My GMAT journey: 400 to 710! What a relief!

I want to share my experience because I want to encourage those who may not be a math whiz or have been out of school for long or have an unusual background, such as arts (like myself). It’s going to be a long post – so please bear with me.

I started toying with the idea of GMAT towards the end of 2006. Took a diagnostic test by PR and got a mere 400. At that time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to B-school but had some time off between jobs so decided to take PR tutorials – approx 20hrs. In the end, I didn’t pursue the GMAT that year.

Come beginning of this year, after 5.5 years of working, I decided that I want to do post-grad and MBA from a good school is the top choice. I knew it meant hitting the books seriously for the first time in about 10 years while working 60+hr week (actually mostly more – bloody Asian working hours!). I was an arts undergrad student and have not done any math - beyond basic calculations or taken an exam in 10 years. I knew I needed help, so I enrolled in Kaplan 10-week course starting end of March. Verbal was my stronger side though not a piece of cake as I’m not a native speaker. I thought I would aim for 650-700 range although realistically I wasn’t expecting to surpass 680. I decided I would try my best and aim to make a strong application in other areas.

With OG 12 and Kaplan materials in hand….the story goes….
Kaplan Diagnostic (end March): 480, Q28, V30 (no AWA)
….Classes – study – work – almost no social life except 2 week holiday….
Kaplan CAT 1 (mid May): 510, Q31, V29 (no AWA)
….Class ended – hell at work – no social life – got sick (didn’t study for around 3 weeks) – rescheduled test from end June to end July – slightly depressed
Kaplan CAT 2 (end Jun): 520, Q30, V33 (w/AWA)
…..Very depressed – still sick on and off – forgotten what social life is - found GMAT club (HURRAY!!!)– realized Kaplan score may be slightly off – glimmer of hope – press on with self study – took some time off work.
Kaplan CAT 3 (11 Jul): 610, Q39!, V32 (w/AWA)
…at last…some hope…decided that I need to build up the stamina. Made a study plan to do a test every couple of days, all with AWA
Kaplan CAT 4 (14 Jul): 620, Q32, V44!
Kaplan CAT5 (17 Jul): 570 (boo!), Q35, V32
GMAT Prep1 (20 Jul): 650!, Q43, V38
…MGMAT SC bible arrived in the mail, finally! Great book, as recommended on this forum!
Kaplan CAT 6 (23 Jul): 640, Q43, V34
MGMAT CAT 1 (25 Jul): 490 (HORROR!), Q29, V34 – silly mistakes plagued Q section– I was really tired that day – decided to dismiss it as a bad day. However MGMAT was great at explaining how to think about the questions – much better than Kaplan CAT. Also know that in the next 6 days, I’d be better off getting really BASIC math right than worrying about advance questions.
GMAT Prep2 (28 Jul): 670, Q46, V36

Test day! 31 Jul: Felt encouraged that I have come so far in about 4 months though I didn’t even complete all questions in the OG. I did very little work overall for RC and CR and just worked away on quant and SC. Just didn’t think too much about how it would to turn out and decided to just give it my best shot. AWA was pretty straightforward. Quant was as usual a rush at the end – a couple of educated guesses in the middle and then guessed about 3-4 straight at the end!! I always run out of time so no surprises there. Verbal was tough. At one point, I was reading a short passage twice because I couldn’t concentrate as a person next to me was typing loudly away! Guessed 2-3 questions as out of time. I seriously almost had tears in my eyes when the score came up. It was a combination of happiness and relief: 710 (92%), Q46 (76%), V41 (92%).
No one could wipe the smile off my face! 710? Really? Am I dreaming?!!!

A BIG THANK YOU to GMAT club community for continuing to inspire and share. I hope that this too can help encourage those who may be feeling the same things as me. My only tip is that everyone has different approaches. Take tips from this forum but adapt to your style. For example, skimming does not work for me at all. I just had to read. Doing quant in 2 minutes also does not work for me. I just did checks at 60min/30min/10min left as BB had suggested – that’s much better. I knew then which questions I had to rush or make an educated guess.

Good luck to future test takers!

On to applications – top schools seems slightly nearer to reach!!
And yes…I am still smiling...