GMAT online Debrief - 740 (Q49, V42)

Hi Everyone,

I wrote my GMAT on the 24th of July, i.e. last Friday and received my score early morning today. Gmatclub has been extremely helpful to me and I hope this debrief will help some of you.

Background: I am an engineer(from India) with 3 years of work experience. This was my first attempt at GMAT, though I had been thinking about it for quite some time.

Materials Used: Verbal: OG, Manhattan books; Quant: OG, Gmat club Math book; (I felt comfortable with most concepts, just needed something to brush up); CATs: Veritas CATs and GMATprep

The biggest obstacles for me were dealing with my test anxiety and making time for prep along with my office. I suffer from extreme test anxiety and have literal panic attacks during such exams.
I started my prep about 3 months ago and decided to make a plan.
After reading a lot of blogs on e-gmathttps://e-gmat.com/ and here on gmatclub, I decided to

1. Finish the OG and give a mock test
2. Depending on the result identify weaknesses and allocate time for verbal and quant
3. Finish the theory in 2 months, give another mock test
4. Focus on dealing with test anxiety and identify the best test-taking strategies.

According to the plan, I finished OG and gave my first mock test, scored a 680(Official). I was weaker in verbal than in quant, so I dedicated 70% time to verbal and the rest to quant. I did not have a lot of trouble understanding the material, manhattan books are pure gold!! Finished the theory and the next mock test I gave resulted in a 710(Official). I was happy with the progress but knew I could do better. 2.5 months had passed and I decided to book a date. The next few weeks were extremely hectic for me.

After analyzing my performance, I realized 2 things, 1. I wasn't very comfortable with my answers in SC and ended up choosing the wrong ones( and wasting a lot of time) if stuck between two options and 2. I was not managing my time properly. This meant I needed to work on my test-taking strategy. So I researched about the same, found some really nice blogs on Kaplan and e-gmat, and decided that I had to write down my strategy on my whiteboard so I can keep a check on time without panicking. This really helped me a lot. About being confused, I followed the eliminate the splits strategy suggested by e-gmat for SC. This raised my score to 750s and above in mocks.

To deal with anxiety and time management I did the following:
Anxiety: while making my timing strategy I decided to give myself 1.5-minute breaks after 10 questions to calm myself down, I took deep breaths and hummed a light tune in my head.
Time management: I made a time-table for myself, restricting my office work to 7 in the evening, a two hour break post that (which included dinner), and followed by 2-3 hours of studying. (I read this prioritizing strategy in the very famous book Eat that frog and it worked for me). On the weekends I had more freedom to study for 5-6 hours but my work sometimes required me to work on the weekends so that was that!

I got a whopping 780 on the final official mock I gave two days before the exam and was very confident for test day. A day before the exam I binge-watched Netflix and got a good night's sleep.

Test-Day: I was extremely nervous about the test, my appointment was at 3:15 PM, I logged into the system at 2:45. The check-in process was smooth and the test started right on time. I did not have issues navigating through quant and finished the section 10 minutes early. I relaxed for 8 minutes before the next section and began verbal. That's when everything went haywire, I started panicking a lot and was behind time. I murmured questions and the proctor came in to tell me not to do that, it increased my anxiety even more. I somehow managed to finish all questions but was mentally drained. I took my 5-minute break, stretched my legs a bit, and came back for IR which went smoothly.

The results came in 3 days later and though I did not jump on the score as it did not match my mock tests', I was satisfied because this will help me get into my target schools.

Some tips for GMAT online:
1. NEVER leave the camera without informing the proctor.
2. USE your optional break, it helps
3. ALWAYS practice your mock tests just as you would give your real one, especially if you get anxious ( I lacked here and that resulted in anxiety on test day)
4. ALWAYS run a system test one day before appearing

My purpose of writing this debrief is to talk about test anxiety and time management and how everyone can fight through these challenges.

Special thanks to egmat , abhimahna, GMATNinja , chetan2u , mikemcgarry , ScottTargetTestPrep and Bunuel , all of you made my life simpler.

All the very best to everyone!!