GMAT Debrief--
710 - Q- 50,V- 36, IR -5 (August 24 , 2018)
Around 70 days before the test date i decided to get serious about the exam , went through the Crackverbal,
E-GMAT and
Target test prep books and videos.
Scores during practice
GMATCLUB Quant exams - 49-50
TTP Practice exams -90% Accuracy
E-GMAT Verbal Scholarnium -60-70%
With around 40 days left for the exam i decided to start practice cats i bought manhattan,veritas and official gmat
i started giving these exams on july 19th almost 1 month prior to the scheduled date
VERITAS - 700,680,680,690,710,690
MGMAT - 680,680,620,670,600(this test was a bit too hard for some reason)
GMAT Official - 660,700,680,700,710,710
-(My last 2 gmatprep exams were exactly the same as my score on the test)
The reason i was confident about the actual exam was because i am one of those people who just cant get 100% serious for mock cats as i would for the real one
Sometimes if the question was irritating enough id eliminate and move on which i probably wont do on the real exam.
So if you are one of those people who gives practice cats as seriously as u would the real one,first of all "WOW" and second they would probably indicate ur actual gmat score pretty well in that case.
On exam day --
I did not get proper sleep on the night before, but i had enough sleep to work with (7 hours)
But the worst happened in the first half.I panicked mid verbal section, i thought one of the SC question was a bit too easy and i was convinced that i was bombing the test for sure.
I was almost about to give up thinking i would have to go for another attempt anyway but somehow i convinced myself that its one of those experimental ones but still by the end of the section i was not convinced. At the end of it i was sure that i bombed the verbal section
V-36
I think the verbal fiasco had an effect on my quant score too which i will say could have gone much better...on a good day im sure i would have aced the exam with a 31/31 but today was not that day i had doubts about at least 4 questions thanks to the panic effect from the previous verbal section.
Q -50
At this point i had lost hope and this went on with my IR section too
IR -5 (I always scored 6-7 on the practice tests)
By the time i was at the AWA section i just wanted to type "OK" in the prompt and click "end exam" to check my failed score.
And then it flashed "710" i did not know whether i should be sad for not being able to give my best or happy that after such a disaster of a performance i somehow reached my practice cat average bare minimum.
Mistakes i did during prep and during exam which i think others should avoid
1) Spend more time on theory - Do NOT DO THIS
i did not understand this earlier
i wish i had understood this earlier and cut into the theory time
2) TIMING was the devil - Even till and on the exam day i still struggled with completing the exam on time (i guessed in between of course)
i struggled with timing on all the practice cats too , especially verbal i never could really understand how to plan the whole section
Please work on your skill level as well as timing , i only did the first half but timing is as important as skill level which i realised very late into my prep schedule.
By the end of Exam pack 2 this was my strategy for verbal
35 min for first 18 questions
15 mins for the next 9 and rushing any leftovers from first 18
15 mins for the last 9 ..no leftovers by this point
My reasoning was that i did not want any straight mistakes in the first 10 or last 10 which would could really hurt the score or avoid running ( god forbid) out of time (never let this happen).
I did not really need any strategy for quant but if anything i am a bit careless and messy person and i am very prone to silly mistakes
So i just wanted to avoid errors due to misinterpreting the question stem,forgetting cases and making assumptions.
3) NOT COMPLETING
OG - Complete the
OG ,
OG Q and
OG V
Although i did the questions , i did not complete all of the questions which i think might have played a role in the fact that i could not score
higher.
i guess there were logic gaps between my thinking and gmat way of thinking which could have been bridged by completing these books.
4) I did not touch any of the famous holy grails of each section such as Powerscore CR Bible or
MGMAT SC or RC99 which maybe i should have.
Test prep courses review--
1) If you live in Bangalore and are looking for a Classroom cSCourse ,join Crackverbal without a doubt.
2) If you are someone who struggles with Quant id say
TTP will help u to get to those 45-46 scores pretty comfortably - really good course.
3) And if you are a non native who struggles with SC -
EGMAT is really good.
That is all i have to say, Thanks for bearing with me.
A quick snapshot of my profile
UG -BTech - IIT Kharagpur - 6.34/10
22 months as an Associate Consultant at Capgemini Analytics Business Unit.
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Updated on: 25 Aug 2018, 05:46
