I took my GMAT on the 22nd July this year and scored a 760 (Q50, V41)! A multitude of interesting debriefs helped me throughout my preparation and I hope mine can help a few aspirants as well
My first attempt was in August 2016 and I ended up scoring a disastrous 620! I was in the final year of my graduation and that score hit me so hard that I completely gave up on GMAT! Here I would really like to say that a lot of people in India go to local GMAT institutes which do not offer quality study material at all! One should ONLY refer to study content from trusted GMAT resources!
So in MAY 2017, I decided to take the GMAT again! This time I wanted to make it a point to prepare with the RIGHT resources (especially for verbal)! I immediately enrolled in
e-GMAT's Master Comprehension Course! Along with a course I also got the
GMAT Club Tests for free! Now since I had to join my office in less than 2 months, I knew I had little time to prepare! I also didn't want to stretch my preparation over a very long period as that always brings down my efficiency and makes me more lethargic and careless! So I started my full fledged prep on June 1, 2017!
Verbal Prep1)
SC- Now this section can be the most tricky but also the most scoring. For most non-natives, this is a particularly difficult section to crack! However, this wasn't the case with me. My SC was pretty natural (thanks to my schooling in a convent
) and I was always comfortable with even the most complex sentences. However, what I didn't realise was that THERE IS NO REPLACEMENT FOR A GOOD STRATEGY! A good strategy to read and understand the most complex and tricky sentences is a must to beat the GMAT SC.
e-GMAT gave me exactly that. I started my prep with
e-GMAT's SC course which is probably all that any non-native needs. Its concept files and strategies are crystal clear, easy to understand and apply and come in handy throughout your preparation. The method used by
e-GMAT to target each topic and sub topic in Sentence Correction is unmatched and really helped me to increase by verbal score by at least 5-6 points.
2)
CR- This was my weakest area! It used to be extremely hard for me to comprehend some really long arguments and I always ended up being confused between 2-3 answer choices. But I made it a point to practice at least 30 CR problems every day for about 50 days! I made it a point to spend a significant amount of time on CR every single day! I also read the answer explanations to each and every question that I attempted (correctly or incorrectly). In my opinion, this really really opens up your mind. GMAT CR requires you to analyse information very precisely. Sometimes it tests you on really small things like the implication of 'Some', 'Atleast', 'Most' etc. I can't stress enough on the importance of these words and their application. However, what worked for me the most in GMAT CR was PRE-THINKING APPROACH! This approach is MAGICAL. Initially I felt that I was taking too much time in solving some problems but gradually, my accuracy really really shot up! CR is now my favourite section on the GMAT
3)
RC- My performance in this section was pretty variable. I was comfortable with passages on Business & Economics but dreaded passages on Physical Sciences. So again I made it a point to solve 2-3 passages everyday and analyse them well! Practice can do wonders and this is something I've learnt with this attempt!
Quant PrepI really enjoyed Gmat Quant! I brushed up my basics and went through all the important formulae and concepts in the first week of June. Thereafter, I started taking the GMAT Club Quant Cats. Now these tests are particularly hard! I started off with a 44 but made it a point to attempt one test on every alternate day and analyse it properly. I solved all the incorrect questions in a separate notebook which later turned out to be really useful for me! Taking a test on every alternate day really helped me to improve my accuracy and speed! Towards the end, I scored a 50 in 7-8 tests and a 49 in 3-4 tests. These scores really boosted my confidence as I knew that the real GMAT has questions of a much lower difficulty level! Gmat quant can be tricky if you don't know your basics well. Make sure to work on your weak areas from time to time and solve as many questions as possible!
Resources1)
E-GMAT SCHOLARANIUM- this is highly recommended for someone looking at a score of V40 or above in verbal. Their answer explanations and analysis are pure gold! They have about 700 questions in their scholaranium and I made tests of 41 questions each and solved one everyday. This really helped me to increase my accuracy and efficiency as their quality of questions is mind blowing and also very close to that of official questions.
2)
Gmat Club Tests- As I mentioned above, this is a really helpful tool (especially for quant)! The questions are on a harder side but prepare you well for the D-day!
3)
Official Guide and Verbal Review- These are a MUST! DO NOT make the mistake of assuming that the questions in these books are easy. If they are easy, you should get them ALL right!
4) Official GMAT Question Pack- this is also highly recommended. You can make verbal and quant tests using this tool. The difficulty level of these questions is EXACTLY the same as that of the questions in the actual exam. Attempt and analyse each question in this pack properly and patiently. It'll do wonders for you!
TestsThe GMAT prep tests are surely the best indicator of your actual performance. I also bought Veritas Prep's 6 CATS. However, these were not very impressive as the difficulty level is too high and I always ended up scoring really low (especially in verbal). Another test series that I bought was that of
Experts Global. They give you 15 mock tests only for Rs. 2000. The interface of the exam is exactly like that of Official Gmat. The questions are very close to official questions however, a lot of their answers are way too ambiguous.
Here are some of my scores:
Veritas Prep 1- 670 (Q49, V35)
Veritas Prep 2- 710 (Q50, V36)
Experts Global 1- 700 (Q49, V37)
Experts Global 2- 730 (Q50, V39)
Gmat Prep 1- 720 (Q49, V39)
Gmat Prep 2- 770 (Q49, V46)
Gmat Prep 3- 760 (Q49, V44)
Gmat Prep 4- 740 (Q50, V39)
Gmat Prep 5- 750 (Q50, V40)
Gmat Prep 6- 760 (Q49, V44)
On the day of the exam, just be relaxed and focus on your performance! I honestly didn't expect to get a 760! After my verbal and quant were over, I kept thinking about my score during the IR and AWA sections. I expected around a 730-740! However as the score flashed on my screen, I was elated :D
Happy Studying to everyone! Hope this debrief helps you
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25 Jul 2017, 05:21
