My GMAT Journey
My GMAT Journey began in last year, when I took the
e-gmat subscription in June 2021. Before attempting the actual GMAT, I gave two official mocks and scored 730 and 710. I was confident to get a score of at least 700, but to my utter surprise, it turned out to be a 670 (Q50, V30) when I first attempted the GMAT in Aug 2021. Dejected, I went back to the scholaranium platform, solved multiple questions, revised all the concepts, gave multiple mocks - official as well as sigma ones, and reattempted the GMAT in Nov'21. Though I was performing well in the custom quizzes, somehow my scores in the mocks hovered around 670-710. Given my last debacle at GMAT, I was apprehensive of getting a good score, but in a hurry to apply in R2 to various B-schools, I reattempted GMAT and scored a meager 690. I won't shy away to say that I was totally shattered to see the score.
A piece of Advice - Don't attempt the GMAT in a hurry. Give adequate time to achieve that test readiness and right mindset.My confidence in my abilities took a serious hit and a sudden change in the city, owing to a job transfer, forced me to take a break before re-attempting the GMAT. Moreover, as all B-Schools had their deadlines in early January for Round 2, I finally decided to take a break till March before starting my GMAT preparation again.
I restarted my GMAT preparation with a new subscription of
e-GMAT. I had introspected a lot in the last 3-4 months and came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong in my ability. The poor scores had more to do with test readiness and having the right mental makeup before attempting the mock or the GMAT. So, I started off with revising my previous notes and only revising those concept files on the
e-GMAT platform in which I was not confident. I figured out that verbs, parallelism, and modifiers were the pinch points in SC, while "assumptions" was the weaker area in CR. Upon deeper delving, I found that not breaking the longer sentences into smaller ones was leading to the majority of errors in SC. In CR, the problem lied in not focussing on the conclusion. I was negating the assumption but because of the faulty approach, my negated assumption was always targeting the premise and not the conclusion. So, the only change I made in CR was to always, I repeat, always keep the conclusion in mind. Coming from an engineering background, quant was never an issue and I was consistently getting a Q50 all throughout.
After revising all the concepts and getting into the test readiness, I approached support at
e-Gmat and was contacted by one of the experts - Abha Mohan. Abha analyzed my
e-GMAT account thoroughly and brought out some glaring issues which I was somehow missing. She did a 360-degree review and came up with customised quizzes and strategies for my weaker areas. To name some of them, she asked me to have custom quizzes with the majority of the questions from the weaker areas - thus preparing me for the worst situation wherein all the questions in the actual GMAT might have come up from the weaker areas. We were connected through the mail and she was very prompt in her responses and always replied to the smallest of queries within 4-5 hours. Every time I approached her, she gave me a customised plan and timelines to finish off that plan. Post finishing the customised quizzes, she analysed my performance and gave me feedback, and the exercise was repeated till she gave me a go-ahead. All the while, I completely trusted her with all the guidance and support and made sure that the timelines she mentioned are followed. To be honest, many times I was exhausted by reattempting the same sub-sectional quizzes and mailed her if my performance was satisfactory and whether I could take my test date. She was very patient and made me realize why I was not test ready and why it was not a good idea to hurry to take the GMAT.
Finally, in the last week of August 22, I attempted my first sigma mock and scored a good 730. Abha analysed the performance, gave some helpful insights, made a customised video analysing my attempt, and suggested some course corrections. The second sigma mock was attempted in the 1st week of September and I scored a 740. Finally, I attempted the GMAT on 12th Sept - in online mode. I am short of words to explain my situation when a 670 popped up after finishing the GMAT. I approached Abha, and both of us were equally confused as to how is this even possible - given all the potential parameters suggested that I have the ability to get a 730-740. I was completely clueless at this time. However, on the very next day, Abha asked me to re-attempt the GMAT within the next 10 days and made a motivational video for me. She also prepared a Last Mile program for me and asked me to just attempt 1-2 custom quizzes (All from my weaker sections) and 1 sigma mock. She asked me to just stick to the fundamentals and not panic in the actual setup. I took a test date on 23rd (offline this time) and in those 10 days, due to the extreme workload, I could just attempt 1 sigma mock and scored a 740. The only thing I did in those 10 days was to remind myself that I have to just follow the fundamentals in the actual exam. Finally, I scored a 720, and relieved would be an understatement to explain my emotions.
Techiques that worked for me -
1. Focus on breaking down longer sentences to shorter ones. Find out the verbs and identify their respective subjects. Ignore the objects in the sentence. This approach helped me in parallelism, modifiers, and verb questions in SC.
2. In CR, always and always keep the conclusion in mind. Every negated assumption must target the conclusion and not the premise. This approach will surely help in other question types such as strengthen, weaken as well.
3. Summarise the paragraphs in your own words in RC - This will ensure that you get the "primary purpose of the passage" correct.
4. Utilise the custom quizzes at the scholaranium platform at the fullest. Use the data statistics to find out the weaker areas and prepare custom quizzes by keeping majority of the questions from your weaker areas. This will prepare you for the worst in the actual GMAT.
5. The sigma mocks are extremely useful and quite close to the actual GMAT. The scores achieved in sigma mocks can give you an accurate picture of your potential GMAT score.
6. I figured out that online GMAT did not work for me. The idea of a proctor constantly monitoring you somehow made me nervous. The choice of going for an online or offline GMAT is very subjective and one must choose the mode wisely.
7. Do not attempt multiple mock tests: 2-3 mocks are sufficient before the GMAT. You dont want to attempt the GMAT tired and exhausted. I had made this mistake last year.
8. Finally, staying calm: It is of utmost importance to have a sound mental wellbeing and calm mindset before the exam. In the end, GMAT is just an exam. If you crack it, good, if not, life goes on. No big deal.