GMAT 750 with a 48-hour(+) work week! Detailed Debrief

Wow! For a fraction of a moment after the unofficial score flashed on the screen, I was incredulous. "There must be some mistake", said a voice in my head. Then it began to sink in.

First, a bit about my background - I graduated in Engineering in 2011, and immediately started working for an Indian Oil & Gas PSU. I had been completely out of touch with academics ever since. In mid-September of 2021, an e-mail from my company's HR department informed that I was eligible for a company-sponsored MBA program, which got me researching about the GMAT. I ended up taking the GMAT today, i.e. on 27th Feb '22. The following is a summary of my journey over the past 5 months.

PREPARATION

I have a 48-hour work-week, which extends to 56 hours on a couple of occasions every month. The drive to and from my workplace takes a total of around 2.5 hrs daily. With these constraints, I hardly had 2 hours a day, or around 15-16 hours a week to prepare for the GMAT. I knew I needed a substantial length of time to get a satisfactory preparation.

Resources

At the outset, let me declare that I never intended to pay for a GMAT course. Somewhere inside me I had confidence in my abilities to go solo on the prep front. After initial research, I invested in the official study materials: The OG 2022, the Quant Review and the Verbal Review. Around a month into my prep, I happened to find out about GMAT Club. I must pause at this point and shower a million kudos to GMAT Club (take a bow @bb) for the incredible work they do. GMAT Club was my sole study companion for the majority of my prep. There have been countless days when the "Daily Practice Questions" in my GMAT Club inbox were the only questions I practiced for the day. I learnt a lot from the Youtube webinars conducted by GMAT Club - I often used to listen to the webinars while driving to and from office. Besides, the explanations to difficult questions by experts on the forum were invaluable in improving my concepts - big shout out to Bunuel, daagh, GMATNinja, KarishmaB and others for their great work.

I was given complimentary trial access to Magoosh and Experts' Global while signing up to GMAT Club. Thereafter, I received a Math Revolution course as reward for my participation in the "12 Days of Christmas Competition". Among these, I must admit, I found the trial content of Experts' Global particularly useful, while the daily quizzes by Math Revolution were also useful as an additional source of realistic GMAT Quant questions.

In the last month of my prep (I took leave from office for the last two weeks), I realized that I would run out of official questions and bought the official GMAT Advanced Questions set to help me keep up the momentum.

MOCKS

I took 6 Quant Tests and 5 Verbal Tests from the GMAT Club Test Center between 25th Nov'21 and 17th Feb'22. The quant scores ranged from Q42 to Q50 (latest being Q48), while the verbal scores ranged from V32 to V42 (latest being V42). Here again, the GMAT Club Tests offer great practice for the official test. The fact that the tests are free on some days of the year is an added advantage (5 of the 6 Quant tests and 3 of the 5 Verbal tests I took were taken on days when the tests are free, before I managed to get an extended subscription to the tests through my participation in the "12 Days of Christmas Competition").

Official Mocks
I took the first free official mock on 9th Jan'22 and got a 710 (Q50, V36). This was after completing all questions of the OG 2022. I took the second free official mock a week before the actual exam and got a 770 (Q49, V46). Honestly, I was incredulous at this second score. I definitely didn't feel like a 770 and tried not to become too complacent following such a high score.

A couple of days before the exam, I had a free full test available as part of the Experts' Global trial, and, going against conventional wisdom of not taking a mock within the last week before the exam, took the mock. I landed a 720 (Q46, V42), even though I believe I wasn't concentrating fully during the test.

THE ACTUAL EXAM

I spent the last day before the exam re-attempting questions from the OG which I had missed during the initial learning phase. I must warn anyone who wishes to replicate this strategy that this does not work out well for the CR questions, most which I recognized during this repeat attempt. On the morning of the exam, I was slightly worried - I hadn't had too much sleep for the last two nights. The only thing I could attribute this to would be the nerves before the exam. Nevertheless, I tried several strategies to calm myself down and keep disturbing thoughts out of my head.

I took the exam at the following test center: Agile Technologies and Solutions, Kolkata. The overall test center experience was satisfactory, except for one major drawback. The center had given me 4-5 marker pens before the start of the exam, and a couple more during the exam on my request. However, none of the markers worked properly. In addition to a potential issue with markers, I guess a reason for this was the fact that the notepad I was given had clearly been used previously. The previous writing on the pad had apparently been washed or rubbed away, which made the laminated sheets less responsive to the markers. Using the markers became so problematic that I had to attempt the last 6-7 questions of the Verbal section (I opted for the Q,V,IR,AWA order) without using the notepad and markers at all.

When the exam started and I was clicking through the initial screens, the first Quant question popped up before I had expected it to. This could be because of a change in the screen order in the actual exam as compared to the order in the official mocks, or maybe I had not paid close attention to this detail during my official mocks - I don't know. But this startled me a bit. I had to read and re-read the question a couple of times. It was a fairly straightforward question, but I ended up spending more than 6 minutes on answering it. It was the worst imaginable start for me. From there on, I struggled constantly with nerves throughout the Quant section. Indeed, I had to guess a handful of answers after spending around a minute and a half due to the time constraints. Please note, I did not answer randomly in any question. The guesses were considered ones. In none of my official mocks or the last few unofficial mocks did I find myself against the timer. So inside my brain I was already deploring the quality of my performance in the Quant section. After struggling through Quant in this fashion, I took the break to collect myself. I knew a good overall score (I had targeted 700 as a minimum) was still possible. I started the Verbal section strong (my verbal performance in the last few mocks had given me enough confidence). But after the first 15 minutes, my mind began to sway to how much ahead of the timer I was. This, in turn, slowed me down and after 30 minutes, I was running behind the clock. Then came the nightmare with the markers not working. I think the markers cost me at least 2 minutes during the exam. However, here again, I didn't randomly select any answer choice.

Overall, I was really dejected with my performance following the Q and V sections, so much so that I attempted IR with around 80% concentration. I regained focus during the AWA section, however.

Then came the moment of truth! Honestly, before clicking "Next" after typing my AWA essay, I had braced myself for a 680-690. So the actual score was quite a shock, one that I probably haven't recovered from yet, which explains why I am trying to channel my excitement through this loooooong post

In conclusion, I would like to once again offer a million kudos to GMAT Club for their fantastic work, and for being such an inseparable part of my GMAT Journey!
I cannot conclude this post, however, without expressing my gratitude to my family, for their unwavering support during my journey, especially during the final few days of my preparation, when I had practically isolated myself from them.

I would be happy to help any member of the Club with my GMAT experience. I also have the following official books: OG 2022, Verbal Review, Quant Review, and Advanced Questions in fairly well-maintained condition ( I didn't mark the answer choices on the book, so the books are as good as new) for anyone who wishes to get them.

I wish all the Club Members, admins, moderators, prep companies and GMAT aspirants all the very best in their careers. I will continue to be associated with the Club and gain valuable insights. Long live GMAT Club!