My GMAT Journey to 740! (Q50 V40 IR7 AWA6.0)

An on and off journey that began almost 18 months ago has finally come to an end with my 740! I share my story herewith, hoping it can inspire future candidates especially the one's who have taken up self preparation. (Long post alert!)

Preparation:

I started my prep almost 18 months ago, maybe quite unconventionally I would say because I used an assortment of notes and tips I could find around GMATClub. I spent about 1 month on Quants and 3 months on Verbal to go through the basics. However my accuracy with the questions I practiced was rather poor at first - I kept falling into trap answers. Although looking at the OE's, I would think "How did I miss that??!?!". So even though my basics were set, I had to spend a lot of time (about 4 months) practicing to get into the mind of the question makers. Coincidentally, it was around this time that bb brought in the Game of Timers - a real game changer in my prep - which helped me familiarize with a wide range of question types. At this point, I took my first mock test (Experts Global) and scored a mere 660 which was a reality check, and a blow to my morale. Then work had me travelling a lot which forced me to suspend my prep until March 2020 when I was able to restart my prep with the extra free time from the enforced Covid lockdowns. Goes without saying that I was very rusty but thanks to the Veritas prep course which I won through the Game of Timers, I was able to get back up on my feet. With 7 mock tests and an average score of about 710, I decided to go ahead and book my date.

Test Day:

I went into the test with a lot of confidence having scored a 770 in my official mock test - 2 days before my test date. But on my way to the test center, I was thinking of ways to overcome nerves (basically, I was nervous that I might get nervous - is that even possible? ). However over the signing in and accepting of T&C processes, I grew more comfortable with the environment (it took almost an entire 10 mins before I began my first question). I took the Q/V/IR/AWA test order as I was most comfortable with Quant. Luckily, wearing a mask did not make me too uncomfortable and it had little to do with my performance.

And as expected, I went through the Quant section with ease (at times I felt my performance was bad because the questions seemed to be getting easier). Verbal however, hit me hard with 4 RC's - RC being my weakness given that I have never been much into reading all my life. At this point I was quite sure I wouldn't be able to replicate my V46 which gave me the 770 in my mock test. But I made sure to forget about this setback before I began my IR which turned out to be easy again (I got 3 questions from the same MSR set which helped me time better). AWA again was rather simple to find flaws but this was something I hadn't practiced for. I was rather surprised by the time it took to type in the essay within the given 30 minutes.

Finally, it was a no brainer to accept the 740. I was quite disappointed to not have repeated the 770 but judging by my Veritas scores, 770 was probably an outlier in my mock tests and moreover 740 was well within my targeted score range.

A few takeaways I would like to share from my experience:
- Follow a single source for preparation.
- Save a majority of the official questions for the end of your prep. For ex.- OG17/OG18 questions can be used initially but the rest can be saved to be used towards the end your prep. (These are the most accurate replications of the questions you will see on the test).
- Use ONLY official questions for the last month of your prep.
- Do not skip AWA in your mock tests.
- Most importantly, when you're trying the hard questions in GMATClub (rated 85% or 95%) don't take it too hard on yourself if you get those wrong. In most cases these questions are tougher than those you might see on the GMAT.
- Finally, ENGAGE YOURSELF AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE IN THE VARIOUS DISCUSSIONS AROUND THE FORUM!!

Goes without saying, GMATClub has been the single source of my success. Wish there was a Super Kudos button I could click on for the GMATClub team! I will skip special mentions here because there are just way too many contributors (experts and non experts) and I don't want to miss any of them.

(P.S - To all those who are currently preparing, participate as much as possible in the upcoming Heroes of Timers Competition - you might learn more than you expect!)