake in my preparation.) Please do not get me wrong, it's the best place for any Gmat aspirant. But prematurely I started browsing Forum's question banks and while filtering out questions for practice I just simply used to click on 700+ questions.
There are several fantastic contributors in the forum (People Such as Bunuel, Daagh etc) but several questions posted in this forum are exceptions to some or the other generic rule(Specifically in CR and SC) - Though it's good to know the exceptions but practicing prematurely used to put doubts in my mind.
My advice would be to consider GMAT forum for additional practice but do not make it as base for your preparation.
Mock Tests
A months before the exams I bought Gmat Clubs tests for $50. - I got some 25 maths tests and 8 verbal. Questions were of good quality but GMATclub needs to work on its scoring algorithm. You can give Maths and Verbal separately and you don't get a comprehensive score. I once gave a verbal exam and scored a 45 - Entire day I was rejoicing but when I reviewed my score in the evening I observed that I only got 4 700+ questions in my exams and despite me answering everything correct test just kept throwing 500-600 level questions.
Maths was a little better though questions were harder from what I got on actual exams. I did not get enough confidence from these tests.
Veritas Prep - About 2 weeks before exams, I bought 6 mock test for $49 - Good investment - exams were close to the actual thing. My scores were as follows.
Total Score / Percentile Quant Score / Percentile Verbal Score / Percentile
November 3 680 / 84 49 / 77 34 / 72 Review >
November 4 670 / 82 46 / 62 36 / 81 Review >
November 5 690 / 86 48 / 71 37 / 83 Review >
November 7 630 / 69 42 / 47 35 / 76 Review >
November 8 700 / 89 49 / 77 37 / 83 Review >
November 10 730 / 96 45 / 59 45 / 99 Review >
GMAC exams - No doubt the best out there. 1.5 weeks before exam My scores were as follows (I bought EP1 for $ 49)
Exam1 - 720
Exam 2 - 740
Exam 3 -710
Exam 4 - 720
I was scoring well in mocks but for some reason was still not confident but nevertheless went to give my exam and scored a 720. Felt happy and called my family and friends who were also bearing brunt of my preparation..
Kind Regards,
Nitin