Balancing work and prep: GMAT 770

You start with a 710 on your first mock. Aiming for a 780, you purchase the highest rated GMAT course. You’re told that you can reach your desired score with 2 months of prep. You study for 4 months nevertheless, and at the end of it, end up getting a 690 in the next mock. What do you do next? Do you obsess over your GMAT score given that it is just one part of the overall application? Or just let go, be happy with a 700 and accept that you’ve wasted 4 months of your time and money for nothing...

Background:
I am an Indian applicant with 5 years of work experience. My GMAT journey began around August 2021. I only knew a handful of people who had written the GMAT. None of them had managed a 760+ score. So most of my preparation strategy is based on stuff that I read online. I tried to look up resources online and came across multiple articles recommending different courses. Given my work schedule, I knew that I can only spare a few hours every week. I did not want to saddle myself with too many resources and regret later. So I simply purchased the Official Guide (OG) and started my preparation.

OG:
Every aspirant will tell you that the Official Guide is a sine qua non for GMAT preparation. I’d seen a couple of YouTube videos stating that it is the only resource one needs to get a 760+ score. So, I simply went through all the questions given in the first volume of the OG in September 2021. While the easy questions were relatively straightforward, I was having trouble solving the medium and hard difficulty level questions. Also, there was no structure in the way I was solving questions. In sentence correction (SC) for instance, I would simply repeat each answer choice in my head and mark the one that sounded right. My accuracy level fluctuated from 70-80% on good days to 30-40% on bad days. There was no steady improvement. The explanations given for the answer choices in the OG were too convoluted and weren’t helping either. In the first week of October, I gave a free mock test on e-GMAT and scored a 710 (Q50,V37). I realized that while the OG is a great resource to hone/practice my skills, I need to refer to some other resource to build up those skills. That is where e-GMAT kicks in.

e-GMAT:
After going through the the first Volume of the OG, I had a fair idea of what type of questions to expect. Taking a mock also helped in highlighting my weak areas (My sub-sectional scores were V44 in CR, V34 in SC and V35 in RC). I was looking for a course that can help improve my weakness in SC and RC. e-GMAT fit the bill perfectly. It is the highest rated course on GMAT club, particularly known for its verbal modules. It is also structured in a way that allows you to learn at your own pace, whenever you get time, which was very important for a working professional like me. I purchased the course on 2nd October 2021. A personalized study plan is prepared for you when you sign up. My PSP recommended 8 weeks of prep to reach my desired goal of 780.
I prepared diligently in the beginning, spending 2 hours after work during weekdays and 4-5 hours during weekends. The modules were well structured. Each concept file began with a pre-assessment quiz, followed by a lecture explaining the concept in detail and finally a post-assessment quiz at the end. I was learning new concepts, and a new structure to solve questions. By the end of September, I finished all my verbal modules and attempted a few cementing quizzes. I was happy with my progress.

Opportunity at work:
In the first week of November, I got a call from my old boss regarding a great opportunity at work. The work was very interesting and something that I’d been eyeing for quite some time. I talked to my current boss, who stated that it was not be possible to relieve me from my existing role. However, he was willing to allow me take up the new assignment as an additional responsibility. This left me in a quandary. I already had a lot of things of my plate. Taking up this new assignment would mean less time for my prep. However, I did not want to miss out on this opportunity and ultimately ended up volunteering for the additional assignment.
My GMAT preparation was consigned to the backstage after that. I had to split time between the two offices and was too exhausted to study by the time I came back home. I studied for a few hours during the weekend. Since I was going through the Quant modules, which were relatively easy, I didn’t feel that my accuracy was dropping or that my preparation was going south. This continued for a couple of months, till I got a mail from e-GMAT that my subscription is going to expire in 2 weeks i.e. the end of January 2022. So I decided to give another mock to check my level.

Wake up call:
I gave my second mock on 23rd January 2022. I sat for the test expecting a 740, ended up with a 690 (Q50,V34). This came as a huge shock. I’d gone through all the modules and solved all quizzes with a 90%+ accuracy by then. My score in the cementing quizzes was also decent. I was at a 710 four months ago. The course was supposed to help me improve, not go back. I started blaming everybody. The course. My bosses. Maybe this is my level. I’m supposed to plateau around a 700. A lot of people make it to good colleges with a 700. I have a distinctive profile. Maybe I should focus on that.
But I wanted to score well. For myself.

Getting back on track:
I took a day off work to ponder over the next course of action. Went through my sub sectional scores again. The biggest drop was in the SC section, where I scored a V27. I realized that I was reverting back to my old habits under time pressure. I’d gone through all the concepts, but hadn’t internalized them. Was back to solving questions based on instinct.
Since my subscription was about to expire in a week, I went through the SC module again and made short hand notes. Had the option to extend my subscription, but decided against it. I figured that solving the remaining OG questions by diligently following the structured approach would be better. Studied from 10pm to 1 am everyday in February. Got my preparation back on track, and went back to e-GMAT in March for the final push.

Final push:
I purchased a 1 month extension on the e-GMAT course in March 2022. This time, the focus was solely on solving questions in Scholaranium. I solved around 50-60 questions every day. Gave my 3rd and 4th mock, ended up scoring a 740 in each of them. For my 5th mock, I decided to tinker with the order in which I was attempting the test. In my first 4 mocks, I attempted the Quant Section in the beginning and Verbal Section afterwards. But for my last mock, I switched the order and ended up getting a 800..!! I continued with the Verbal-Quant order in the official mocks and ended up getting a 770 and a 780.

Finally took the GMAT on 20th April 2022. Scored a 770 (Q51,V42,IR7,AWA5).

The journey was longer than I’d anticipated, but it was worth it in the end.

Lessons Learnt:

Quant: I was confident of my Quant abilities before starting out. During the course of preparation, I noticed two major issues:
(i) I would not read the question properly and assume things that were not given in the question.
(ii) I would spend a lot of time on the initial questions. Even if I managed to solve a particular question in 30-40 seconds, I would assume that I’ve missed something important, go through the question again, wasting precious time.
Both these issues were structural. I was able to figure out and rectify them by simply solving quizzes. The e-GMAT tests spooked me. The level of the questions in their tests is comparatively higher than those in the actual GMAT. So I ended up spending more time on Quant than I should have. Otherwise, Quant was smooth sailing.

SC: Sentence correction is something that a lot of Indian aspirants struggle with. I was not familiar with a lot of grammatical rules when I started out. I would simply solve questions by repeating the answer choices in my head and mark the one that sounded right. While this approach may work for easy questions, it does not work for 700+ level questions. Also, if you solve questions this way, you’re never confident of your answer. The e-GMAT course is worth it simply for its SC module alone. Their structured approach helps in ensuring that you’re eliminating answer choices because of deterministic errors, not because they don’t sound right. I relied on the e-GMAT course completely for SC and would recommend it to other aspirants as well.

CR: CR was one of my stronger suites. However, my approach was very unstructured and did not work for some tricky questions. Understanding the role that different parts of an argument play helped in providing structure. I was also able to cut down on time using pre-thinking.

RC: My biggest improvement came in the reading comprehension section, where my score improved from a V35 in the first mock to a V45 in the final test. I feel that cultivating mindfulness is very important for RC. During my initial mocks, I tried to hurry through each passage. I would skip sentences and paragraphs that didn’t register in order to save time. However, this had the opposite effect as I had to inevitably return to those sentences and paragraphs in order to figure out the right answer. For maximum efficiency, you should immerse yourself in each passage that you’re reading and stop worrying about everything else.

IR and AWA: I did not spend a lot of time on these sections. Simply solved the official mocks. I feel that if you’ve prepared well for the other sections, you’ll manage to get a decent score in IR and AWA as well.