"Life is a sine wave" - I had heard this phrase from my physics teacher when I was in school. I lived through it during my GMAT preparation.
I gave the official GMAT mock exam 1 in August and got a
680 (Q47 V36). I started my preparation in late August to take the exam in mid-October. I started practising from the
OG during my after-office hours and gave the 2nd mock. Got a 690(Q48V36), but I had to take breaks in between and didn't realise that might've inflated my score.
Verbal was guesswork at this point, I was never confident about the answer choice. I knew I had concept gaps.
I needed at least Q50 and V40 for my target score. I also needed to be sure of my answers in Verbal. For those reasons, I decided to buy the
eGMAT 2-month course. A friend recommended
eGMAT and Gmatclub and she got a 720. Solid advice.
I gave the
eGMAT mock test and got a
670. My SC was poor, and CR was still trial and error. But I got a personalised plan to start studying.
The plan: 2-3 hours of study after office, with questions from eGMAT, OG and Gmatclub. The SC course in
eGMAT is brilliant, with minimal jargon and a focus on meaning and grammar. The CR section comes with a Pre thinking approach, but more on that later. I followed the plan and saw the next
eGMAT score at
710.
But in the following mock, I got a
670 again. Then
700.
Sine wave much? I believed this score was an aberration and it won't happen. It happened again.
In my first official GMAT exam in October. 680. Q49 V34. I was shocked. 2 months of hard work down the drain.
Was 700 my ceiling? Alexa play 'Way Down We Go".
My mock scores were peaks and valleys but I did not maintain a proper
error log or identified why my V scores are not stable.
Around the same time, I contacted the
eGMAT for the last mile push program for which I could get a mentor and a personalised plan.
Rida was a great mentor throughout, doing the dirty work of figuring out my strengths and weaknesses using the data in the
eGMAT platform. It was all there, I just didn't look for it!
We analysed my ESR and I found out how Murphy's law hits you in the face in real life. "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".
The reason my scores fluctuated was that I did not cover all bases in CR. The assumptions, weakening and boldface questions were my weaknesses. And GMAT killed me in those. My CR accuracy was 25% 
I started again in November. Rida gave me weekly plans and targets to achieve, and follow-up calls to assess my performance. I started maintaining an
error log and reviewed it before any sectional tests or mocks. I did not want the dreaded sine wave scores again, and she helped me solidify my CR to be stable.
Pre-thinking did not work for me, but what worked was identifying the links in CR arguments. And those were the key to any answer. I had to remove the word 'silly mistake' from my vocabulary for Quant, and drilled down to find
another weakness - Word Problems. The month went by fixing my weaknesses, and suddenly it was stable. I got 720 in my official mock 3, and 740 in the 4th one.
I gave my exam on 6th December and got a
730 (Q50 V38). GMAT threw a curveball at me again in Verbal, and I suffered from time management issues, else I am sure I could've gotten a 740. But I am happy and relieved!
Final Thoughts:I would like to thank everyone who helped me in this journey. A special shout-out to Rida &
eGMAT for the prep, chineseburned for a solid AWA format and gmatclub for the wonderful live sessions. Also a huge thank you to the community here which comes up with great shortcuts and techniques.
Key learnings:- Don't give official mocks first. Save them for when you are ready. Give a free mock from any GMAT prep site
- Make mistakes fast, learn from them, and make them your strengths
-
OG is a sacred resource. Treat it like one. Don't solve questions mindlessly.
- Quality over quantity when practising. Work smart.
- Maintain an
error log and review it religiously
- Whatever course you select, tailor it to suit yourself
- Not all techniques taught would work for you. But something would work. Note it and make it repeatable
- If you are giving mock in a test centre, make sure it's near and comfortable to reach. No random variables should affect your score
- If your exam time is 8-12, take mocks at that time during prep. Don't drink water in between the sections and only take 8 min breaks. Replicate the exam atmosphere the closest you can
- Be aggressive on time while solving questions, but be accurate.
- For the day before the exam, chill. Don't study too much. Watch a movie, go for a run. Let your brain breathe.
- Have fun, take it as a game. You can always retake the exam!
Don't believe in ceilings. Shatter them. If you put your mind to it, you can do it.
Yes, the preparation phase might be a sine wave, but if all the valleys come during preparation, you are bound to hit the peak in the exam.
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Have a great one!
Amol
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09 Dec 2022, 13:34
