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Hi folks,
This is my first post here on gmatclub and am very elated writing this piece for all the aspirants out there. I gave my GMAT on 8th August, 21(yesterday) and scored a 730 in my 1st attempt.
I have bucketed this post into 3 parts (feel free to jump to any part that maybe the most useful to you).
1. GMAT Score
2. Prep Resources I used
3. D-DAY experience
My only motive is to motivate my peer test takers to not give up. If I can get a decent score, then anybody can.
Let me walk you guys through the journey, which I am sure that you will find hard to believe.
1. GMAT Score -
Overall - 730 (96 percentile)
Quant - 49
Verbal - 41
IR - 4 (Yes, I know I screwed this up)
2. Prep Resources I used -
First of all let me clarify that, an year ago, taking the GMAT and applying to b-schools abroad wasn't even on my mind. It was only after my unsuccessful tryst with CAT (Indian b-school entrance exam) that I decided to pursue this option of taking the GMAT seriously. I already knew the GMAT pattern and the type of questions asked in GMAT because of my roommate who was preparing for it. I gave my first GMAT mock (Official GMAT Prep1) without any preparation in July'20, on the request from the roommate. Towards the end of my CAT preparation (roughly in October'20), I did give a free GMAT mock by e-gmat again just for fun and scored a 650 (Q49, V30) with 80% of my incorrect answers in Verbal being in SC. Fast forward to Feb'21, after the CAT results were announced and I knew that getting into the top 6 b-schools of the country was not even a possibility, is when I started my GMAT prep.
I opened my e-gmat mock test performance report to analyze me weaknesses and strength in order to make sure that I put my efforts in the right direction. While doing so, I was not able to grasp an explanation of one question in Quants and thus googled it. Clicked on the 1st link that came up on the google homepage and BAM , I struck pure gold there itself !!! I landed onto gmatclub page and was amazed to see the humungous amount of gmat material present. That was it. I started exploring the forum section and solved every SC question with the 600-700 and 700-level tags. Initially, just to get the hang of it, I didn't use the GMAT club timer while solving the questions but after going through a couple of debriefs and understanding the importance of the timer, I started doing timed SC practice. My process was simple, I would pick 20 SC questions everyday with the "fire" symbol (which means that these are hot topics and currently most popular in the forum) and then would solve them first before going through the explanations by some legends like GMATNinja Bunuel daagh egmat EMPOWERgmatVerbal sayantanc2k chetan2u Nikhil. I can't emphasize enough, the amount of contribution these legends have had on building my approach for solving an SC question and on the final score that I got. Do remember guys, that I didn't go through a single line about any grammar rule from any book. It was all on gmatclub, that I learnt how to identify Parallelism, subject-verb agreement, comparison, misplaced modifiers, etc. errors. Coming back to the timeline, it was already May, and I also started solving SC and CR questions from the OG (riding on my confidence gained from solving SC questions on gmatclub). Since I was preparing with a full time job, I only studied 1-2 hours a day(spending most of my time on the gmatclub Forum section). After finishing the OG questions (SC and CR) in May, June onwards I started devoting my entire study time to gmatclub again and this time I used to filter only the 700-level SC questions and solve them. Though my accuracy in these questions was 50% as compared to 80-90% when I solved 600-700 level questions, I never lost hope and I always thought that along with every new question and a wrong answer, I am learning a new concept. I started giving 1 free full length GMAT mock test on every weekend. Since I had already prepared for CAT, I just brushed up my quant skills by going through some serious tough questions here on the gmatclub starting mid July. And for AWA, I simple went through this post on "How to get 6.0 AWA on GMAT" (unfortunately I can't provide the url here since I don't have 5 posts on gmatclub) a week before my GMAT. Even though my AWA score is yet to come, I am grateful to chineseburned[/url] for this invaluable post.
The order and scores of my GMAT full length mocks are as follows-
1. July'20 : GMAT Prep 1 Exam - 680 (Q49, V31)
2. Oct'20 : E-gmat free mock - 650 (Q49, V30)
3. May'21 : Veritas Prep free mock test - 680 (Q49, V31)
4. June'21 : Manhattan Prep free mock test MGMAT1 - 640 (Q47, V30)
5. June'21 : GMAT Prep 2 Exam - 680 (Q49, V32)
6. June'21 : GMAT Whiz free mock test - 670 (Q49, V32)
7. June'21 : GMAT Prep 1 Exam retake - 710 (Q49, V36)
8. July'21 : EmpowerGMAT free mock test - 640
9. July'21 : Kaplan free mock test - 630
10. July'21 : GMAT Prep 2 Exam retake - 730 (Q50, V39)
Can you believe my actual GMAT score now ? Yes, even I can't !!
3. D-Day Experience -
I had booked the 1:30 pm slot on 8th August,21. The test centre was in another city (around 4 hours from where I live currently) and hence I and my dad reached there a day before. I being a hardcore foodie, spent whole of 7th Aug., roaming around the city eating steamed momos, peri-peri potato twisters, cheese sandwiches and admiring the ancient colonial styled buildings of this beautiful city. Luckily, I got enough sleep (of around 7 hours) the night before and woke up at 7 AM on the D-day. Opened the gmatclub, went through the AWA post for the one last time in order to remember the structure which is to be followed, closed the laptop and went for breakfast. After having breakfast, my dad and I got freshened up and left for a visit to a nearby temple. From there we left for the centre and reached somewhere near the vicinity of the centre at around 12:00 pm. However, we were unable to locate the exact building of the centre even with the help of google maps. Meanwhile, I purchased a can of red bull, a Britannia cake and a Hide-n-Seek biscuit packet keeping in mind the 8-minute breaks. The Red bull can was the most important amongst these items sheerly because of the fact that I have a habit of taking naps in the afternoon (taking full advantage of work from home situation
) and was damn afraid of falling asleep or lapse of concentration during the exam. Luckily, we reached the centre at around 12:30 and my dad wished me Best of Luck and left. The centre staff allowed me inside the centre and told me that he will begin the registration process at 1:00 pm. Till this time there were no other candidates present in the centre, who were to give the GMAT exam in the 1:30 slot and here I was staring at blank ceilings and praying to god that please keep the sleep away. I drank the red bull can and folks started entering the centre. 6 of us were seated in the centre waiting area by 1:00 pm. The registration and verification process began and we entered a small cabin one-by-one for our registration respectively. I was not stressed at all and was observing the other folks who were there - A girl constantly revising something from her notes, a boy reading some last minute material from his mobile and the rest 4 of us looking at blank ceiling. Finally, the batch before us came out and we entered the lab.
The stress started to build up now and I hurriedly chose the 5 b-schools that we need to choose to send our official GMAT scores. Post that I just remember pressing the "Next" button till the time the screen wherein we have to choose the section order appeared. I chose Verbal - Quants - IR - AWA and proceeded. The Verbal section started and the initial 5-6 questions seemed of around 650 difficulty level. Once I reached the 8th question, I remembered reading one post on gmatclub, about the importance of 1st 10 questions in each section and thus I started solving the next 3 questions more consciously by spending a bit more time on each of them. I got 2 long RCs and 1 short one, all 3 being of medium-hard difficulty. There were 2 CR questions and a couple of RC questions that took a lot of my time to answer them as a result of which the time read 10 minutes left with 6 questions still left to answer. I increased my pace so that there is no question left unanswered by any chance, since I had read about the heavy penalty for leaving questions unanswered. Finally, I was able to click the submit button for the verbal section with the timer reading 25 secs. left. Overall, it didn't feel that great to be honest.
Took the 8 minute break by eating 2 pieces of the Britannia chocolate cake that I had purchased and went to the washroom to wash my face. Thanks to Red Bull, I neither felt sleepy throughout the Verbal section nor did I face any lapse in concentration. Came back in front of my PC to start the Quants section. The break time read 6 mins. at that time.
Quants being my forte, I was planning to score at least a Q50 in this section and thus it was a very important phase in my exam. The Quant section started and I precisely remember that out of the 1st 10 questions, I took more than 3 minutes for one particular question and finally had to guess it to not affect the course of the future questions. Post that mini adrenaline rush, I was able to solve every question with ease and within a 2-mins. timeframe for each question, till I reached Q27. It was a simple Percentage question which I miscalculated in my 1st attempt and wasted 2 mins. I picked up myself and said that instead of choosing variables, I simply assumed random values and finally reached the correct answer to the question which was at least visible in the answer choices. However, a mini panic attack was about to occur once I saw the timer. It read 10 mins. left for about 7 questions. Similar to the verbal section, I had to correctly guess without reaching to the final answer as per calculation to save on time and accurately solve the remaining the questions. I somehow manage to complete the quant section in time by guessing the 1-2 questions at the end. Phewwww!! This was a bit exhaustive, and not a satisfying experience. I straightaway knew that I was not going to score a Q51 here.
A bit demotivated, I took the last 8-minute break- strolled outside the lab a bit, had some water and went inside the lab for the IR section.
I didn't explicitly practise for this section and assumed that this will be a cakewalk since I used to score well in the DILR (Data Interpretation and Logic Reasoning) section during my CAT prep days. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near to that. I was able to solve the 1st 3 questions but at the cost of 8-9 mins. The experience of the previous section haunted me here and then I lost track of this section by guessing 2-4 questions in between and solving the rest half-heartedly. A very very bad experience!!
I did pickup myself after that by giving a little pep-talk within, and started off with the AWA section. At the start, I immediately wrote the first lines of every paragraph as per the structure suggested in the AWA post I mentioned above (Intro, 3 paras, conclusion). I did structure it well, emphasized on the need for more stats, examples, weak assumptions, etc. to deem the argument and in turn the conclusion unconvincing. When I just completed my last sentence of the essay, the section time was over and it was auto-submitted (I hope). Overall, an okay experience.
Just then, the score flashed and I was shell shocked, emphatic, over the moon, every emotion that you can think of, all at the same time. I kept on smiling for a good 5 secs. looking at my scores (except in IR) and then just came out of the lab to collect the score sheet and leave. I literally couldn't fathom the unfolding of the event that just happened and was trying my level best to comprehend what I had just achieved. A dream score indeed!! After that the only thing that I could think of was gmatclub members contribution to this. Then the test centre administrator handed me the printout of the unofficial score report, saying - "Congratulations on your score, well done!!". I thanked him with a big smile.
I will post tips and key takeaways from this once I get some more time and also once I receive my official score report !! Please
pardon any grammatical errors.
Feel free to ask any questions here or through a DM, and I will be more than happy to answer them to the best of my abilities.
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Abhishek
This is my first post here on gmatclub and am very elated writing this piece for all the aspirants out there. I gave my GMAT on 8th August, 21(yesterday) and scored a 730 in my 1st attempt.
I have bucketed this post into 3 parts (feel free to jump to any part that maybe the most useful to you).
1. GMAT Score
2. Prep Resources I used
3. D-DAY experience
My only motive is to motivate my peer test takers to not give up. If I can get a decent score, then anybody can.
Let me walk you guys through the journey, which I am sure that you will find hard to believe.
1. GMAT Score -
Overall - 730 (96 percentile)
Quant - 49
Verbal - 41
IR - 4 (Yes, I know I screwed this up)
2. Prep Resources I used -
First of all let me clarify that, an year ago, taking the GMAT and applying to b-schools abroad wasn't even on my mind. It was only after my unsuccessful tryst with CAT (Indian b-school entrance exam) that I decided to pursue this option of taking the GMAT seriously. I already knew the GMAT pattern and the type of questions asked in GMAT because of my roommate who was preparing for it. I gave my first GMAT mock (Official GMAT Prep1) without any preparation in July'20, on the request from the roommate. Towards the end of my CAT preparation (roughly in October'20), I did give a free GMAT mock by e-gmat again just for fun and scored a 650 (Q49, V30) with 80% of my incorrect answers in Verbal being in SC. Fast forward to Feb'21, after the CAT results were announced and I knew that getting into the top 6 b-schools of the country was not even a possibility, is when I started my GMAT prep.
I opened my e-gmat mock test performance report to analyze me weaknesses and strength in order to make sure that I put my efforts in the right direction. While doing so, I was not able to grasp an explanation of one question in Quants and thus googled it. Clicked on the 1st link that came up on the google homepage and BAM , I struck pure gold there itself !!! I landed onto gmatclub page and was amazed to see the humungous amount of gmat material present. That was it. I started exploring the forum section and solved every SC question with the 600-700 and 700-level tags. Initially, just to get the hang of it, I didn't use the GMAT club timer while solving the questions but after going through a couple of debriefs and understanding the importance of the timer, I started doing timed SC practice. My process was simple, I would pick 20 SC questions everyday with the "fire" symbol (which means that these are hot topics and currently most popular in the forum) and then would solve them first before going through the explanations by some legends like GMATNinja Bunuel daagh egmat EMPOWERgmatVerbal sayantanc2k chetan2u Nikhil. I can't emphasize enough, the amount of contribution these legends have had on building my approach for solving an SC question and on the final score that I got. Do remember guys, that I didn't go through a single line about any grammar rule from any book. It was all on gmatclub, that I learnt how to identify Parallelism, subject-verb agreement, comparison, misplaced modifiers, etc. errors. Coming back to the timeline, it was already May, and I also started solving SC and CR questions from the OG (riding on my confidence gained from solving SC questions on gmatclub). Since I was preparing with a full time job, I only studied 1-2 hours a day(spending most of my time on the gmatclub Forum section). After finishing the OG questions (SC and CR) in May, June onwards I started devoting my entire study time to gmatclub again and this time I used to filter only the 700-level SC questions and solve them. Though my accuracy in these questions was 50% as compared to 80-90% when I solved 600-700 level questions, I never lost hope and I always thought that along with every new question and a wrong answer, I am learning a new concept. I started giving 1 free full length GMAT mock test on every weekend. Since I had already prepared for CAT, I just brushed up my quant skills by going through some serious tough questions here on the gmatclub starting mid July. And for AWA, I simple went through this post on "How to get 6.0 AWA on GMAT" (unfortunately I can't provide the url here since I don't have 5 posts on gmatclub) a week before my GMAT. Even though my AWA score is yet to come, I am grateful to chineseburned[/url] for this invaluable post.
The order and scores of my GMAT full length mocks are as follows-
1. July'20 : GMAT Prep 1 Exam - 680 (Q49, V31)
2. Oct'20 : E-gmat free mock - 650 (Q49, V30)
3. May'21 : Veritas Prep free mock test - 680 (Q49, V31)
4. June'21 : Manhattan Prep free mock test MGMAT1 - 640 (Q47, V30)
5. June'21 : GMAT Prep 2 Exam - 680 (Q49, V32)
6. June'21 : GMAT Whiz free mock test - 670 (Q49, V32)
7. June'21 : GMAT Prep 1 Exam retake - 710 (Q49, V36)
8. July'21 : EmpowerGMAT free mock test - 640
9. July'21 : Kaplan free mock test - 630
10. July'21 : GMAT Prep 2 Exam retake - 730 (Q50, V39)
Can you believe my actual GMAT score now ? Yes, even I can't !!
3. D-Day Experience -
I had booked the 1:30 pm slot on 8th August,21. The test centre was in another city (around 4 hours from where I live currently) and hence I and my dad reached there a day before. I being a hardcore foodie, spent whole of 7th Aug., roaming around the city eating steamed momos, peri-peri potato twisters, cheese sandwiches and admiring the ancient colonial styled buildings of this beautiful city. Luckily, I got enough sleep (of around 7 hours) the night before and woke up at 7 AM on the D-day. Opened the gmatclub, went through the AWA post for the one last time in order to remember the structure which is to be followed, closed the laptop and went for breakfast. After having breakfast, my dad and I got freshened up and left for a visit to a nearby temple. From there we left for the centre and reached somewhere near the vicinity of the centre at around 12:00 pm. However, we were unable to locate the exact building of the centre even with the help of google maps. Meanwhile, I purchased a can of red bull, a Britannia cake and a Hide-n-Seek biscuit packet keeping in mind the 8-minute breaks. The Red bull can was the most important amongst these items sheerly because of the fact that I have a habit of taking naps in the afternoon (taking full advantage of work from home situation
) and was damn afraid of falling asleep or lapse of concentration during the exam. Luckily, we reached the centre at around 12:30 and my dad wished me Best of Luck and left. The centre staff allowed me inside the centre and told me that he will begin the registration process at 1:00 pm. Till this time there were no other candidates present in the centre, who were to give the GMAT exam in the 1:30 slot and here I was staring at blank ceilings and praying to god that please keep the sleep away. I drank the red bull can and folks started entering the centre. 6 of us were seated in the centre waiting area by 1:00 pm. The registration and verification process began and we entered a small cabin one-by-one for our registration respectively. I was not stressed at all and was observing the other folks who were there - A girl constantly revising something from her notes, a boy reading some last minute material from his mobile and the rest 4 of us looking at blank ceiling. Finally, the batch before us came out and we entered the lab. The stress started to build up now and I hurriedly chose the 5 b-schools that we need to choose to send our official GMAT scores. Post that I just remember pressing the "Next" button till the time the screen wherein we have to choose the section order appeared. I chose Verbal - Quants - IR - AWA and proceeded. The Verbal section started and the initial 5-6 questions seemed of around 650 difficulty level. Once I reached the 8th question, I remembered reading one post on gmatclub, about the importance of 1st 10 questions in each section and thus I started solving the next 3 questions more consciously by spending a bit more time on each of them. I got 2 long RCs and 1 short one, all 3 being of medium-hard difficulty. There were 2 CR questions and a couple of RC questions that took a lot of my time to answer them as a result of which the time read 10 minutes left with 6 questions still left to answer. I increased my pace so that there is no question left unanswered by any chance, since I had read about the heavy penalty for leaving questions unanswered. Finally, I was able to click the submit button for the verbal section with the timer reading 25 secs. left. Overall, it didn't feel that great to be honest.
Took the 8 minute break by eating 2 pieces of the Britannia chocolate cake that I had purchased and went to the washroom to wash my face. Thanks to Red Bull, I neither felt sleepy throughout the Verbal section nor did I face any lapse in concentration. Came back in front of my PC to start the Quants section. The break time read 6 mins. at that time.
Quants being my forte, I was planning to score at least a Q50 in this section and thus it was a very important phase in my exam. The Quant section started and I precisely remember that out of the 1st 10 questions, I took more than 3 minutes for one particular question and finally had to guess it to not affect the course of the future questions. Post that mini adrenaline rush, I was able to solve every question with ease and within a 2-mins. timeframe for each question, till I reached Q27. It was a simple Percentage question which I miscalculated in my 1st attempt and wasted 2 mins. I picked up myself and said that instead of choosing variables, I simply assumed random values and finally reached the correct answer to the question which was at least visible in the answer choices. However, a mini panic attack was about to occur once I saw the timer. It read 10 mins. left for about 7 questions. Similar to the verbal section, I had to correctly guess without reaching to the final answer as per calculation to save on time and accurately solve the remaining the questions. I somehow manage to complete the quant section in time by guessing the 1-2 questions at the end. Phewwww!! This was a bit exhaustive, and not a satisfying experience. I straightaway knew that I was not going to score a Q51 here.
A bit demotivated, I took the last 8-minute break- strolled outside the lab a bit, had some water and went inside the lab for the IR section.
I didn't explicitly practise for this section and assumed that this will be a cakewalk since I used to score well in the DILR (Data Interpretation and Logic Reasoning) section during my CAT prep days. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near to that. I was able to solve the 1st 3 questions but at the cost of 8-9 mins. The experience of the previous section haunted me here and then I lost track of this section by guessing 2-4 questions in between and solving the rest half-heartedly. A very very bad experience!!
I did pickup myself after that by giving a little pep-talk within, and started off with the AWA section. At the start, I immediately wrote the first lines of every paragraph as per the structure suggested in the AWA post I mentioned above (Intro, 3 paras, conclusion). I did structure it well, emphasized on the need for more stats, examples, weak assumptions, etc. to deem the argument and in turn the conclusion unconvincing. When I just completed my last sentence of the essay, the section time was over and it was auto-submitted (I hope). Overall, an okay experience.
Just then, the score flashed and I was shell shocked, emphatic, over the moon, every emotion that you can think of, all at the same time. I kept on smiling for a good 5 secs. looking at my scores (except in IR) and then just came out of the lab to collect the score sheet and leave. I literally couldn't fathom the unfolding of the event that just happened and was trying my level best to comprehend what I had just achieved. A dream score indeed!! After that the only thing that I could think of was gmatclub members contribution to this. Then the test centre administrator handed me the printout of the unofficial score report, saying - "Congratulations on your score, well done!!". I thanked him with a big smile.
I will post tips and key takeaways from this once I get some more time and also once I receive my official score report !!
Please pardon any grammatical errors.
Feel free to ask any questions here or through a DM, and I will be more than happy to answer them to the best of my abilities.
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Abhishek
09 Aug 2021, 05:43
Kudos
Bookmarks
ap060597
Abhishek, Great score and that on the first attempt !!
Time for a well-deserved break, and, of course, enjoy the success.
09 Aug 2021, 16:10
Kudos
Bookmarks
ap060597
Great work, ap060597!
We're so glad to hear you found our practice questions and explanations helpful in your studying plan. Keep up the great work!
