Hi,
Given that I am going to apply from a competitive demographic pool, it only made sense that I have a healthy GMAT score to stand a chance at an admit. At this moment I have no control over my undergrad GPA, my work experience or any professional decisions that I have already made – but I could control how well I did on the GMAT.
I was pretty confident of doing well, until I got close to my 1st attempt – not hitting a 700 on any of mocks I wasn’t feeling great and rescheduled my exam to a later date.
Going at it without any change in strategy, a month later I still wasn’t at my best but chose to take the exam with the
'hope of things working out' on D-Day. Against my
‘hopes’ the exam didn’t go well and I chose to cancel the score as soon I saw it. I knew I could do better and in all honesty I did not have a choice but to do better.
What follows are things I learnt and worked on between attempts 1 and 2. I should have ideally realized my flaws during my prep but did it the hard way by actually giving the exam.
These changes are iterative and need to be revisited week after week. Do not assume that things will work out like I did; you will actually have to work on them.
After Attempt 1:• Very Poor GMAT exam (cancelled score)
• Dismal verbal performance (V31), Quant was good
• Really low on Self-confidence
I stopped studying and took a break for more than 2 months
What I wanted: 720+
Where I failed:No structure in my preparation process:
I was essentially throwing **** on the wall and was hoping for something to stick. My basics in Verbal were all over the place; I was referring to borrowed material and was not really learning from the mistakes I made.
Change: This is when I read up reviews on the best Verbal courses and purchased
E-GMAT Verbal Online to improve my Verbal skills. The Master Comprehension course immediately brought to notice the gaps in my understanding and the work I would need to put in to get a good score.
Randomly collated study material:
I was working of borrowed material from another GMAT training institute, but I did not have access to a chunk of the Video material and was trying to make as much sense as possible from the PDF documents.
Change:I trusted
E-GMAT and the
OG for Verbal and GMAT Club and the
OG for Quant. There is more than enough content and more questions than you can solve. The material is nicely curated and covers all aspects that are tested on the exam.
Not aware of my strengths or weaknesses:
I never really drilled down to understand which sections I was good at, where I was taking the most time and which topics came easiest to me.
Change: I tried to understand my hotspots – strongest and weakest. Quant PS was by strongest section and Verbal SC was my weakest.
In my 1st attempt I gave Quant first and Verbal second but I realized that I was getting too tired by the time I got to the end of the Verbal section. I attempted a mock where I did Verbal first and Quant second. It did wonders for me, my Verbal score improved whereas my Quant score did not change. This was a big step for me.
I analyzed further to understand that Quant PnC and Mods were not my strongest sections and did the same analysis for Verbal as well. I tried spending more time on these questions during my prep and little or no time on these questions in the exam if I realized I did not know how to solve it in 30 seconds.
Poor time management – speed comes with confidence:
I always tried to check whether I was solving every question in less than 2 min. Even when I was learning.
Change: I rehashed everything I had learnt during the prep in my 1st attempt. Started learning concepts from scratch and did not worry about timing at all.
I focused on getting accurate and only then worked on speed. Once you start hitting good scores you get a lot more confident and start realizing that the score you want is attainable.c
Making the same mistake over and over again:
I did a ton of questions leading up to my 1st attempt – and that’s all I kept doing without bothering to learn from my mistakes.
Change: I created excel workbooks for every question/mock I gave. I analyzed every question irrespective of whether it was correct or wrong.
For the incorrect questions, I did not move forward unless I was able to satisfactorily reject 4 incorrect options. This is where E-GMATs ‘Ask the Expert’ section and GMAT CLUB forums came really handy – I would copy paste questions every time I was not satisfied with a solution on to the forum.
For correct questions I would validate if my approach to reject the incorrect options was right.
My last piece of advice is
to not fight the exam: This sounds slightly cliched, but towards the end I was enjoying how challenging the exam was and how well designed it was to truly test my ability.
Try to work with a group of students taking the GMAT as well. They can work as a sounding board for any questions you have and it also works as cost effective solution when it comes to purchasing resources.
Below is the list of full mocks I gave other than
GMAT Club tests:
June 24 -
OG Mock: 720
June 30 –
MGMAT 1: 630
July 1 –
MGMAT 2: 680
July 8 –
MGMAT 3: 640
July 14 –
MGMAT 4: 670
July 15 –
MGMAT 5: 660
July 22 -
OG Mock: 720
July 28 –
MGMAT 6: 700
Aug 07 -
OG Mock: 750
Aug 11 -
OG Mock: 730
Aug 12 - Official Attempt: 740 (Q50 V39 IR 8 AWA 5)
I am glad I was able to get a 740 but I did take over 4 months to do it (as you can see the
MGMAT scores did not help in improving my confidence). Even during the actual exam I didn’t think my Verbal was going well because I distinctly remember screwing up a couple of RC questions (which was my strength in Verbal).
The secret is to
continuously introspect and to try and
keep the exam as low key as possible to keep the pressure at a minimum. It did well for me and I actually booked my date just 5 days before my actual exam without letting anyone know.
I hope this helps folks who are planning to write the GMAT soon.
Please let me know in case of any questions.
Thanks,
Vinayak
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