GMAT Debrief 580 to 690

Hi all,

I took the GMAT recently and I scored a 690 (Q48 V37). I know its not a terrific score, but its really good compared to my previous attempt, especially my verbal score.

First of all, thank you e-GMAT ! Your materials are the best bar none.

To begin with, I was confident about the quantitative section of the GMAT. Being an engineer, I thought I had some quantitative advantage. I was not completely wrong but I realized that approaching questions in a timed manner needed a lot of practice and only a sound understanding of mathematics was not enough. Specially, the Data Sufficiency part needed careful attention to details.

I am a non-native English speaker. So naturally, GMAT verbal turned out to be hard for me. My poor performance in the verbal section always demotivated me from taking the actual exam. I wish to shar my experience on how i overcame this weakness. If someone of my caliber can do it, then everyone else can too.

It has been around 2.5 years since i first began thinking about taking the GMAT. Over the past years, I invested in multiple online GMAT courses and also attended a classroom training. None of them helped me improve verbal my score beyond the 31-33 range. The so called "Trick's" they taught, worked only on the questions they discussed in their courses and was almost useless when applied to actual GMAT questions from the Official Guide. I always got stuck with SC and CR and lost a lot of time on RC passages. It seemed impossible for me to improve my Verbal. So I kept postponing my GMAT forever.

Finally, with whatever preparation I thought I had, I finally took the actual GMAT on Feb 6th, 2015. I wasn't surprised by the score – 580 (Q48 V22)

I had subscribed to e-GMAT’s verbal online program much before taking my GMAT, but I made a bad decision by not giving it due importance. During my first attempt, e-GMAT's methods seemed to be quite time consuming. I struggled applying their methods during timed practice exams. So i quickly gave up e-GMAT assuming it might not be useful.

I must admit that it was the worst decision I took with regard to my GMAT preparation. Looking back, I now realize I would never have ended up with a V22, had I used e-GMAT during my preparations. So this time, I didn't refer any other materials other than e-GMAT and the official guides. Their course perfectly covers all areas of the GMAT verbal, from absolute basics to the advanced concepts, from relatively easily questions to tough ones that will crack your skulls.

From the first day of using e-GMAT itself, I could make out the difference in the way I analyzed questions. e-GMAT’s pre-thinking in CR and their structured approach to SC really helped me improve in those areas. My accuracy in CR improved from 25-30% to 75% in less than 10 days. Pre-thinking really helped me have a better grip on the question even before I read the answer choices. Though it was time consuming in the beginning, with practice, I was able to answer CR questions accurately in much less time.

In SC too, e-GMAT’s step by step method to identify errors in a sentence really helped me improve my accuracy. Following the procedure in their exact same way helped me identify and eliminate wrong answer choices quickly. I was almost able to answer every SC question in less than 75 seconds. e-GMAT workshops provide wonderful materials.


Practice test:
There are quite a lot of practice tests available out there. I am suggesting the one that i found useful, the most. Its Veritas Prep. I've tried Manhattan, Kaplan and a few others as well. Veritas Prep practice replicated the exact experience i had when i took my actual GMAT exam. Their questions are easy compared to Mgmat, but tricky at the same time. They can cause the same kind of panic you may face during the actual test. Manhattan tests on the other hand, are unnecessarily tough. It would often end up making the test taker disappointed and demotivated.

To sum it up, e-GMAT gave me all the resources to address all my weakness and to master SC, CR and RC. Anyone can conquer the GMAT provided they follow e-GMAT's methods. Its very structured, elegant and most importantly, they work on all questions, irrespective of the difficulty level. Given some time and effort, we can apply them to arrive at the right answers in a very short time.. Also, do take a lot of practice tests in between.

Once again I thank e-GMAT for the wonderful program. I would recommend every GMAT aspirant to take their trial and see for yourself how useful it can be, especially for those who find CR and SC hard and those who wish to take the GMAT with less time to prepare.

Good Luck Everyone..