Hello Folks I am not a newbie to gmat club though this has been my first post ; I am more of a sidelines kinda guy . so anyway , my gmat experience I hope will help others in what not to do before an exam . Where do I begin ?
The first time I gave a gmat sample exam( gmat prep ) , my score was a 670 ( 50 quant 30+ something verbal ) . I had 7 questions wrong in the quant section and 18 in the verbal . I am an engineer so quant wasnt so daunting to me , but the verbal was a nightmare , especially SC . I was more interested in the MIM courses that are primarily available and respected in Europe and the average gmat scores for these were 710 for the top ranking courses . That meant I had to aim for a 750 because my gpa is kinda sad (6.28/10 ) . I had thyroid issues in college that werent diagonized at the right time , and which gave me some brain fog memory issues which badly affected my grades .
So I had 30days for the GMAT . And my daignostic told me that My quant wasnt a problem and if i improved my verbal score to a 39-42 , I was looking at a 740+ score . And hence my journey began . I bought the
mgmat SC and cr guides . I do not need to re iterate the
Mgmat SCs effectiveness . There arent too many Gmat style questions but the fundamentals are pretty well adressed . So I was making pretty decent progress in my Scs-my major weakness . My CRs were surprisingly goood . And I rarely went wrong if at all . The
mgmat Cr arent really representative of the gmat level questions . Besides I wasnt getting too many Crs wrong from the
OG anyway ,so i wasnt worried .
I did all 6
mgmat cat tests .I know a lot of people swear by
mgmat CATS but I found them of really abmysal quality ( the quant especially ) . I can only Imagine how other cats are if they are rated below mgmats. My quant was always between 47-49 on the
mgmat cats but i found them ridiculously lengthy . I had 7 minutes to spare on my gmat prep quant and here i was huffing and puffing to even complete it here without guessing. break down of
mgmat tests
1 690 q46 v 38
2 710 q 45 v 41
3 690 q 49 v 37
4 710 q 45 v44 ( i got a frigging 99 percentile in verbal )
5 690 q 48 v 38
6 730 q 48 v 41
there ware wild variations across my scores ( i mean between quant and verbal ,not the overall scores ) and the the exams werent elegant at all . Verbal ( RC passages especially were really bad ) is too easy and vague and quant too lenthy /
Also I gave a veritas prep in which i got a 710
GMAT PREP 2.1(700) : Anyway ,About a 2 weeks into my prep ,I gave a second attempt at gmat preptest 1 . My score was a 700 ( i delibretely got the repeat questions wrong to improve accuracy , so i guess that kinda deflated my score) my quant performance was slightly worse this time with 8 questions wrong and my verbal had 13 wrong)
so now i was in panic mode .. 700 was not gonna cut it for me .. I did a revision of of the Sc from manhattans .. I really recommend this to anyone who is starting of verbal ,manhattan Sc is the best there is .. , for math , all i did was refer the gmat club math book . Its enough i guess , gave all the formulas and strategies in a concise and clean manner . so yes ,
GMAT PREP 2(770) . week3 . After panic mode during week 2 , I was pretty driven and pumped on adrenaline . drank a redbull and I gave my GMAT PREP 2 . I got a 770 . I was shocked ,and delighted . I had a 51q and 42v . 6 questions wrong in the quant section and 9 wrong in the verbal , I was a huge confidence booster . I knew I shouldn be doing any new study during the last week and I didn . I basically went through my wrong questions from all the tests and OGs .
The last day before exam : Ok this is a lesson to anyone on what not to do before D day . I tried to sleep by 11 pm . My exam was at 1 pm april 4th . I was super anxious and pumped and still couldnt get to sleep even at 5 am . So I pop a sleeping pill which i had never tried in my life . Puke all over the floor as it didn sit well with my body apparently . ANd i am just lying in bed . its 10 am and still hadnt had any sleep . I seriously contemplated not writing the exam , but I had no choice , MIM course deadlines were april 22 . I was screwed . So I go to the exam centre , do the formalities and get on with the exam .
IR - went pretty well , though rushed in the end
QUANT : I was high on caffein from the red bull and groggy from the half ingested sleeping pill , which gave me a devil may care attittude . I felt the exam was ridiculously easy , which meant i had got too many questions wrong and the CAt was throwing me easy ones . Finally a probablity question , things were looking up . By the time i finished , i had 15 minutes left on the screen . I really had no idea what to make of my performance .
BREAK : another redbull and some oats
VERBAL : ok the second redbull really cleared my head . But I still had to read every question twice just to understand what is was( groggy head) , I found it pretty challenging , A coupla Scs i didn know and i had to guess on two CRs , so I knew I was atleast doing reasonably better then quant cuz the cat was throwing me tougher questions , I am done with 20 seconds left on the clock
i click next , my hearts hammering , i can actually feel goosebumps . this was it . gmat gave me an option of cancelling my scores . I really wanted to , but deadlines meant I could only apply after 6 months if i cancelled my gmat score , so what the hell ,
I get 690 . 46 quant(67%ile) , and 38(88%ile) verbal . My worst quant performanace ever ( gmat prep scores) . I wanted to put a fist through the computer monitor . All my Dreams at a good MIM shattered .. I am super pissed ,
SO WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOW ? : heres what i am gonna do , I have booked another exam a month from now ( the stupid 31 day rule gmac people have ) and I am gonna kick gmats A** is what I am gonna do . I dont care if i have missed the deadline , I am acing the this test just for the heck of it and because i can . I ll apply 6 months later again for MIM . The best things in life are worth waiting for . I am not accepting this score cuz i know i can do much better then this . IN the meanwhile , EDHECS deadline is june 30th and their Msc in finance is pretty well respected And see if my gmats gonna get me in . Iam gonna eat , pray and sleep till then ..
May 5 , we meet again gmat .. And you better be ready
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