Hello
I think finally time is right to share my story:
Since it came out to be a long post, I’ll say in advance that this piece does not contain detailed study tips or plans- I certainly agree with almost all common wisdom here on GMAT Club. (And there is more than enough on every topic). So I will emphasize the personal aspects of the endeavour, to hopefully inspire couple of people and also provide some info on things that worked/did not work for me.
By all means, take all advice with a grain of salt-verify what works for you.
First briefly about myself: Male, middle manager, middle aged (well, almost ,) reasonably busy with life’s commitments. I am an Economist by education, and have been out of touch with academic/school life for ages.
Always have been reasonably good in academics and standardized tests; however, quant never was my strong side. Am naturally strong in verbal.
HistoryGMAT and I go back long time. My first encounter with GMAT was back in 2014, where after reasonable preparation scored 650(Q47V33, 77%-ile then) which was reflective of my abilities. I did apply to some schools, even got accepted but then life happened-my plans changed and I got on with my life.
Somewhere in 2018 I gave another half-hearted effort, and I was soundly trounced by the GMAT. Everything seemed super hard and way out of my reach. Cancelled the score and left the test center ashamed with a tail among my legs.
2020I have to admit that i'm just not very good at letting things go. I am stubborn, keep grudges at people who beat me in sports and have competitive nature in almost all things that I do. While I recognize that I am quite average in many of those things ( ≈ 2 hr half marathon times will shed light on my distance running abilities, for one.) But I considered studying my stronger side!
Therefore, sitting at home in August of 2020 during COVID restrictions, I realized that there was a chance to redeem myself. Work was a bit slow, and with curfews and all sorts there was not much to do outside either.
This time I wanted to give it my best and score 700+ , so got down to business. Studied every day for 2-4 hours. After covering basics, started taking CATs. By mid- September took the first official mock and scored 690, (Q48 V36). I had 2 months till the exam, so I was pleased. My scheme was working! Continued with the prep and my scores generally kept improving. Only downside was that scores were all over the place -ranging from 660 to 720.
Breaking 700 barrier during the mocks filled me with confidence, and on good days I was scoring Q49 on quant, even though I still struggled with timing. One week prior to the exam date took the last official mock, scoring the PB of 730. (Q49, V41-this was another achievement, since I never put much effort in Verbal.) I started to taper down, doing everything as prescribed by the general wisdom of the Gmatclub. I was brimming with confidence.
Since the COVID situation was still not getting much better, I reasoned ONLINE exam would be a perfect option-taking the exam from your home, with your laptop must be a big advantage, right? I stocked up on scratchboard and pencils, and practiced.
ONLINE EXAM EXPERIENCE-Not as comfy as cracked up to be (at least for me) I will suffice to say that after all this meticulous planning, preening and shadow boxing managed to score
640 and 630 on 2 consecutive ONLINE exams. I'll spare you the details. When I first saw my score (with Q42 V36) I laughed out at myself for several minutes. I could not believe it, so I was counting down days to retake. Second time I fought better, but this time Q45 was balanced with V31...
I still don't know what happened there.
Got bogged down on very first question on quant section both times, quant seemed strange whereas verbal felt a bit easy. (I wonder if this was GMACs response to shorter exam-bulking up the quant side and taking easy on us on the Verbal since there was no break in between these two)
There was no ESR available for ONLINE exams.
Needless to say, I was deeply frustrated. Like many people on the forum who failed the test, I felt worthless. All my self-esteem and confidence has washed away. In addition, I did not know what to do next, since I have used up all of the official prep materials, GMAC CATS and quant practices.
In this embittered state of mind I was considering writing a review of a fallen warrior. One part of me wanted to write a debrief from the position of somebody who fought and lost, to voice people who were in my shoes and were the vast majority (well, 88% of the population, to be precise.) This situation reminded me of high school and university reunions, where former classmates who are beaten up by life don’t turn up and mostly folks who are doing OK gather. There were too many people writing debriefs scoring unreasonably high. I felt like a homeless who attends the reunion!
Okay, but first I needed a tux and a limo.
THE FIGHT OF ATTRITIONEven though I was depressed, tried to pick myself up. I knew that if I stopped then, it would be THE END and I had to live with defeat forever. I reminded myself that I had already suffered worst setbacks, so probably from now on only way would be up. I also knew that GMAT is testing your will and effort rather than knowledge. And as for GMAT math – every half educated adult should be able to explain high school math to his/her children, right? (or neighbour’s children, if you don't have any:)
I re-read many inspirational stories/debriefs of people who were in my shoes. I felt that I could win this dogfight.
THE FINAL FRONTIERIn my musings as how to prep next, I stumbled across TTP self-study course. Before then I considered myself good enough to do well without any outside help. Humbled, I was not thinking like that anymore. I gave it a spin and liked the system, and did only medium and hard questions. Hard questions are hard for real, and some concepts are drilled specifically in your brain by deliberate practice. I found few topics very useful, especially combinatorics and probability (even though prior to this I covered Veritas guide on this topic twice and was more or less comfortable with the material.)
During 3-4 weeks I practiced exclusively quant. Purchased
GMAT CLUB Tests, and did almost all of them. Overall, did at least 50 problems daily, reviewed them, also practiced in the evenings to automate my technique and get used to solving when tired. Sometimes my mind would go blank but when I regained composure and check my calculations were still correct.
I studied during new year and public holidays.
Jan 14 took the exam in the test center (I have already reached my limit for ONLINE exams, but I would not take another one ONLINE even at a gunpoint)
The Test went more or less as expected-no more getting stuck on the first qusetion, but was too concerned with my timing and just gave up on few harder questions at the beginning. Somewhere in the middle of quant section I realized that I was 2-3 mins ahead of time and got excited. Then somewhere in the third quarter I slowed down considerably (later ESR showed 100% accuracy in this part), and timed out badly at the end. I just randomly clicked last several questions, and could not even manage to hit button on the very last. I knew that I dropped some valuable points at the end. I did not expect much from Verbal.
Once again, I went home with 650 (Q48V31.) However, this time I was proud of my score. I proved to myself that I could score decently on quant and test center experience was more predictable. I knew I could pump up verbal and consequently, my score.
I'll be back in a month -I told the test center manager as I was leaving. He nodded.
During that one month I went through CR bible and
MGMAT RC guide+ exercises (this was first time I studied theory on these parts-before then it was just practicing questions.) SC was always my weakest point in Verbal, but could not bring myself to go thru the
MGMAT SC guide once again:-)).
Quant prep was as usual-GMAT club daily questions, Hard question sets, TTP revision tests.
MGMAT Advanced Quant Guide. I was scoring okay.
On the Eve of the test day there was a big snowfall so I left the car home and took the underground. To balance the freezing temps outside the test center attendant had heating on full capacity, so during the breaks I was pleading him to reduce the heat and open the windows:-)
Otherwise, test went okay-I did not pay much attention to AWA and IR and jumped into the quant. Struggled a bit on the first question but knew I solved it and then quant went as expected. This time around I did not time out.
Then I went into Verbal Section. I got into the rhythm, taking questions with attention but not dwelling on them. I saw RC was getting harder and harder. I was not sure of CR. SC trend was not noticeable.
I reached the end of the test exhausted but on time, and after saturating myself with coffee, Red bull and water my immediate priority was to visit the toilet.
Hastily, I punched the Show the Scores button, and 710 (Q49V37) came up. This is more like it, I thought.
I did not feel much joy.
I thanked the test center guy, and promised him he won't be seeing me anytime soon-unless I get into the masochist mode once again.
As probably everyone who scored 700, I also feel I could have gone 20-30 points higher.
Of course I want to thank the GMAT Club community and many outstanding contributors for their insight, inspiration and goodwill. I was a silent beneficiary of your contributions, for which I am very grateful.
I wish all of you success and best of luck in everything you do.
MATERIALS USED AND GENERAL TIPSMaterials used:
For Quant:
OG , 2013, 2020.
GMAC 4 official exams taken 690, 720, 660, 730 respectively. Also purchased official quant practice-3 sets of 24 retired questions administered in CAT format. Predicted score ranges after each: N1: Q45-50, N2: Q 47-51, sessionN3 Q41-48
MGMAT GuidesMGMAT Advanced Quant-did all 15 sets, accuracy 70-90%, timed.
GMACs Advanced questions guide-did all quant, accuracy 50-80% timed
GMAT Club tests-score range 42-49. Mostly scored 46-47. Highly recommended for creative thinking and for familiarizing yourself with many traps and tricks that can be thrown at you. Just make sure you are already familiar with the concepts and want to get further challenged. Don’t jump in unprepared.
Veritas Probability and Combinatorics guide, did all problems.
TTP-accelerated study plan for quant+review tests at the end with some targeted practice.
For Verbal
SC-
MGMATCR-Powerscore CR bible
RC-
MGMAT guide
OG verbal guide for practice
General Tips• Mind your business and compete with yourself. Most people have extraordinary capacities because they have spent much time and extraordinary effort on doing that thing.
• Prefer computer based practice over books and paper based materials- because its more similar to real thing, also its more efficient. I was a bit old fashioned but switching to electronic mediums made it easier to track time, review etc.
• Avoid strenuous exercise. If you do some sort of endurance training, you’d better scale down. Walking and light exercise is the way to go. I used to pump out 50 pushups before taking CATs. Try to avoid subsisting on sugar and caffeine, exam stress is enough not to exacerbate it with +10 kgs in 3 months.
• Make use of available resources out there-for me TTP worked. It has good quant section and also provided meaningful encouragement emails and useful information which I needed during my prep. GMAT is big investment of effort, and 100 $ per month will take you a long way. Don’t be stubborn like me. It will save you much trouble.
• Aim at studying at least 2 hours in your prime state of mind. This was hard for me, because even when I woke at 6 am, I was still a bit slow in early mornings and really hit my stride around 11-12. I had no much time in the afternoon, and was already tired in the evenings. I fought through this, used my lunchbreak for CATs or other “high intensity workouts” and dedicated other times for regular study. This is an important point, because you’ll need well above GMAC recommended 120 hrs for the prep if you want to hit the top 10%-ile. When I was not at my best, I was making mistakes in areas that I already knew and understood. In that state it’s hard to improve anything.
• Timing is everything. I noticed that dwelling on many hard questions did not make radical differences in my score. If you can’t solve it in 3+ mins, you’d better get moving. You have to automate your rhythm, your flow and stick to it. I would recommend to time yourself from the beginning. Allow yourself 3-4 mins on the hard qs, but anything after that is just not reasonable, and you will do that during the real exam.
• Start from the bottom up: Don’t disregard the medium and easy questions, as they are the stepping stones to something better. And ideally you want to save time on them too. On the other hand, for getting Q49 you don’t need to concentrate on hard questions. Of course it’s good to go through the advanced material to learn few tricks and equally important- to gain confidence that theoretically you can solve any question that you encounter.
• Enjoy the process. I know this is another cliché, but actually having some enthusiasm will help you immensely. I genuinely enjoyed studying quant, learned few things and felt more confident. As I mentioned above I kept telling myself that the quant I was struggling with I was supposed to know anyway, without GMAT. Same goes for elementary grammar, reasoning etc. these are all useful things in life. Don’t begrudge studying. Appreciate GMAT as a worthy opponent that has to be respected not despised. Process of beating GMAT is hard, sometimes very frustrating and THAT IS EXACTLY why it is worthwhile.
• GMAT prep is half art, half science- it’s easy to get caught up in percentiles, formulas, study plans, error logs and like. While all these are essential parts of a systemized prep, I discovered that these tools give you approximate measures for given areas. They are just broad indicators, not something to follow religiously. Your performance depends on many things, for example how concentrated you felt that given day (if there was background noise that distracted you, for example), sequence and type of questions you got etc. for example, it happened many times that my strong areas became weaker area within a week and vice versa.
Rely on your gut instinct also-the types of questions you dislike-they are the ones to practice most. Some things about yourself you understand better than any
error log.
• You have every reason to succeed –there is host of free materials out there, good learning community willing to help each other, and many inspirational stories of people who achieved remarkable results in against all odds. Honestly, for me most difficult part of this journey was organizing my life around study, not studying or exam itself.
That’s all from me.
I wish you resilience and best of luck in your preparations.
If you have any questions, I will gladly try to address them.
Regards,
George