GMAT Debrief 780 (Q50, V47, IR7, AWA5.0)

Hi Everyone,

I will share my GMAT journey here because I owe a lot to this forum. This is my first post here as I have been a silent visitor.

Ok so the pandemic hit in early 2020 and I started working from home. In the previous year I had figured that I wanted to do an MBA.
I suddenly had a lot of extra time on my hands as my company was still figuring out how to make work from home functional. It was then that I started my prep for GMAT.

I ordered three books- the official guide, verbal review and quant review. I also took the free GMAT Test 1 and got a 700. This was, as far as I remember, without any preparation so it gave me a lot of confidence.

I continued to solve each and every question on the OG. I was really good at RC and good at PS and CR. I was not that great at DS and SC. I had read enough debriefs at gmatclub to know that I needed Manhattan prep's book on SC. I got it and solved it at least once. Reviewed it at least twice. Meanwhile I practised official questions (700+) on gmatclub for SC.

I was getting good and gaining confidence. At one point, I felt that I would be ready to take the GMAT at a 2 week's notice. However, during that time there was only an online version and I just never felt confident with the whiteboard (I did buy one).

My company shifted back to work from office and it also hit me that an MBA was not practical for me and I lost motivation. I stopped preparing. However, now that I knew what the common errors in SC were, I just made a mental note of observing these errors whenever I was reading anything. That stayed with me.

Fast forward two years to January 2022 and I shifted to another country as an immigrant. Unemployed and highly motivated I registered for the GMAT (gave myself 3 months to prepare). I saw Souvik's video on YouTube where he solves an essay using chineseburned's technique. For some reason, AWA made me anxious. Maybe because I had not practised even one AWA till that time. I took the free GMAT Test 1 again ang got a 740.

I again got busy with applying to jobs etc. One day while visiting an old bookshop I came across Manhattan prep's advanced quant book and bought it. I read the first few chapters with a lot of concentration and I would say I solved around 30-40 questions on that book. However, that book really shaped my new mentality on GMAT which was that you need to be quick to make the decision (you know the proverbial CEO thinking). Don't try to solve elaborately. I also stopped taking long notes to solve questions. In fact I would say I could now solve at least three times more questions on a single piece of scrap paper than I would previously.

Right, so as I said I was unemployed and applying to jobs was my first priority. I got a few interviews and stopped whatever little I was preparing anyways. Moving forward to about 10 days before the exam, I thought it would be best if I could just reschedule. However, when I saw the cost of rescheduling, it made sense for me to just take it now and then retake it later if I had to. Just to give you some context, I was planning to apply to part time programs and a 700 is considered, in my opinion, adequate for such programs. I believed that I could get 700 without any further prep.

One day before the exam, I went to a library and reviewed chineseburned's AWA tips (again I knew about this because of gmatclub). I accessed my GMAC account and there are some free questions available there, I solved around 40-45 of them. I figured that a well rested mind would serve me much better than any last minute prep (this is critical in my opinion). I stopped preparing and slept early.

For test day, I got there 5 mins before my appointment. Checked in. Selected 1 part-time program and 4 one-year programs as the schools I wanted my scores to be sent to.

My order was this 1) Verbal (wanted to be fresh for this) 2) Quant and then 3) IR and 4) AWA.

During the exam I spent a lot more time on the first questions than I did at questions at the end. I also noticed that the last RC passage was so difficult that I barely understood what it was talking about. Really, I have never read a RC passage as difficult as that. This made me happy because I knew getting difficult questions in the exam was a good sign. I spent less than a minute on SC questions on average, looking for the basic errors and it seemed easy to me at that time.

I think what helped me was that I wasn't stressed during the exam. It just felt like a meh effort to me. I thought that I was doing it just to get done with it.

Then came quant, and again PS felt quite easy and DS confusing as ever. Are both statements enough? Is one enough? You know the usual DS dilemmas. I have solid mental maths so that helped. I remained confident and methodical, never spending too much time on any single question. I was getting some questions on probability. Again, having read enough debriefs, I knew that was a good sign.

Nothing much to say about IR (felt comfortable) and AWA (I wrote less than 450 words, one should write at least 500).

Finished the exam, and the next thing I see on the screen is 780. OMG what? 780? what? I barely had the mental availability at that time to accept my score (later I doubted if I even accepted). In those moments I really didn't know what to feel. I thought I had had a 730-740 exam but 780 was beyond my wildest imagination. I had never really considered myself capable of that and that too with this half-hearted attempt. It was surreal.

I called my wife and then my dad. I had to explain to them why I was so happy.

So for those who have come this far reading my debrief and for those who have just skipped to the end, how did this happen? Well, to get such a score, a lot of things have to go right for you during prep and on your test day. Luck (I call it predestination) has to play its role as well.

What went right for me and/or my strengths that helped me in GMAT:
1) I went in with a relaxed and fresh state of mind. Didn't feel like my life depended on the exam.
2) Didn't spend too much time on a single question
3) Was quick to eliminate choices
4) Selected the format that worked for me Verbal, Quant, IR and AWA
5) I have strong mental maths skills and can do calculations very quickly
6) My SC skills especially had become organic. I wasn't really looking for subject verb agreement or modifiers etc but just backing myself up and going with gut feeling. (Also the longest answer choice is almost always wrong)
7) I put in at least 120 hours of prep in total
8) Studied from official questions plus Manhattan SC and Manhattan Advanced Quant and chineseburned for AWA (I definitely could have done better on AWA with some practice).

If could summarize my preparation into a single tip it would be that it comes down to your mindset. Be quick to make decisions during the exam. Eliminate quickly. 15 seconds into the question you should be looking at 2 choices or a maximum of 3 choices. Take it from there.

I think many people would not be able to relate to this post. However, those readers who have always been good test takers (I have been one), would find this long debrief fairly useful.

If there are any questions, I would be happy to answer.

Thanks BB for starting this forum. Souvik, GMATninja, chineseburned and others for your contributions. Cheers.