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21 Aug 2021, 06:08
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I recently took my third GMAT attempt on 16th Aug, 2021 and finally scored a 750 (Q50, V42). However, the ride to this dream score of mine was not easy. Let me take you back to when it all started and through this rollercoaster ride of mine.
Aug 2020 - Mar 2020
Prep Resources Used: OG Bundle & Manhattan Prep Guides
I started my preparation for GMAT in Aug, 2020. I graduated in 2020 as well, so wanted to get done with GMAT before I lost touch with academics.
After a brief research on available prep resources, I settled for the Manhattan prep guides and the OG Bundle.
I dived right into the Manhattan guides. Each book was valuable for me. I went through the quant guides rather quickly as they were mostly concepts I had studied back in school and university but verbal was a challenge.
I had never come across questions based on "Critical Reasoning" and "Sentence Correction". I had studied in an Indian school and for those of you who can relate to me - SC and CR are not something we come across during our study in school. It is mostly RC (pretty basic - not the type in GMAT) and grammar that we tackle in school and that is that. Even in Quant for that matter, DS was a new question type that I had never encountered before. But quant was naturally strong for me so adapting to this question type was not as much as a challenge compared to Verbal.
So, the Manhattan books were great in helping me to familiarize with the type of questions asked in GMAT as well learning the concepts associated with them. I really liked the SC book - it was thick but valuable. Had to go through it couple of times to finally digest the content.
After going through all the guides, I decided to take a GMAT prep mock. Got a 650 (Q47, V32). Realized that both Quant and Verbal needed work.
I though solving official questions through the OG guides would help in both the areas. So, I aimlessly started off with the OG guide and followed it with the Quant and Verbal Reviews.
My first job upon graduation was very demanding and I hardly got 30 min to study on weekdays and couple of hours of weekends. And whenever I did get this time, I used to pound away at the OG material not realizing I was wasting valuable material.
This continued until Feb 2021 when I had exhausted the OG bundle and started exhausting the Advanced guide too. Did not even maintain an error log and continued aimlessly solving questions - thinking the more the better. Then came the realization in Mar, 2021 that I had been studying for 8 months already without a GMAT date in sight. So, thinking I was ready to take the GMAT, having gone through so many questions, I booked a date for 1st June, 2020.
You may ask why June? Because, again the same mentality - I wanted to leave enough time to exhaust more official material and take as many CATs as possible. And guess what I did exactly that.
Apr 2021 - June 2021
Prep Resources Used: Manhattan Mocks, GMATPrep Mocks, Critical Reasoning Bible, GMATClub Tests, GMAT Ninja Videos, Chineseburned AWA Template,
Since I had finished the OG Bundle and Advanced guide, I started off with the Manhattan Mocks. Gave them one week apart and following were the scores:
MANHATTAN CAT 1 - 28 March, 2021 - 690 (Q45, V38)
MANHATTAN CAT 2 - 4 April, 2021 - 650 (Q43, V36)
MANHATTAN CAT 3 - 10 April, 2021 - 690 (Q49, V35)
MANHATTAN CAT 4 - 17 April, 2021 - 680 (Q42, V40)
MANHATTAN CAT 5 - 25 April. 2021 - 700 (Q47, V38)
MANHATTAN CAT 6 - 2 May, 2021 - 740 (Q46, V45)
Found them to be challenging especially the quant. After taking them, I used to review to the solutions and thought it would get better with the next attempt. Consoled myself saying that anyway they are much more difficult than the actual exam, so I have a good chance at that 750+ score. So on and so forth, I went on and exhausted all 6 CATs. Improvement? Well, not really. The 740 on the last one was just an outlier.
By May, I had tendered my resignation to my first company as I had found a more exciting role elsewhere. That left me 15 days of changeover period between the two jobs - right before my 2nd June, 2021 attempt. I knew I had to make the most of these 15 days right before the exam.
So, in these 15 days here is what I did:
1. Revised all the questions I had got wrong in the OG Bundle and Advanced guide.
2. Went through the GMATClub Maths Book - Really good resource. It is basically a one-stop solution for all formulae and concepts you need to know and some good tips and tricks.
3. Went through the Powerscore CR Bible - Found it good to read through but found it difficult to apply the concepts to the questions.
4. GMATClub Quant Test Question Bank - I got a 7 day access as I had subscribed to the GMATClub youtube channel. I spent 4 days to go through all the HARD questions. Yes, all of them. I did not time and solve all but went through all the solutions. This one resource was a game-changer for me. Highly recommended. The questions are of the best quality and really up to the Q50+ level. They have a variety of traps that I fell into and learnt from.
5. GMATNinja: Charles has become one of my most favorite people since I went through all of his youtube videos. To be honest, I learnt what goes into SC questions and how to approach them only in these 15 days through his youtube videos. In fact, I always looked for his solutions to the Verbal questions on the forum. I would really like to thank him. Whatever improvement I first saw in my SC was due to this videos.
6. VeritasKarishma and Bunuel: I also would like to thank Karishma and Bunuel for coming up with the simplest solutions to the most complex questions. I always looked forward to their solutions.
7. A few days before my exam, I went through the chineseburned template for AWA and the official IR questions that come with the free mocks.
So, after going through the above resources, just 5 days before the exam, I thought of taking the GMATPrep Mocks to see where I stand.
I took the second of the two free mocks and got a 750 (Q50, V41). Confidence went through the roof. Thinking that more mocks = better practice, I bought the other four mocks and gave them right one after the other. BIGGEST MISTAKE.
Here are my scores:
GMATPREP CAT 3 - 27 May, 2021 - 720 (Q48, V40)
GMATPREP CAT 4 - 28 May, 2021 - 730 (Q51, V37)
GMATPREP CAT 5 - 29 May, 2021 - 710 (Q49, V38)
GMATPREP CAT 6 - 30 May, 2021 - 710 (Q49, V38)
The 6th CAT was one day before my actual exam. And as you can clearly see, I had burned myself out with 5 continuous mocks. Moreover, I had "saved" all of them right up until my exam leaving no scope for improvement. My study method until now had been based on two simple thoughts:
1. More mocks and more questions = better practice and higher GMAT score - WRONG
2. After each mock, just going through the solutions is enough - WRONG
3. Error log is time consuming. I know where I go wrong and I will get better with more practice - WRONG
I learnt it the hard way that more is not equal to better for GMAT and just reviewing the solutions is not enough. You need to work on the where you are faltering. But there was no way for me to determine that since I never had any error log!
Then came my first attempt. All my attempts were test-center based since the covid situation in my country was in control. Also, I wanted to avoid any technical issues with the online version and hence preferred the in-center test. I had always started with Quant since I thought it is better to start with your stronger section. During my first attempt, Quant looked manageable at first but midway the system started throwing a few hard questions that got me off track, but I managed to complete it to my satisfaction. However, Quant had drained me out. After the 8 min break, I went on to Verbal. Ok to be honest, I did not really have any strategy for any Verbal question. I would read the question, then read all options and select one based on what felt the most correct. As I went through Verbal, I found a few questions that stumped me and I spent a lot of time on them, leaving me little time for the others. Just to get done with that section, I somehow completed it. IR was straightforward and AWA was a breeze because of the chineseburned template. Thank you chineseburned.
When, I submitted the essay, out came the score 720 (Q49, V39, IR 8, AWA 6 (got it later(). I was disappointed. 720 was not enough for me. I immediately booked a second attempt right after 16 days. I thought I would do more GMATPrep questions and that would solve my verbal issues. I had still not learnt that more = not better at GMAT. That is when, my dad asked me - "What would you be doing differently than the previous attempt?" I had no answer. This brought me to the realization that I really needed a direction.
June 2021 - Aug 2021
Prep Resources Used: e-GMAT Online Course (Quant + Verbal)
I decided to sign up for a prep course as I was really lost and in need of advise. When browsing for courses, I came across e-GMAT and made up my mind to join it especially since it was a perfect fit for non-natives like me who needed improvement in Verbal especially. I got in touch with their team and Karan from the team got on a call with me. He took me through my ESR and made me understand where I needed work. He also told me that I would be allocated a mentor who would guide me as well. However, I had already booked my test for 18th June and that left me about 2 weeks to improve. He suggested that 2 weeks might be dicey but a 2 month period would be sufficient for my target score of 750+. We would still try to achieve the score within the 2 weeks itself. He also showed me success stories of students in the same situation as mine and who had conquered GMAT. I immediately enrolled for the 2 month GMAT Online course (Quant + Verbal) with e-GMAT. I did not want to leave anything to chance in Quant as well.
I got in touch with Aditee from the team as my mentor. I took ability quizzes in the weaker sections as per my ESR and then she created a detailed plan for me for the next two weeks. She also suggested that I maintain an error log for all questions. I followed.
We started off with CR. e-GMAT's Pre-thinking approach shifted gears for me in CR. I actually began to make sense of CR passages and could begin to identify the right choice instead of getting confused between multiple options. Although the method took me some time in the start to get used to, once I began to practice it, CR came second nature to me. The concept files along with the practice questions allowed me to tackle all types of CR questions and really sharpened my critical thinking abilities.
In Quant, we focused on my weaker areas - Word Problems and Geometry. For quant also, I went through all the concepts and did rigorous practice with the Scholaranium questions. Not for one moment, did I feel that they were any different from those I had encountered in the test.
Scholaranium 2.0 has been a boon to GMAT test takers. The level of data insights, the quality of questions and well-written expert explanations really make it a must get. I did take two Sigma-X Mocks and scored a 720 and 710 on them. They were pretty accurate and had a very GMAT-like feel in terms of difficulty and nature of questions.
I realized that I was still learning the concepts and hence the results might not show immediately in the test. Moreover, I also had a bad habit of fretting over questions that I "thought" I had got wrong and messing up all the subsequent ones. With a more improved CR strategy and WP & GEO skills, I went for my second attempt. I did feel that it was unnecessarily rushed and I should have booked a later date. But since, I had already booked it, I went ahead anyway,
Second attempt started with Quant again. The very second question threw my off balance. It was a 3-D geometry combo with WP. Tried and tried for atleast 3 minutes and gave up. It took me some time to recover form that horror and the system started throwing me very doable questions. Again my bad habit of overthinking got the better of me and I thought I had messed up Quant badly, especially since the last quarter was extremely easy. My motivation went down the drain and I was shook. With these negative thoughts in mind, I went into Verbal. This time CR was super good. I good make sense of all questions there but the thought of screwing up quant in the back of my mind, made me lose focus from Verbal and I somehow rushed to complete and do away with the questions since I though I had anyway messed up quant. I did not see the elusive "bold faced" question and quickly realised that Verbal had gone bad as well. I was in no mood for IR and just went through it almost in tears and AWA faced a similar me. I clicked submit and there it was - 710 (Q50, V37, IR5).
This was a shock to me. I was in disbelief. All this while, I had thought that I had messed up quant where in fact I had nailed it. Because of these negative thoughts I had gone and messed up Verbal and performed even worse than last time. I was devastated. I had failed my mentor. I wrote to Aditee about this immediately.
However, she was very motivating and told me not to give up. We again went through my ESR and saw that CR was the best among all sections and I needed some work in RC and SC. So Aditee identified areas in RC and SC to work upon and I diligently followed her advise. The meaning based approach for SC and the RC Reading strategies helped to plug the gaps in my concepts and enabled me to tackle the higher difficulty verbal questions. I also decided to give Verbal first followed by Quant as Verbal required more concentration than Quant for me. I gave two other mocks in the midst of this ending with a 680 and 720. When I went back and analyzed these mocks I realized that I really needed to stop overthinking about my prior performance and give everything to the question at hand. This was the single most important factor that was breaking my score. I continued taking sectional mocks and doing quizzes regularly and strategically reviewed all solutions. My error log grew but so did my confidence in tackling the harder questions. Then in the first week of Aug, we decided to reset my GMATPrep mocks and I gave them again scoring a 770 (Q51, V44) and 770 (Q50, V45). I was elated but aware of the fact that there were a few repeats so my scores were a bit inflated. Then, I gave the last Sigma-X Mock and scored a 750 (Q50, V41). I knew that I had finally peaked and concentrating on the question at hand had contributed to a significant rise in my test performance.
So, we decided to book the date for the third attempt - 16th Aug, 2021. I was much more calm going in to the test center this time. The night before, I had spent time with my family and watched movies. My intention was to keep myself stress-free during the exam. I started off with Verbal this time. I was focused on each question, gave it a 100% before moving on. Slowly I noticed that questions were getting harder especially the RC passages and SC questions. But I kept my cool and solved them patiently. I was confident that I was doing well this time. My happiness knew no bounds when the 35th question finally turned out to be the much awaited bold faced question. However, for the last two questions I had less than 1 minute left so I had to mark them in a hurry. But even so, I felt good about my verbal performance.
I next went into Quant with this boost in confidence. I noticed that the difficulty of questions was similar to my last attempt and was pretty sure by the end of the quant section that I was again near the Q50-Q51 mark.
IR went well as well and so did AWA. This time, I clicked submit and there it showed up - 750 (Q50, V42). I heaved a sigh of relief but was a bit sad that I lost out on the 760. Nevertheless, my GMAT journey is finally over and I only carry forward the positive learnings from it. A big thank you to gmatclub, the community here as well as e-GMAT.
Aug 2020 - Mar 2020
Prep Resources Used: OG Bundle & Manhattan Prep Guides
I started my preparation for GMAT in Aug, 2020. I graduated in 2020 as well, so wanted to get done with GMAT before I lost touch with academics.
After a brief research on available prep resources, I settled for the Manhattan prep guides and the OG Bundle.
I dived right into the Manhattan guides. Each book was valuable for me. I went through the quant guides rather quickly as they were mostly concepts I had studied back in school and university but verbal was a challenge.
I had never come across questions based on "Critical Reasoning" and "Sentence Correction". I had studied in an Indian school and for those of you who can relate to me - SC and CR are not something we come across during our study in school. It is mostly RC (pretty basic - not the type in GMAT) and grammar that we tackle in school and that is that. Even in Quant for that matter, DS was a new question type that I had never encountered before. But quant was naturally strong for me so adapting to this question type was not as much as a challenge compared to Verbal.
So, the Manhattan books were great in helping me to familiarize with the type of questions asked in GMAT as well learning the concepts associated with them. I really liked the SC book - it was thick but valuable. Had to go through it couple of times to finally digest the content.
After going through all the guides, I decided to take a GMAT prep mock. Got a 650 (Q47, V32). Realized that both Quant and Verbal needed work.
I though solving official questions through the OG guides would help in both the areas. So, I aimlessly started off with the OG guide and followed it with the Quant and Verbal Reviews.
My first job upon graduation was very demanding and I hardly got 30 min to study on weekdays and couple of hours of weekends. And whenever I did get this time, I used to pound away at the OG material not realizing I was wasting valuable material.
This continued until Feb 2021 when I had exhausted the OG bundle and started exhausting the Advanced guide too. Did not even maintain an error log and continued aimlessly solving questions - thinking the more the better. Then came the realization in Mar, 2021 that I had been studying for 8 months already without a GMAT date in sight. So, thinking I was ready to take the GMAT, having gone through so many questions, I booked a date for 1st June, 2020.
You may ask why June? Because, again the same mentality - I wanted to leave enough time to exhaust more official material and take as many CATs as possible. And guess what I did exactly that.
Apr 2021 - June 2021
Prep Resources Used: Manhattan Mocks, GMATPrep Mocks, Critical Reasoning Bible, GMATClub Tests, GMAT Ninja Videos, Chineseburned AWA Template,
Since I had finished the OG Bundle and Advanced guide, I started off with the Manhattan Mocks. Gave them one week apart and following were the scores:
MANHATTAN CAT 1 - 28 March, 2021 - 690 (Q45, V38)
MANHATTAN CAT 2 - 4 April, 2021 - 650 (Q43, V36)
MANHATTAN CAT 3 - 10 April, 2021 - 690 (Q49, V35)
MANHATTAN CAT 4 - 17 April, 2021 - 680 (Q42, V40)
MANHATTAN CAT 5 - 25 April. 2021 - 700 (Q47, V38)
MANHATTAN CAT 6 - 2 May, 2021 - 740 (Q46, V45)
Found them to be challenging especially the quant. After taking them, I used to review to the solutions and thought it would get better with the next attempt. Consoled myself saying that anyway they are much more difficult than the actual exam, so I have a good chance at that 750+ score. So on and so forth, I went on and exhausted all 6 CATs. Improvement? Well, not really. The 740 on the last one was just an outlier.
By May, I had tendered my resignation to my first company as I had found a more exciting role elsewhere. That left me 15 days of changeover period between the two jobs - right before my 2nd June, 2021 attempt. I knew I had to make the most of these 15 days right before the exam.
So, in these 15 days here is what I did:
1. Revised all the questions I had got wrong in the OG Bundle and Advanced guide.
2. Went through the GMATClub Maths Book - Really good resource. It is basically a one-stop solution for all formulae and concepts you need to know and some good tips and tricks.
3. Went through the Powerscore CR Bible - Found it good to read through but found it difficult to apply the concepts to the questions.
4. GMATClub Quant Test Question Bank - I got a 7 day access as I had subscribed to the GMATClub youtube channel. I spent 4 days to go through all the HARD questions. Yes, all of them. I did not time and solve all but went through all the solutions. This one resource was a game-changer for me. Highly recommended. The questions are of the best quality and really up to the Q50+ level. They have a variety of traps that I fell into and learnt from.
5. GMATNinja: Charles has become one of my most favorite people since I went through all of his youtube videos. To be honest, I learnt what goes into SC questions and how to approach them only in these 15 days through his youtube videos. In fact, I always looked for his solutions to the Verbal questions on the forum. I would really like to thank him. Whatever improvement I first saw in my SC was due to this videos.
6. VeritasKarishma and Bunuel: I also would like to thank Karishma and Bunuel for coming up with the simplest solutions to the most complex questions. I always looked forward to their solutions.
7. A few days before my exam, I went through the chineseburned template for AWA and the official IR questions that come with the free mocks.
So, after going through the above resources, just 5 days before the exam, I thought of taking the GMATPrep Mocks to see where I stand.
I took the second of the two free mocks and got a 750 (Q50, V41). Confidence went through the roof. Thinking that more mocks = better practice, I bought the other four mocks and gave them right one after the other. BIGGEST MISTAKE.
Here are my scores:
GMATPREP CAT 3 - 27 May, 2021 - 720 (Q48, V40)
GMATPREP CAT 4 - 28 May, 2021 - 730 (Q51, V37)
GMATPREP CAT 5 - 29 May, 2021 - 710 (Q49, V38)
GMATPREP CAT 6 - 30 May, 2021 - 710 (Q49, V38)
The 6th CAT was one day before my actual exam. And as you can clearly see, I had burned myself out with 5 continuous mocks. Moreover, I had "saved" all of them right up until my exam leaving no scope for improvement. My study method until now had been based on two simple thoughts:
1. More mocks and more questions = better practice and higher GMAT score - WRONG
2. After each mock, just going through the solutions is enough - WRONG
3. Error log is time consuming. I know where I go wrong and I will get better with more practice - WRONG
I learnt it the hard way that more is not equal to better for GMAT and just reviewing the solutions is not enough. You need to work on the where you are faltering. But there was no way for me to determine that since I never had any error log!
Then came my first attempt. All my attempts were test-center based since the covid situation in my country was in control. Also, I wanted to avoid any technical issues with the online version and hence preferred the in-center test. I had always started with Quant since I thought it is better to start with your stronger section. During my first attempt, Quant looked manageable at first but midway the system started throwing a few hard questions that got me off track, but I managed to complete it to my satisfaction. However, Quant had drained me out. After the 8 min break, I went on to Verbal. Ok to be honest, I did not really have any strategy for any Verbal question. I would read the question, then read all options and select one based on what felt the most correct. As I went through Verbal, I found a few questions that stumped me and I spent a lot of time on them, leaving me little time for the others. Just to get done with that section, I somehow completed it. IR was straightforward and AWA was a breeze because of the chineseburned template. Thank you chineseburned.
When, I submitted the essay, out came the score 720 (Q49, V39, IR 8, AWA 6 (got it later(). I was disappointed. 720 was not enough for me. I immediately booked a second attempt right after 16 days. I thought I would do more GMATPrep questions and that would solve my verbal issues. I had still not learnt that more = not better at GMAT. That is when, my dad asked me - "What would you be doing differently than the previous attempt?" I had no answer. This brought me to the realization that I really needed a direction.
June 2021 - Aug 2021
Prep Resources Used: e-GMAT Online Course (Quant + Verbal)
I decided to sign up for a prep course as I was really lost and in need of advise. When browsing for courses, I came across e-GMAT and made up my mind to join it especially since it was a perfect fit for non-natives like me who needed improvement in Verbal especially. I got in touch with their team and Karan from the team got on a call with me. He took me through my ESR and made me understand where I needed work. He also told me that I would be allocated a mentor who would guide me as well. However, I had already booked my test for 18th June and that left me about 2 weeks to improve. He suggested that 2 weeks might be dicey but a 2 month period would be sufficient for my target score of 750+. We would still try to achieve the score within the 2 weeks itself. He also showed me success stories of students in the same situation as mine and who had conquered GMAT. I immediately enrolled for the 2 month GMAT Online course (Quant + Verbal) with e-GMAT. I did not want to leave anything to chance in Quant as well.
I got in touch with Aditee from the team as my mentor. I took ability quizzes in the weaker sections as per my ESR and then she created a detailed plan for me for the next two weeks. She also suggested that I maintain an error log for all questions. I followed.
We started off with CR. e-GMAT's Pre-thinking approach shifted gears for me in CR. I actually began to make sense of CR passages and could begin to identify the right choice instead of getting confused between multiple options. Although the method took me some time in the start to get used to, once I began to practice it, CR came second nature to me. The concept files along with the practice questions allowed me to tackle all types of CR questions and really sharpened my critical thinking abilities.
In Quant, we focused on my weaker areas - Word Problems and Geometry. For quant also, I went through all the concepts and did rigorous practice with the Scholaranium questions. Not for one moment, did I feel that they were any different from those I had encountered in the test.
Scholaranium 2.0 has been a boon to GMAT test takers. The level of data insights, the quality of questions and well-written expert explanations really make it a must get. I did take two Sigma-X Mocks and scored a 720 and 710 on them. They were pretty accurate and had a very GMAT-like feel in terms of difficulty and nature of questions.
I realized that I was still learning the concepts and hence the results might not show immediately in the test. Moreover, I also had a bad habit of fretting over questions that I "thought" I had got wrong and messing up all the subsequent ones. With a more improved CR strategy and WP & GEO skills, I went for my second attempt. I did feel that it was unnecessarily rushed and I should have booked a later date. But since, I had already booked it, I went ahead anyway,
Second attempt started with Quant again. The very second question threw my off balance. It was a 3-D geometry combo with WP. Tried and tried for atleast 3 minutes and gave up. It took me some time to recover form that horror and the system started throwing me very doable questions. Again my bad habit of overthinking got the better of me and I thought I had messed up Quant badly, especially since the last quarter was extremely easy. My motivation went down the drain and I was shook. With these negative thoughts in mind, I went into Verbal. This time CR was super good. I good make sense of all questions there but the thought of screwing up quant in the back of my mind, made me lose focus from Verbal and I somehow rushed to complete and do away with the questions since I though I had anyway messed up quant. I did not see the elusive "bold faced" question and quickly realised that Verbal had gone bad as well. I was in no mood for IR and just went through it almost in tears and AWA faced a similar me. I clicked submit and there it was - 710 (Q50, V37, IR5).
This was a shock to me. I was in disbelief. All this while, I had thought that I had messed up quant where in fact I had nailed it. Because of these negative thoughts I had gone and messed up Verbal and performed even worse than last time. I was devastated. I had failed my mentor. I wrote to Aditee about this immediately.
However, she was very motivating and told me not to give up. We again went through my ESR and saw that CR was the best among all sections and I needed some work in RC and SC. So Aditee identified areas in RC and SC to work upon and I diligently followed her advise. The meaning based approach for SC and the RC Reading strategies helped to plug the gaps in my concepts and enabled me to tackle the higher difficulty verbal questions. I also decided to give Verbal first followed by Quant as Verbal required more concentration than Quant for me. I gave two other mocks in the midst of this ending with a 680 and 720. When I went back and analyzed these mocks I realized that I really needed to stop overthinking about my prior performance and give everything to the question at hand. This was the single most important factor that was breaking my score. I continued taking sectional mocks and doing quizzes regularly and strategically reviewed all solutions. My error log grew but so did my confidence in tackling the harder questions. Then in the first week of Aug, we decided to reset my GMATPrep mocks and I gave them again scoring a 770 (Q51, V44) and 770 (Q50, V45). I was elated but aware of the fact that there were a few repeats so my scores were a bit inflated. Then, I gave the last Sigma-X Mock and scored a 750 (Q50, V41). I knew that I had finally peaked and concentrating on the question at hand had contributed to a significant rise in my test performance.
So, we decided to book the date for the third attempt - 16th Aug, 2021. I was much more calm going in to the test center this time. The night before, I had spent time with my family and watched movies. My intention was to keep myself stress-free during the exam. I started off with Verbal this time. I was focused on each question, gave it a 100% before moving on. Slowly I noticed that questions were getting harder especially the RC passages and SC questions. But I kept my cool and solved them patiently. I was confident that I was doing well this time. My happiness knew no bounds when the 35th question finally turned out to be the much awaited bold faced question. However, for the last two questions I had less than 1 minute left so I had to mark them in a hurry. But even so, I felt good about my verbal performance.
I next went into Quant with this boost in confidence. I noticed that the difficulty of questions was similar to my last attempt and was pretty sure by the end of the quant section that I was again near the Q50-Q51 mark.
IR went well as well and so did AWA. This time, I clicked submit and there it showed up - 750 (Q50, V42). I heaved a sigh of relief but was a bit sad that I lost out on the 760. Nevertheless, my GMAT journey is finally over and I only carry forward the positive learnings from it. A big thank you to gmatclub, the community here as well as e-GMAT.
23 Aug 2021, 04:23
Kudos
Bookmarks
Awesome score! Even I have a reattempt to improve my 690 (Q48 V36) to 720+. Can you suggest particular quant topics to focus on to get a Q50? For verbal, I'm doing lot of OG questions on SC and CR which are my weakest areas.
Posted from my mobile device
Posted from my mobile device
23 Aug 2021, 04:55
Kudos
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Amazing, congratulations!
On a side note, is the bold-face questions always an indication of an elite Verbal score on the actual GMAT?
On a side note, is the bold-face questions always an indication of an elite Verbal score on the actual GMAT?
23 Aug 2021, 15:23
Kudos
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ARK700
Hi ARK700,
For Q50+, you would really need to focus on the weaker areas as indicated by your error log. These are the areas in which you tend to falter the most.
Once you have them identified, I would suggest learning the concepts assosciated with those areas from resources such as GMATClub Math book or any other credible material.
Next, start off with medium level questions from these areas - you can filter for the 600 level ones in gmatclub and focus on the OG questions first. Try to achieve 80%+ accuracy in medium level questions.
Once you are connstantly hitting that accuracy, move on to 700 level questions and aim for a 70% accuracy on them.
Meanwhile, do continue practicing and keeping in touch with your stronger areas.
Hope that helps.
