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13 Jul 2020, 10:56
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Yes you read it right. IR1. I mean does someone even scores that low? Anyway, I gave my GMAT Online in the month of June. June 18 to be precise. This is when they allowed use of physical whiteboard which was like a life saver announcement for me. Since GMAT test centers were closing down in my city, GMAT Online (with physical whiteboard) was one of the best news for me in 2020.
Preparation-
I began my preparation in March 2020. I started with a free official mock on MBA.com and scored 530 (Q39, V25). I realized how Quant was fairly simple to handle given that most of the question I got wrong were because I learned those topics back in school 5-7 years back and simply had no memory of the concepts. Verbal was something that I simply had no idea about. I guess this was because of my non native background and lack of reading habit.
Quant
I started doing my research and used Manhattan Guides to revise concepts. Manhattan Guides are simply amazing. They made me revise basics of quant in a fairly quick amount of time and I was able to attempt most questions of medium level. Then there were topics of which I even didn't remember the basics of. I attended various free webinars to revise this concept but still didn't have to confidence. I didn't want to invest too much money into my prep and I stumbled across this quant course named Wizako. The course was brilliant with some great practice material. I used to watch the concept videos at 2x speed to save some time. They even have uploaded many free videos on youtube if someone wants to try it out. After one of prep I was fairly confident about my quant, scoring around Q47-49 in mocks. In weeks before exams, I attempted GMATCLUB Quant tests. They are simply amazing and a must have if you are looking for practice of difficult questions with great analysis and answer explanations. PS Don't attempt GC tests as diagnostic. They are quite difficult.
Verbal
For verbal I did quite some research and found most of the people suggesting to start with SC, followed by CR and RC. I didn't want to compromise on Verbal prep and purchased Egmat course. The course is good for non native speakers, explaining everything from scratch which really helps in building the foundations. I started studying SC. I think I made a mistake of rushing into the concept files and didn't really let new information settle in my mind. I also skipped making notes which made things kinda worse. After being done with SC and scoring around 70-75% in medium level questions in scholaranium, I started preparing for CR using EGMAT. Now my own biases didn't really let me rely on the process of prethinking. But when I was not getting the accuracy, I repeated the entire CR module again, read few pages of Powerscore CR Bible and again attempted the questions. I was getting 80-90% accuracy easily on medium level questions and 60% accuracy in hard level questions from OG. RC didn't really make much difference to me. For medium level questions I was easily scoring 80-85%, for hard ones I was scoring 60%.
Mocks
I gave free official mocks couple of times but with long gaps in between (at least 20-25 days) to make sure I was not answering out of memory. I also wrote official mocks 3 and 4 week or two before the actual exam. Also gave free mocks of Manhattan and Veritas. Scores are as follows-
Official Mock 1- 750 (Q50, V41) Highly inflated score
Official Mock 2- 700 (Q49, V35) Fair attempt
Official Mock 3- 680 (Q47, V35) Made some really stupid mistakes in quant. Got too anxious
Official Mock 4- 670 (Q47, V34) I was really nervous for this one. Didn't sleep properly the night before.
Manhattan Mock- 690
Veritas Mock-690
Test Day
I scheduled my test in the evening around 6. Didn't study the day before. Overall I was not really anxious on the test day. The check-in process was smooth. I started with quant section and found it quite simple. I even thought that I have made probably too many mistakes in the easy questions and that is why I am not getting any difficult questions. Fast forward Quant section ended and there was no break for verbal section. Now I was kind of tired already from the quant section and the RC passages demanded way too much of mental energy. After two passages, I was not really able to comprehend any information in third and fourth one. SC was fine but I wasn't confident about my answers. CR was fine and I was confident about my answer choices. Now in the end of verbal section, I was asked to show my physical whiteboard which proctor didn't seem to understand. She typed in why i was showing the whiteboard and I had to explain that to her. Explaining her that took time from my optional break.
Now the five minute optional break is way too short in my opinion. I was tired, was in no shape to comprehend any information. I spent way too much time on first two questions. In short, IR was a lost battle to me. There was no chance I could ace it and I guessed 3-4 questions to complete the section on time.
I received my scores in three working days. Woke up to a 650 and I was disappointed. I wanted a minimum of 690 for the schools I had in mind. I'm preparing for a reattempt now which I am not sure if it'll happen anytime soon keeping in mind there is no retake on Online GMAT and covid has made it tough to got to a test center. Anyway hoping for some positive news soon so that I can start applying for R1 applications.
Preparation-
I began my preparation in March 2020. I started with a free official mock on MBA.com and scored 530 (Q39, V25). I realized how Quant was fairly simple to handle given that most of the question I got wrong were because I learned those topics back in school 5-7 years back and simply had no memory of the concepts. Verbal was something that I simply had no idea about. I guess this was because of my non native background and lack of reading habit.
Quant
I started doing my research and used Manhattan Guides to revise concepts. Manhattan Guides are simply amazing. They made me revise basics of quant in a fairly quick amount of time and I was able to attempt most questions of medium level. Then there were topics of which I even didn't remember the basics of. I attended various free webinars to revise this concept but still didn't have to confidence. I didn't want to invest too much money into my prep and I stumbled across this quant course named Wizako. The course was brilliant with some great practice material. I used to watch the concept videos at 2x speed to save some time. They even have uploaded many free videos on youtube if someone wants to try it out. After one of prep I was fairly confident about my quant, scoring around Q47-49 in mocks. In weeks before exams, I attempted GMATCLUB Quant tests. They are simply amazing and a must have if you are looking for practice of difficult questions with great analysis and answer explanations. PS Don't attempt GC tests as diagnostic. They are quite difficult.
Verbal
For verbal I did quite some research and found most of the people suggesting to start with SC, followed by CR and RC. I didn't want to compromise on Verbal prep and purchased Egmat course. The course is good for non native speakers, explaining everything from scratch which really helps in building the foundations. I started studying SC. I think I made a mistake of rushing into the concept files and didn't really let new information settle in my mind. I also skipped making notes which made things kinda worse. After being done with SC and scoring around 70-75% in medium level questions in scholaranium, I started preparing for CR using EGMAT. Now my own biases didn't really let me rely on the process of prethinking. But when I was not getting the accuracy, I repeated the entire CR module again, read few pages of Powerscore CR Bible and again attempted the questions. I was getting 80-90% accuracy easily on medium level questions and 60% accuracy in hard level questions from OG. RC didn't really make much difference to me. For medium level questions I was easily scoring 80-85%, for hard ones I was scoring 60%.
Mocks
I gave free official mocks couple of times but with long gaps in between (at least 20-25 days) to make sure I was not answering out of memory. I also wrote official mocks 3 and 4 week or two before the actual exam. Also gave free mocks of Manhattan and Veritas. Scores are as follows-
Official Mock 1- 750 (Q50, V41) Highly inflated score
Official Mock 2- 700 (Q49, V35) Fair attempt
Official Mock 3- 680 (Q47, V35) Made some really stupid mistakes in quant. Got too anxious
Official Mock 4- 670 (Q47, V34) I was really nervous for this one. Didn't sleep properly the night before.
Manhattan Mock- 690
Veritas Mock-690
Test Day
I scheduled my test in the evening around 6. Didn't study the day before. Overall I was not really anxious on the test day. The check-in process was smooth. I started with quant section and found it quite simple. I even thought that I have made probably too many mistakes in the easy questions and that is why I am not getting any difficult questions. Fast forward Quant section ended and there was no break for verbal section. Now I was kind of tired already from the quant section and the RC passages demanded way too much of mental energy. After two passages, I was not really able to comprehend any information in third and fourth one. SC was fine but I wasn't confident about my answers. CR was fine and I was confident about my answer choices. Now in the end of verbal section, I was asked to show my physical whiteboard which proctor didn't seem to understand. She typed in why i was showing the whiteboard and I had to explain that to her. Explaining her that took time from my optional break.
Now the five minute optional break is way too short in my opinion. I was tired, was in no shape to comprehend any information. I spent way too much time on first two questions. In short, IR was a lost battle to me. There was no chance I could ace it and I guessed 3-4 questions to complete the section on time.
I received my scores in three working days. Woke up to a 650 and I was disappointed. I wanted a minimum of 690 for the schools I had in mind. I'm preparing for a reattempt now which I am not sure if it'll happen anytime soon keeping in mind there is no retake on Online GMAT and covid has made it tough to got to a test center. Anyway hoping for some positive news soon so that I can start applying for R1 applications.
16 Jul 2020, 00:12
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi. Sorry about IR1.... IR does not matter but 1 may be a bit of a concern.... you can probably 2 with guessing 
(sorry - i don't mean any offense, just feel your pain)
650 is a good mid-tier score but I think you can improve your Verbal based on your writing quality. I would suggest not abandoning quant in your prep and still doing 10-20% of your prep in quant.
As to verbal, you need to look for making 10% or fewer mistakes in a mix of 10 questions where easy, med, and hard are equally distributed, so in other words, all Easy and Medium would be right and only one hard question would be missed. That's closer to V40 level in my very rudimentary methodology that I used to judge my performance.
(sorry - i don't mean any offense, just feel your pain)650 is a good mid-tier score but I think you can improve your Verbal based on your writing quality. I would suggest not abandoning quant in your prep and still doing 10-20% of your prep in quant.
As to verbal, you need to look for making 10% or fewer mistakes in a mix of 10 questions where easy, med, and hard are equally distributed, so in other words, all Easy and Medium would be right and only one hard question would be missed. That's closer to V40 level in my very rudimentary methodology that I used to judge my performance.
16 Jul 2020, 02:01
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Bookmarks
bb
Thank you so much for reply Bb. I have started preparing. Currently working on SC fundamentals. I guess there were some topics of which I did not have the correct knowledge. I have also started reading practices with your recommendation in the post- https://gmatclub.com/forum/books-to-rea ... ml#p572735
For quant I am still practicing questions posted on the GMATCLUB forum. Hoping to improve my score by one more point if possible.
Although not sure how I will give the exam since retaking Online GMAT is still not an option. I hope next time I'll write a new debrief of 700 plus score and definitely a better IR
