730 ? IF I CAN, YOU CAN TOO

If you have never taken a standardized test before and are worried about how you will fare in the GMAT, read on..
If you are dealing with issues such as nervousness and anxiety in your prep for GMAT, read on..
If you think you are out of touch with your studies and too old now to get a decent score in the GMAT, read on..

The Beginning

It all started with the decision to switch careers after 20 years. An MBA from a prestigious institution appeared to be the most appropriate bridge from government service to corporate. Hence taking the GMAT seemed to be the most logical step. After searching the internet for resources I subscribed to a particular test prep company to start with. I took their online classes for 3 months, in which they taught me the basics of quant and verbal. Having never taken a standardized test or anything that tested my quantitative and verbal abilities, I found this to be a good start. It was only during these three months that I came across gmatclub.com.

As per the suggestion of the test prep company, after completion of their course, I revised the syllabus and took the first official mock test as a Diagnostic test. I was hoping to be somewhere between 650 and 680 at that stage. And with another 2 months of preparation, I hoped to reach my target of 700 +. However, I was in for a rude shock as I scored only a 540. Nevertheless, I prepared for another two months all the while using resources of the test prep company and GMAT club. After another two and half months, i.e. sometime in September, I took another mock test (free) from another test prep company and scored a 600. Needless to say, I was depressed by this. My abilities in verbal never gave me confidence that I could score above a v33. I kept preparing all through October on my own and took another mock test (free) this time on the egmat portal. I again scored a 600.

I was undecided for some time whether I should continue preparing on my own using gmatclub resources or seek some other professional help. I decided to reach out to egmat this time. They give me a specific plan after having analysed my performance in their free SigmaX mock test. They told me my weaknesses and strengths and accordingly suggested me a study plan. This is what I was looking for. Somebody to tell me exactly what to do, since I had no clue how to proceed, and did not want to waste time in figuring that out.

New Beginning

I subscribed to egmat and my journey with them started in the first week of November 2022. I was assigned a mentor (Abha) who told me exactly where to start. To my surprise she told me that as per my performance in the mock test, I am already at an 89 percentile in SC, and so I could skip the SC module. However, I was suggested to go through the Master Comprehension module before taking the cementing quizzes in Sentence Correction. The master comprehension module of egmat was a game changer for me. Never ever had I been taught to read, the way Master Comprehension taught me. I realised reading and understanding are two different things. And in verbal on the GMAT, if you read a single word without understanding it in the overall context, you are doomed. Using the process that I learned in the Master Comprehension module and applying the ‘meaning-based approach’, I completed the cementing phase in Sentence Correction in good time and went on to CR. In CR, the ‘pre-thinking’ approach really helped me. I did use it earlier, but now I was doing it better, even in Inference questions – something, I earlier thought, did not need pre-thinking. I did take some time to clear the cementing phases in CR and likewise in RC.

Quant, in Egmat, is ‘PACE’ enabled, I was told, and that would save me time by skipping modules in which I am comfortable. I started going through the sub sections, however, I could not clear all the cementing phases in one go. During such difficulties, Abha kept guiding me at every step. As I was going through cementing in various subsections, Abha told me to keep taking the ability quizzes to remain in touch with the subsections I had already covered. The most important part in quant is the process skills that egmat teaches you and their relentless pursuit and insistence on the same. To be honest it took me some time to realise that these process skills will make a big difference in the end. I always used to wonder how can someone decide what approach to take while dealing with high-difficulty problems and even solve them correctly within 2 minutes. I thought I could never be able to do so. But by following the process skills egmat taught me, I developed the confidence to do so. I was doing well in Number properties and Inequalities / Absolute Values – topics that appeared very difficult to me earlier. Every time I had difficulty in crossing the cementing stage, Abha would analyse my performance and if need be she would refer my case to a subject matter expert, who would then suggest improvements in the process I follow.

Overcoming Difficulties

Having completed both Verbal and Quant modules, Abha then guided me towards the test readiness phase. I had some difficulty during this phase too, as I could not deal with my nervousness and anxiety during the tests. I was making silly mistakes too often and also falling short of time. I realised the importance of meditation sometime in February and practiced it daily. I believe it definitely helped me. In Feb 2023, my job required me to go out of station for two and a half months, affecting my preparation. But I made an effort not to lose touch as I had read experts’ views on gmatclub that big time gaps in preparation can put you back by several notches. (Regular studies for however small study-hours are better than long study hours interspersed with big gaps). This difficulty and the delay in cementing phases and thereafter in the test readiness phase were taking a toll on me as I was stretching the limits of my deadline for taking the final test. I returned to my base on 20 April and again started my preparation in full swing. It is during this time I realized that I am stressing myself way too much. I thought lack of sleep or rather lack of good quality sleep was a major contributor to my silly mistakes and nervousness and anxiety. Also as a result of sleep deprivation, I was not having quality in my study. I was just clocking hours without improving my abilities. At this point in time, I decided to start getting at least 7 hours of sleep at night and in fact, started sleeping without an alarm. Having completed the last module of Quant (Permutations, Combinations & Probability) sometime in the 1st week of May, I took two weeks to thoroughly revise all subsections from the start. Thereafter, I revised all subsections for the second time taking around one week. During these revision cycles, I was solving Quizzes on egmat’s portal for validation and trying to cross their specified levels, sometimes failing to do so, sometimes succeeding. All through I was also taking validation quizzes for Verbal. One painful exercise all throughout was maintaining an error log. But I did maintain one, in excel initially as per egmat’s format and in my own format during the revision phases. What was important was to revise these error logs periodically.

I decided to take the test on the 24th of June 2023 and accordingly took a mock test on egmat portal on the 18th June 23. (Too late to start taking Mocks but circumstances were such). I scored a 650 and was obviously dismayed. Having analysed the incorrect questions I realized a lot of them were silly mistakes. Abha suggested that I delay my test by at least two weeks while she works on my test-taking abilities. I did so and kept going through the actions that Abha suggested. In the meanwhile, I had to take leave and move to my hometown to tend to some unavoidable personal commitments. (That was the reason I planned to finish taking the test by 24th of June in the first place, but then one needs to adapt to changing situations). I took my second mock test on egmat portal on the 3rd of July and yet again scored a 660. After this, my anxiety was at its peak. I started doubting myself and was thinking that the last 7 months were a waste of time. Abha kept telling me that the problem is not in my quant or verbal abilities but in my ability to focus and concentrate and that is what I should work on. I believed her. I knew my abilities in quant and verbal had developed significantly. The only thing that could stop me from reaching my target score was my anxiety and nervousness. I needed to manage those feelings. An important point to note here is that I could never reach beyond the 27th question in Quant and 30th or 31st question in Verbal. So I had to guess the remaining questions. I needed to work on my time plan. I did read a few articles on timing strategies. But Abha was point blank. She gave me exact times when to bail out in Quant questions, SC CR and RC. To be able to follow those timings was the issue.
At this point I spoke to my family and realised that I need to change my approach. I changed the way I meditated. But I still had doubts about whether I should delay the test by another two weeks. Eventually, I booked a test for 11 July considering that there will always be another chance that I could take. I took my last mock test on the Egmat portal on the 8th of July and again scored a dismal 670. After having analysed my mistakes in the test Abha again flagged the main issue which was my focus. 90% of the mistakes that I was making were related to my lack of focus. There was no problem that I could not do within 2 minutes when I used to solve it later on. Yet I was making mistakes on the test. I could feel the nervous energy building up in me prior to the test, clouding my ability to follow all the process skills. And that was making all the difference. While I could follow all the process skills when I was not taking a test in the test environment, I was unable to do so in test environment.

Since I had already booked my test for the 11th of July I went ahead with the plan. Instead of fighting my anxiety and nervousness, I decided to take the test with those feelings. Accepting that these feelings will be there and I need to coexist with them on the test. In the last couple of days I did not take any timed quizzes or tests. I went through my notes, certain questions that I was repeatedly getting wrong, and some formulae that needed to be remembered. An important aspect that struck me during this time when I was reviewing a particularly difficult question (I got it wrong four times, in spite of reviewing it every time!) was the relevance of patterns. (Bit late in the day, but then as they say, “it's never too late to learn something”). Since the GMAT is a standardized test, it follows a definite pattern. The difference between the brilliant and the otherwise is that the former are good at recognizing patterns quickly and using that knowledge to their advantage. For example; a question that has only one linear equation with two variables is generally not enough data to get values of both variables. But if there is any constraint imposed by the question, such as both variables being integers or any other such limitation, the data might be enough. Explore that possibility before marking ‘E’. Having understood this concept, one should be able to apply it to other situations also. For eg; when there are 3 variables x, y, and z, and the number of equations is only two, and there are no other constraints then one cannot find the values of x, y, and z. However, if the question asks the ratio of x and the sum of x, y, and z, or just the sum of three variables then the data is likely to be sufficient! In such problems, it is critical to recognize what the question is testing and proceed accordingly. These are just a couple of examples. If one can recognize this and other such patterns and apply the relevant process skills, any GMAT problem can be solved in 2 minutes.

The Test Day

As the test day approached, I told myself that a 680 seems doable and it may be enough to get admission to a decent Business school given my work experience. That was just my way of trying to lower my own expectations. After all, all the anxiety and nervousness were an interplay between my expectations and reality. The wider the gap between these, the greater the anxiety, nervousness and depression. On the test day, as I had read on gmatclub, I tried to keep every part of my daily schedule the same. Had a slightly early dinner hoping to sleep earlier. But I couldn’t. I had imagined this would happen and did not let it affect me. I tried to sleep, meditate, sleep, meditate, and so on till I finally fell asleep. My exam slot was at 0945hrs so I woke up at 0600 hrs. Had a light breakfast. Abha had advised me to carry a banana or an energy bar to recharge during the break. I got the essence of the advice and carried a protein shake instead. The BCAAs have helped me maintain energy levels in the Gym in pretty quick time and I hoped they would do the same here. I reached the exam hall at 0900 hrs. As the exam hall procedures began I started chatting with another aspirant, a young chap just 2 years out of college. I asked him about his mocks and he said he was scoring consistently between 700 and 740. Wished him luck and chatted some more. The Procter then guided us to the cubicles and I commenced with the much-awaited exam process. I had not decided which colleges I would select to send my scores to. I kept searching for ISB and it just wouldn’t appear in the menu. Selected the ones that appeared after searching for them - LBS, MIT Sloan and Michigan Ross. Then I tried searching for IIMs. They appeared. I then scrolled down to find ISB and selected it. This process took me quite a long time and the candidates in the next cubicles had already commenced their exam. I bring this up because such a delay could affect your state of mind negatively. But I had conditioned my mind adequately to not get bothered by such things. I was expecting hiccups and deviations from normalcy. I started the exam with the sequence I had planned for, Quant - Verbal - IR/AWA. I had developed a habit to look at the timer only after every 7 to 8 questions and had the block timings in mind. I was doing well on the timing part till the 2nd block (16th question with little over half the time remaining). As I approached the last 3 questions I had a good 6 minutes remaining - perfect. The 30th question was a typical geometry question (Area of a rectangle given with two variables in length and breadth) that I had solved many times. So I realized it's going to end up in a quadratic equation. As has happened many times during practice quizzes, I could not get the break up of the quadratic equation in a decent time. I did not waste time and took an educated guess and moved on with 2 minutes for the last question. The verbal part also went in a similar fashion as far as the timings were concerned. The last RC passage was short but savage – couldn’t make head or tail out of it. Took educated guesses and moved on – had a good 2 minutes for the last CR question. All in all, both the Quant and Verbal sections had gone in an unprecedented manner for me – completing them in perfect time. IR and AWA were my sore points as I had not practiced them at all. One should practice for IR at least a little bit. I missed out on attempting the last question in IR, but could complete AWA. Having completed that part, something came up on the screen. I realized this might be the score sheet. It was quite bland – I was expecting a colorful graphical display as one has often seen in the ESRs. Nevertheless, in all the typed matter in a small font, a particular number caught my attention. It said 730. Before I could grasp it, the Procter had sneaked in behind me and asked me if I wanted to accept my score. Yes! Click ‘Accept’, pick up the passport and walk out slowly he said. While I was thinking about what had just happened, the Procter printed out a page and gave it to me. It was true – a 730 (Q49, V41). A certain numbness and disbelief that I felt continues to affect me in varying degrees till date….

Key Takeaways.

1. Choose the right resources for your preparation. The money spent in preparation will be only a small fraction of your MBA journey.
2. Abilities such as analytical reasoning, and critical reasoning come naturally to some, but others can develop these abilities through practice and following due process. If I can, you can too.
3. I cannot overemphasize the importance of following process skills taught by Egmat. Payal’s (Payal Tandon) voice asking me to do so every now and then reverberates in my head even now.
4. Error logs are important. Find a way that suits you to maintain one. Revise it periodically.
5. Make notes of important and frequently appearing concepts and revise them regularly. Revision is the keyword here.
6. It makes sense to follow your mentor even when you do not understand how a particular action is going to help you. A mentor like Abha, and others in Egmat team would have coached many students like you. They know what they are doing, and where they are taking you.
7. Patterns – try to recognize patterns. You may not succeed immediately, but keep trying and you will. It will surely help you in more than one ways, it certainly did help me in Q No 30 of Quant section (at least) in my final exam.
8. Official Guide questions are precious, especially in Verbal. Do not use them to learn concepts. Use them only to validate your skill level after you’ve learned the concept. LSAT questions in CR and RC are good for learning concepts – there is no dearth of them on Gmatclub.
Meditation helps – it works slowly but surely. Start practicing it now! Anxiety, panic and nervousness are feelings you can’t wish away. Try managing and co-existing with them rather than fighting them. You may not realise when they have stopped bothering you.
9. Build test readiness and test taking abilities by taking 10 questions quizzes initially, then progressing to 15, 25, and 31, and so on. Egmat gets this done nicely.
10. Official Mock tests can give a better assessment of your preparation level. I couldn’t take any Official mock test in the run up to my final exam due shortage of time imposed by unforeseen circumstances. I could’ve delayed my test further but I wasn’t sure if things would necessarily turn favourable later on. Nevertheless, since I was guessing all of the last 4 to 5 questions in Quant and a couple more than that in Verbal of the egmat mock