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01 Dec 2023, 11:34
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Hey everyone, earlier this month I posted this debrief on my first attempt at the GMAT Focus, receiving a 715. Lots of details there covering my prep and the test itself.
Earlier this week, I walked out of the exam room with a 755! I can’t describe how happy I am to be moving on from the GMAT to focus on my applications. This exceeds the score of my best mock by 10 points, so when that score appeared on the screen I was stunned. I was in such shock that I didn’t really take a great look at the percentiles on the screen, but here are my scores (in sequential order) and best guess for percentiles:
DI: 83 (96th percentile?)
Quant: 89 (98th percentile?)
Break (focused on mental composure and drank water)
Verbal: 90 (“100th” percentile)
Overall I found the difficulty to be the same as last time, but I refined my GMAT skills a bit since my first try. I focused a lot on data sufficiency in my prep for the second retake, which may or may not have aided my score (overall my DI score actually went down), but it was a good opportunity to review and practice some quant concepts where I displayed some weakness. I think the main improvement I made that boosted my score was time management. On all three sections I came back to problems that I either knew would be especially time-consuming, or wasn’t totally sure on initially. I made sure to practice this principle on the three additional mock exams I took between exams, scoring 695, 735, and 705 respectively.
Aside from study prep, I think a possible difference maker was my physical prep, which was a little different this time around. I got solid, but not too much, sleep the night before and I drank a substantial amount of water the day of and the day before, just as I did last time. Beyond that though, were some key differences.
I went for a run for about 30 minutes a few hours before the test this time, which I would highly recommend to others especially if, like me, you are not getting regular exercise. During the test I took deep, slow breaths anytime I felt my heart rate elevate. It was much more noticeable than usual because I had these super tight noise-cancelling headphones/earmuffs on, haha. On top of all that, I scheduled the test for later in the day than I had my last one - 3pm today instead of 8am. I drove 20 minutes to the test center, got amped up to some music, killed a small Red Bull, and walked into the test center knowing I had controlled for nearly every possible variable.
Some notes about the test itself:
There was no repeated passage on this iteration of the exam. But, again there was one that was so noticeably denser than all the others. Really tough to get through that one.
It seemed like on all three sections, one of the first three questions was a difficult one that was designed to be time-consuming. Had to take a quick crack and come back to them all. Might just be chance rather than by design.
I found that the most time-consuming verbal questions were “apply the concept” (? can’t remember the exact TTP lingo) questions where the question would be something like: “which of the following phenomena most closely resembles the one described in the passage?” I would recommend getting speedy at those to save some time. It takes intense analysis to come up with the specific traits to look for in an answer, and on top of it each answer takes a bit of time to read and process.
This time I made sure to leave spare time on all three sections. Cut it a little close on DS so I didn’t really get to review any questions I had bookmarked, but I was able to review all on verbal and quant. Reconsidered and changed an answer on both the verbal and quant sections and I’m confident this improved my score.
I could feel that I improved on quant and honestly it got me pretty nervous for verbal because I didn’t want to mess it up. Had to compose myself during my break and tell myself, “Time to bring it home. Your strongest section is coming up, you got this.”
Shout out to TTP once again! Best of luck to you all, and please let me know of any questions you might have for me. I'll do my best to answer them all!
Earlier this week, I walked out of the exam room with a 755! I can’t describe how happy I am to be moving on from the GMAT to focus on my applications. This exceeds the score of my best mock by 10 points, so when that score appeared on the screen I was stunned. I was in such shock that I didn’t really take a great look at the percentiles on the screen, but here are my scores (in sequential order) and best guess for percentiles:
DI: 83 (96th percentile?)
Quant: 89 (98th percentile?)
Break (focused on mental composure and drank water)
Verbal: 90 (“100th” percentile)
Overall I found the difficulty to be the same as last time, but I refined my GMAT skills a bit since my first try. I focused a lot on data sufficiency in my prep for the second retake, which may or may not have aided my score (overall my DI score actually went down), but it was a good opportunity to review and practice some quant concepts where I displayed some weakness. I think the main improvement I made that boosted my score was time management. On all three sections I came back to problems that I either knew would be especially time-consuming, or wasn’t totally sure on initially. I made sure to practice this principle on the three additional mock exams I took between exams, scoring 695, 735, and 705 respectively.
Aside from study prep, I think a possible difference maker was my physical prep, which was a little different this time around. I got solid, but not too much, sleep the night before and I drank a substantial amount of water the day of and the day before, just as I did last time. Beyond that though, were some key differences.
I went for a run for about 30 minutes a few hours before the test this time, which I would highly recommend to others especially if, like me, you are not getting regular exercise. During the test I took deep, slow breaths anytime I felt my heart rate elevate. It was much more noticeable than usual because I had these super tight noise-cancelling headphones/earmuffs on, haha. On top of all that, I scheduled the test for later in the day than I had my last one - 3pm today instead of 8am. I drove 20 minutes to the test center, got amped up to some music, killed a small Red Bull, and walked into the test center knowing I had controlled for nearly every possible variable.
Some notes about the test itself:
There was no repeated passage on this iteration of the exam. But, again there was one that was so noticeably denser than all the others. Really tough to get through that one.
It seemed like on all three sections, one of the first three questions was a difficult one that was designed to be time-consuming. Had to take a quick crack and come back to them all. Might just be chance rather than by design.
I found that the most time-consuming verbal questions were “apply the concept” (? can’t remember the exact TTP lingo) questions where the question would be something like: “which of the following phenomena most closely resembles the one described in the passage?” I would recommend getting speedy at those to save some time. It takes intense analysis to come up with the specific traits to look for in an answer, and on top of it each answer takes a bit of time to read and process.
This time I made sure to leave spare time on all three sections. Cut it a little close on DS so I didn’t really get to review any questions I had bookmarked, but I was able to review all on verbal and quant. Reconsidered and changed an answer on both the verbal and quant sections and I’m confident this improved my score.
I could feel that I improved on quant and honestly it got me pretty nervous for verbal because I didn’t want to mess it up. Had to compose myself during my break and tell myself, “Time to bring it home. Your strongest section is coming up, you got this.”
Shout out to TTP once again! Best of luck to you all, and please let me know of any questions you might have for me. I'll do my best to answer them all!
01 Dec 2023, 12:02
Kudos
Bookmarks
Gratz on the 755. All the best going forward.
-contact: gmatknight site | gmatclub dm
-contact: gmatknight site | gmatclub dm
01 Dec 2023, 12:07
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi swanny60 - Congratulations on scoring an incredible 755 on the GMAT! Thank you for choosing TTP for your GMAT Focus preparation!
