740 - First Attempt; sharing my experience (Q51 V40)

740 - First Attempt; sharing my experience (Q51 V40)

Hi all ,

Ever since I began my GMAT prep (May 2017), I've been following posts from GMAT club and reading experiences of others. I just took my GMAT on 24th June and wanted to share my experience with others as well. I was scheduled to take the exam on June 28th, however, on June 23rd, I received an email from Pearson saying that the exam center (Calgary, Canada) had cancelled all the appointments for June 28 and that I needed to reschedule the exam. It came as a big setback as my parents are visiting me as I'm writing this and I wanted to be done with GMAT before that. I scrambled through to look for a date before June 29 and found June 24th and June 26th available. I promptly called the customer case as rescheduling online would have cost me $50 and asked them to book me on June 26th. However, as luck would have it, the lady at the phone took over 15 mins to confirm with her supervisor whether she could process my request. when she finally got the approval, June 26th was already taken (another setback). I had to settle with June 24th (the very next day) and I was mentally not prepared to take the test the next day. Anyway, I'm sharing my 7weeks of prep with everyone.

First Month (May)
I must tell you that I have a full time job and began my prep in May 2017. I thought a month's prep should be enough to me put me into the 700s so I booked my GMAT for June 1, however, as I began preparing and taking mock tests, I quickly realized that I needed to reschedule the test to give myself another month. I gave myself 4-6 hrs of prep every day with breaks over the weekend and I followed this routine religiously for for 7 weeks. I was hovering around 680s after starting at 660 on my mocks. I thought I had plateaued. I had taken GRE in 2011 and scored 1520/1600 so I thought my verbal was workable and hence didn't purchase any course material for GMAT prep. The only purchase I made was $10 worth Veritas Prep mock tests (6 tests). Otherwise, I would scavenge the internet to find myself mock tests. I relied heavily on the official GMAC prep software with 2 mock tests that you can take multiple times and the Veritas Prep tests. After going through basic quant theory in a couple of days and took about a week to get familiar with GMAT Verbal. Even during my initial mocks I scored Q50 and Q51 with V34-36. I thought I needed to divest all my attention to Verbal. I began securing all the free online material suggested by the GMATClub, signed up for a free trial with EmpowerGMAT and made sure I know all the basics of verbal (also things unique to GMAT) even after extensive verbal prep for 3 weeks, I was still in the same V36 zone and was beginning to frustrate a little. (I took one GMAC free mock test and 3 veritas prep mock tests in the first month - all scores in between 660-690)

Second Month (June)
Having rescheduled my test for June 28, I began practicing Verbal in the earnest. My problem was that I was never consistent with my mistakes. RC was always my strong suit to begin with followed by SC and CR (atleast that's what I believed), however, my performance oscillated from one mock to another across the three. This was very frustrating as I didn't know what to target specifically with only 3 weeks to go. However, I kept practicing all three every day. People on GMAT club have compiled great SCs and CRs from different sources and this is truly a great practice material. I just told myself to solve as many questions as possible and gain confidence that way. I was assured that I had covered the theory portion well, all I needed was self confidence and practice. The only quant I practiced during this time was during the mock tests. I had begun with the GMAC prep software's 1st mock test and scored 660. I retook the mock after 3 weeks and scored 690 (felt more confident). The very next day, I took the second free mock and scored a 660 (all the built up confidence evaporated). I went back to just a brutal streak of solving over 200 SCs and 200 CRs for 2 days. I then took my 4th Veritas Prep mock test and surprise! surprise!, I got 730 (Q51 V39), a big boost to my confidence. In a day's time I took my 5th Veritas prep mock and scored 720 (Q51 V38), still came out confident now knowing that the previous score wasn't just a fluke. I guess these 2 scores just turned around my confidence levels. I knew that only if I could keep my confidence high, I can score a good one on the actual test. I took another Veritas mock last week (on June 22nd) and scored 760 (Q50 V44). Now, I was fairly confident of doing well if I kept my head straight.

June 23rd
I went to office in a good frame of mind after scoring 760 the previous day but received the email about the rescheduling at 1pm. That shook me up and especially after 20mins on phone with the customer care rep, I found that I was taking the test the next day itself. I hadn't practiced writing essays one bit and I felt a little shaken mentally. But then I recollected myself and kept saying that I just need to follow my process and things should be fine and that the GMAT isn't beyond me.

Test Day, June 24
I didn't any prep material the night before, went about the usual daily routine. My test was at 12noon on Saturday and before that I was waiting in for my new mattress delivery. I guess that mattress delivery on June24th morning kept my mind off of the big thing later. I had a light breakfast and drove to the test center. The formalities were pretty quick and soon I was at the test desk. After my Essay and IR, I took a break and came back ready for quant. I began the quant section and the first 10 qns were damn simple. I was wondering whether I made mistakes there or were they just that simple. I went ahead and by the time I was on question number 30, I checked the time only to be surprised to see that there was still 32 mins left on the clock. Now I really started to doubt myself on my accuracy. The questions somehow seemed straightforward and not of the same level as the VERITAS Prep mocks. Anyhow, I finished with 25 mins left on the clock. Took another break feeling confident now and began the Verbal section. Things seemed alright in terms of difficulty (similar to my mocks) and I had over 15 mins for my last 3 questions. That's when the eagerness to get my score kicked in and I felt I wasn't concentrating on my last 3. Anyway, got done with the sections, a bunch of other formalities post the verbal section and then a few moments later arrived the final score. 740 (Q51 V40). I was neither too excited nor too sad. I was aiming for over 750 but I was going to take a 740 with 7 weeks of practice any day.

Prep Materials Used
I mostly used material gathered on this club. I also solved everything from the Official guide 13th edition that I found on the GMAT Club. I used Veritas Prep Mocks, GMAC Official prep Software, and free tests from LBS, Manhattan prep and Kaplan.
My advice for Verbal (although I hoped to score over V40 after scoring V44 once) is to concentrate more on the underlying meaning, be it SC/CR/RC. Try to aim and bring down the number of incorrect qns down to under a 10 out of 41. The other way to look at this is to think on the following lines: 10 qns out of 41 is way too many for me to get wrong out. Same for Quant (although I thought my speed might have cost me a few qns)

P.S.- If you have confidence in your abilities and prep, the only thing that will bring you down is not being in the right frame of mind. Score over 700 in a mock and retake the same exam after 3 weeks. I'm sure the consistency of scoring over 700 (even it is the same mock) will help build enormous self belief. I did the same with my JEE exam. I chose an easier prep material (Brilliant tutorials) over FIITJEE and consistently did well and finally on my exam day, I was full of confidence (got into IIT Madras). Trust me, if your prep is right, you need to build on your confidence and have the right frame of mind.

Anyway, I wanted to share my experience. Happy to share more!

Thanks