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ShakthiSep25
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Hi ShakthiSep25,

Congrats on an awesome GMAT score!
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ShakthiSep25
I scored a 760 on the GMAT (first shot) with about 5 months of prep. GMAT club debriefs (especially on YouTube) and forum discussions (especially SC) have added immense value to my prep. I wanted to pass on what worked for me to the GMAT club community. I advise that you take this debrief with a tablespoon of Himalayan rock salt. This is the 5-month experience of one individual with the GMAT. While I’ve tried to draw some general principles, I’m sure that many aspects I mention here may not work for others. For this reason, the advice of a professional tutor who has worked with a wide variety of candidates over many years is more reliable than that of an amateur. Yet, I document my experience in the hope that there may be at least one point in this debrief that may be useful to at least one reader. This debrief is bound to be largely a collection of tips from other GMAT Club debriefs which I found useful and implemented in my prep.

My context
I had a decent headstart at quant (~ early Q40s). I have read a fair bit of non-fiction in my life (it did not offer any competitive advantage in SC but probably helped in RC and CR). I had a hard deadline for taking my GMAT. I started to study in May 2023 and wanted to take my GMAT around August end or latest by September 2023 so that I could target R2 (I was also taking a preplanned family vacation for a couple of weeks in June 2023). Applying next year was not an option for me.

Two principles that guided my GMAT prep:
1. Quite early, I realized that the GMAT was not an academic test; it was a sport. Instead of just studying for it, I needed to train for it. The sports training mindset shifted the way I approached GMAT prep. I needed to practice every day (even if it was just for 15 minutes) to be in shape and sharpen my reaction time. The weekend mocks were the practice matches. Finally, the big match day. Just give it a thought: GMAT is a sport, train for it!
2. Towards the last leg of my prep, three weeks before my actual test date, I realized I should stop striving for perfection, and instead strive for excellence. In the GMAT context, perfection is trying to master a concept and getting every single question correct, while excellence is improving gradually at an overall level to achieve your ultimate objective. You only need to achieve your target score; you don’t need to master every single concept in SC or Inequalities. In essence, you don’t have to get every question correct. If you need a Q49, you can afford to get at least 6 to 7 questions wrong and maybe even more. If you have great accuracy on RC and CR, you can afford to be average on SC. For instance, you can get a V42 with up to 6 questions wrong in Verbal. Now, let’s assume you get one question wrong each on CR and RC, that leaves you with 4 questions to be wrong on SC. You only need a 70% strike rate in SC (assuming 14 SC questions). Optimize your preparation for your target score, not for mastery over a concept.

My prep included three major components: learning/practice, mocks & feedback loop, and exam strategy. There is a restriction on including links in my post so I'd be listing the resources at the end of this debrief.

1. Learning/Practice
Verbal
-SC: I was terrible at the beginning. I used GMAT Ninja Videos and Official Guide Question Bank. GMAT Ninja videos are simply the best for SC. Watch them! When I practiced the OG questions, I always referred to discussions on the GMAT Club forum even for questions I got right. There is usually more than one way to eliminate choices on the SC questions so it's always useful to know how experts solve the question. Copy past the question stem into Google search - the first link would be the GMAT club forum discussion. I also quickly went through the Manhattan SC guide and I'd highly recommend it.
-CR: I was reasonably good to begin with. I took help from GMAT Ninja videos and read Nightblade's CR guide on GMAT Club. There is a specific way in which GMAT tests CR which you need to know. The right answer choice should be pertinent to the conclusion of the question stem. I did not know this initially, and this one change took my CR accuracy to about 85-90%.
-RC: Again, I had a good foundation. However, I went through GMAT ninja videos to improve the effectiveness of my comprehension. I experimented with some detailed note-taking initially, but later just resorted to writing down a few keywords so that I don't blank out while reading.
-Official Guide Test Bank. Every single question I practiced was from Official Sources. Don't dare glance at unofficial questions for Verbal. I used the official guide test bank for practice. Every day I'd take a customer test of 10 official SC questions, solve them, and then go through GMAT club forum discussions on these questions.
-It’s not necessary to solve 1000 questions to gain proficiency in SC/CR/RC. Even for SC (my nemesis), my practice was limited to 200 odd SC questions (excluding mocks) which were available in Official Question Bank 2022. Whatever your current verbal skills, 250 SC questions are more than sufficient to grow your skills for a minimum of 80% accuracy on the SC (along with GMAT ninja videos). If you feel the need to solve 500/1000, you are not learning effectively. Rather try to make the most of every question - the GMAT club forum is a great tool for this.

Quant
I relied upon Target Test Prep platform for Quant. I went through all the lessons and did the chapter tests as a revision later. Mid-way through my mocks I noticed I was making more errors on Data Sufficiency questions. I resorted to GMAT Club Webinars by test prep providers on YouTube to improve my proficiency in Data Sufficiency.

2. Mocks & Feedback Loop
-I bought and used all the official mocks (6 in total). I did not use any other mock. Strictly stick to Official mocks for actual match practice. There are only 6 official mocks but with a decent plan, six mocks are more than enough for anyone (preferably taken over a minimum period of 5 to 6 weeks)
-I gave a mock every weekend for 6 weeks in the run-up to my actual GMAT. I maintained an error log and tracked the time I took to solve SC / RC / CR sections in an Excel sheet.
-My official mock scores:
Mock 1: August 12, 2023 – 630 Q47 V30 (this was my first mock which I gave after about 2 months of study during which I majorly covered the Quant section; I ran out of time in Verbal and did not attend the last 5 questions)
Mock 2: August 20, 2023 – 690 Q49 V34 (During the previous week I prepped hard for SC and watched GMAT ninja videos, but was disheartened to score only a V34)
Mock 3: August 27, 2023 – 740 Q48 V42 (Finally all the verbal prep was beginning to bear fruit; but at that stage, I still wasn’t sure of repeating the V42 again)
Mock 4: September 3, 2023 – 760 Q48 V46 (pleasantly surprised to improve my Verbal score; but at this point, I started worrying about my stagnant Quant score. Hence, the following week I prepped hard for Quant)
Mock 5: September 9, 2023 – 710 Q45 V44 (this 710/Q45 was a pivotal moment in my prep that made me realize what could go wrong on the actual test day. I did not complete the Quant section – I did not attend the last 5 questions).
-I gave the mock while battling a cold headache which probably elongated my reaction time. I also used the laminated scratch pad/marker for the first time. But there was a larger malaise. Since I had been prepping hard for Quant the past week, I was aiming for a Q50/51 on this mock. This made me reluctant to let go of the questions I was taking time to solve. I had spent over 5 minutes each on a couple of questions in the first 10-12 questions. When you spend over 5 minutes on a single question, it doesn’t matter whether you got the question correct, you’ll most likely not hit your target score because you’ll run short of time.
-When I analyzed, I found my accuracy to be very good – I had only 4 errors in the 26 questions I’d attempted (and only 2 errors in the first 21 questions I’d attempted). I had sacrificed the last 5 questions for accuracy. Considering the questions not attempted (5) as errors, my total errors would be 9, which usually gives you a score of Q48/49 (with a Q48, my score would’ve been 740 on Mock 5). But since I did not attempt these, I probably attracted a penalty pulling down my score to Q45.
-This is when I realized that I should strive for excellence instead of perfection. I’d have been better off guessing/letting go of the few questions I found hard to crack (the ones I spent 5 minutes on). Completing the quant section even with 10 questions wrong, I'd have had a 740 score.
-But I also feared that my timing was off because I wasn't well versed with certain quant topics. So I practiced quant the following week taking the chapter tests (Medium and Hard) from Target Test Prep. This focused practice increased my confidence on certain quant topics like number properties, inequalities/absolute values, etc.,
-I also thoroughly read up on timing strategies for both quant and verbal because now I was paranoid about not completing the sections. I will refer to the sources in my exam strategy section.

Mock 6: September 17, 2023 – 740 Q48 V42 (for this mock my goal was to be good on time; I didn't want to spend more than 3 mins on any Quant question; I did complete both sections on time and was back to the 740 range)

3. Exam Strategy
-Section sequence – The verbal section usually made me anxious and I needed my full brain power for it, so I chose that as my first section followed by Quant. I was comfortable with Quant.
-Timing strategy - I followed Manhattan's timing strategy blog which worked for me - combined with the scratch pad prep strategy. Give it a read. I tweaked the time a little to suit me. Through my mocks, I noticed that I was messing up the last few questions because the ticking clock made me nervous (even when there was enough time left). Hence, I allocated less time to the first three quartiles of the respective sections and allocated more time to the last quartile. This enabled me to be a little ahead and attend the last quartile of questions in a calm manner. This worked for me. On my actual GMAT, I completed both Quant and Verbal sections with 1.5 minutes left.
-Scratch Pad - I took mocks 5 and 6 on a scratch pad/market similar to that given at the GMAT center. It's available on Amazon. In the last two weeks, I also did my practice sessions on the scratch pad to get used to it. Scratch Prep was a super important part of my exam/mock routine. Do read the Manhattan blog.
-I retook a couple of mocks in the two days in the run-up to my exam (precious tip from Ravi's debrief). I used to rehearse my time strategy and scratch-pad prep.
Mock Retake 1: September 23, 2023 – 750 Q49 V42
Mock Retake 2: September 24, 2023 – 780 Q50 V48
-I made sure to do a warm-up a couple of hours before my actual GMAT (it’s a sport, remember?) - 10 questions each of Quant and Verbal (SC&CR).

Random notes:
1. Learning SC/CR through videos is a lot better because you see how the minds of the greatest test-takers (GMAT Ninja) work. You witness how GMAT Ninja considers an SC answer choice and decides to keep it or eliminate it. When you keep watching his videos for a few weeks, you will adopt his approach to a certain extent.
2. I initially assumed Target Test Prep would also work for my Verbal prep. I had extensively used it for my Quant Prep. It fitted my study style for quant. But when I started to do Verbal from Target Test Prep, I found it too technical (with respect to SC), and I found it hard to make progress. I wasn’t not registering stuff and there was a lot of material to go through. I wasn't going to make my GMAT deadline if I continued with it. It was then that I checked GMAT club on ways to improve my Verbal score and two things popped out: Follow official questions only and watch GMAT Ninja. It worked for me. I'm not advocating against Target Test Prep’s Verbal section, it may well work wonders for others especially if you have time on your side. It just didn’t work for me in my situation. The lesson here is to keep your prep strategy flexible and always optimize for your target score and specific requirements rather than follow a particular set of prep content.
3. Track unconventional metrics that are relevant to your context. For me, it was not spending more than 3 mins on any Quant question. I tracked it in my mock retakes and practice sessions (after my Mock 5 debacle). I knew that if I stuck to this I’d be good on time and my score would eventually be fine.

Huge shout out to Ravi (@LRS2021), [b]GMATNinja, and Evan (Evan made the YouTube debriefs super fun!).[/b]

Resources
1. Ravi's post: https://gmatclub.com/forum/750-q50-v41-tips-for-engineers-349421.html
2. Highly recommend watching Ravi & his wife's debrief video with Evan on YouTube. The single important video from which I gather so many tips for my prep (OG Question bank, official mocks, mock retakes, scratch pad strategy, timing strategy)
3. GMAT Ninja Introduction to GMAT Verbal - Entire course available as a playlist on "GMAT Ninja Tutoring" YouTube Channel
4. GMAT Ninja Sentence Correction - Season 1 (Available on GMAT Club YouTube Channel)
5. Official Guide 2022 Question Bank
6. GMAT Club Forum Discussions on SC official questions
7. Official Mocks 3,4,5,6
8. Manhattan GMAT timing and scratch pad strategy
9. Bonus: One of the coolest things I discovered during my prep was that Charles Bibilos (the GMAT Ninja) has a fascinating food blog under the banner "United Nations of Food." Loved reading that!

Heartiest congratulations!
All the best for the application process! :)
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