My GMAT journey from 570 to 700 - Two Long Years !!

This post is long overdue. After being a lurker in the GMATForum for almost 2 years, I am finally writing my story. After countless nights of reading all the experiences of other successful individuals, I will be able to contribute to a forum which has given me so much strength. It was my favorite past-time before going to sleep. I must say it was a huge struggle. Please bear with me as this post will be long.

ROUND 1

This journey started in January 2014. At that time, I approached the exam as I would an Indian one. I thought I will give one exam just to see how it fares. Completed a Kaplan book on GMAT. I did not even take a GMATPrep Mock. I went to give to give the exam in Ranchi, Jharkhand. I remember that the official there personally opened the center for me. Literally opened, they had pulled the shutter down, I reached the centre half an hour early and saw no one there. Eventually I called up the number given on the email. The official turned up. Actually I was the only one giving the exam there that day. I remember nothing about that exam now except that I was so exhausted that I had no breath left in me by the time it got over. I scored 570-Q42 V26.

After this I forgot all about this exam. Never thought about it again. I got involved in work life, thought about giving CAT, but dropped that idea too later on.

Round 2

I was involved in an accident in July 2015. A bone in my elbow joint was broken. I had to wear a cast for 2 months. I took leave without pay on medical grounds. During those two months I rediscovered my passion for GMAT and MBA. Suddenly, it became my solution for everything. I discovered the Official Guide and GMATForum. I mainly prepared using Crack the GMAT Princeton Review Book and gave 5 tests. My score varied from 450-620. The scoring algorithm was horrible. I thought about the fact that I had 2 full months to prepare using OG. I thought I had made substantial gains. I came back to Pune after my cast was removed in Delhi, and I gave the exam in July 2015. I scored 600 - Q44 V28.

Round 3

Writing about this now, I do not know what motivated me to study again. Perhaps it was the awesome debriefs I read at night. I don’t clearly remember what I did during this round of study. I used to give a lot of MGMAT tests and hoped that regular test taking would improve my stamina and reviewing it would push my score. I gave the exam in February 2016, scoring 620-Q47 V29.

I remember being happy that I was able to score 47 in Quants, but 29 in Verbal was unexpected. I used to regularly score mid-30’s in MGMAT scores.

Round 4

Now the real learning starts.

I started taking full tests.
I started taking full tests while seated in a chair in front of a table.
I took an e-GMAT course on Verbal. It was awesome, I was able to brush up a lot of concepts. It was solely responsible for raising my verbal score from 29 to 34.
I started to maintain an Error Log
I started spending a lot of time trying to review all the questions I did wrong.
I started to analyze questions for hours to find out why this question has been framed in a particular manner and what did I do wrong.

After all this lead I committed the fatal mistake of letting myself loose during my peak period. I went on a family trip to Kashmir, which was pending for a couple of years. That simply broke the momentum. When I came back I don’t think I was in the correct mind frame to keep up with everything. I re-used the GMAT exam pack which I had used in May, just after my e-GMAT course ended. When I came back from the vacation, I just recycled those old four tests and received inflated scores. Overjoyed at the 720’s and 710’s I was scoring. I booked another exam in August 2016. I did not take any other mock tests. The score was 600- Q42 V34. I canceled the score.

I remember being heartbroken at this score, I had thought I will be able to send applications for Fall 2017, since I had already missed Fall 2016.

At this point, I needed a companion more than a teacher. I knew all the concepts but I was not able to apply any of them.

Round 5

I remember all this time that I never used to get hard questions in any of the tests. I never got Probability or combinations questions in Maths. I never got Boldfaced or Resolve questions in Verbal. I did not understand why I was not able to raise the bar.

I went to Delhi and joined Princeton Manya. They offered one-on-one coaching at a subsidized rate upon scoring a 600 in Princeton mock test. I knew Princeton scoring algorithm is skewed, yet I gave the exam without any preparation hoping to get one-on-one coaching. I needed mentoring and a friend for discussion rather than a teacher. I scored 610 in that mock. This is in November 2016. During the month of November and December 2016, I studied really hard, did the one-on-one sessions, solved innumerable questions given to me by the Princeton Teachers (Sagar Sir and Parminder Ma’am).

The difference this time around was that in Maths I was taught to look for traps rather than solve with brute force. I explored plugging in and back-solving. I did a lot of questions on Number properties based on this approach. Every question I did I used to ballpark, estimate, back-solve, plug the answer, and plug variables. Looking for traps became my second nature.

In verbal, I was told that I focused too much on a single aspect in SC. I used to find a particular split and then with brute force try to solve it by a pick. Parminder ma’am taught me to look for other clues in the options and taught me to eliminate most of them, if possible. Capturing the language shift or change was also important. I used to estimate what the answer wants from me. I devised a methodology as to how to approach every problem. Streamlining the process made it easier to spot the differences and choose between the choices. I urge everybody to develop a methodology of their own: steps to solve a problem.

I also encountered a lot of timing issues, I used to never get enough time in the end. Each ESR report that I ordered showed that I took up too much time in the middle and rushed in the last 10-15 questions. My girlfriend, Iha, who has been immensely helpful during this long arduous journey, devised a timing strategy for me. Every time I gave a mock I tried out that strategy, I could comfortably complete the first 10 questions in 15-20 minutes. I developed a strategy where I pick and choose my questions. I had decided to try to leave 25 minutes for the last 10 questions. So I had to breeze through the middle part in 20 minutes. This I did by guessing the DS quickly without calculation, solving the SC quickly with sense and parallelism, ran through difficult long passage RC by just noting the language shifts. Every time I worked with this strategy it worked.

The last 10 days before exam I started giving mock Princeton Tests on alternate days. I did not care much for the scoring. Mostly 570, 580, 640 etc. I just perfected the timing. The maths in Princeton was also too breezy did not have much traps. They were not wordy. After purchasing new Exam pack 2, I scored 690 and 700. The verbal score was constant at 38. The day before the test I scored a 670 in the old MGMAT test that I had bought in 2015. That 670 gave me more confidence than the GMATPrep tests due to the earlier mishap which caused a lack of confidence in GMATPrep Mocks.

So, I scheduled the exam on 1 Feb 2017, approximately 2 years after my first attempt in Jan 2014. During the course of the exam, I went through the questions with enormous ease. So much so that I was ahead of time. I was able to take out the traps and went through them. Around the 35 th question fear gripped my insides that I had been getting only easy questions. I got a lot of statistics and word problems,but not a single venn diagram or probability. I was too worked up at that time. I might have missed the last few due to this lurch in my stomach. Nevertheless, I went to the restroom and told myself in the mirror that I had done well. After convincing myself I went into the verbal part. Thankfully the verbal section progressively became difficult. I got a lot of resolve, evaluate questions, 2 very long and complex RC’s, which were clearly there to stop me. As soon as I completed the test I very well expected 650- 670 due to Quant part, but I saw 700 (Q48 V38) flash before my eyes. I rushed out of the centre as fast as I could and sat in the stairs for full 10 minutes to calm down before calling the cab.

It truly has been a long journey. I hope that the application journey is not as grueling as this one.

A special thanks to my dearest friend and partner, Iha, for the strategy, timing, and the invaluable advice.

I thank all the GMATForum members for inspiring and motivating me towards this goal.