My grind to the 99th percentile - GMAT 760 (Q49,V45)

There have been several ridiculously comprehensive debriefs and some very motivational stories on gmatclub (see: souvik101990, @dcummins). These debriefs got me through some tough times while taking on the tough nut that is the GMAT exam, so as a fellow lurker with a guilty conscience and an insane amount of gratitude for the community and ecosystem at gmatclub, here goes my attempt to share what I have learnt in my 6 month journey to 760 (Q49,V45) [Shall verify as soon as score report is in]

My Background:

I have no prior ‘standardized testing’ experience. Indian entrance tests are very different from what you would see in an SAT/ACT, so the entire concepts of CR, RC and SC were entirely new to me. DS, like it is to many others, was my Achilles heel, so the only familiar aspect of the exam to me was Problem Solving, which I wasn’t particularly good at either :P
I decided to take the GMAT in my final year of college to get the ‘test aspect’ out of the way and focus on building a strong application over the next few years.

Things that worked in my favour:

Like most Indians, I too, have given several ‘important tests’ in my educational life. The reason I mention this is because I consider myself lucky to never have had a GMAT shock in my two attempts. Both my attempts were in line with my practice tests, a phenomenon that may have occurred in part due to a good amount of practice under simulated conditions and a degree of comfort with such uncomfortable situations in the past. The flexibility of the GMAT in terms of timing and availability was an absolute privilege to me, especially after having taken tests with only one shot at a score that significantly impacts one’s career path and future.

I have also always had a strong command over the English Language, which I believe definitely helped me in the verbal section, especially in the questions that may have required one to develop a contextual understanding of a situation to answer them.

Prep Sources and material:

I started off by buying the OG’s, but later realized that I needed a course to teach me the fundamentals. I used the @e-gmat verbal and quant course to fulfil this need. An online course to me gave me great flexibility, and the extremely active and responsive team at E-GMAT has done a great job with the course material imo. My foundational ability on SC and CR was largely due to those structured lessons, that dive pretty deep into each topic. Given my lack of ability at the start (I scored a 22nd %ile on my first particularly brutal SC ability quiz), I felt that a structured, solid set of lessons that cover almost everything was my best bet. @RajatSadana (one the founders), motivated me to push for a 99th percentile score and even helped me structure my preparation for the second attempt.

Note: While using the OG’s, if you find yourself coming across easy questions that you wish to skip, use the Wiley Efficient Learning app and register your OG copy to sift through the OG question banks. I used this to attempt only hard OG questions online during the final days of prep. This could save you the tedious task of going through the OGs cover to cover, while having been exposed to only a few of the hard questions in the process. (especially on quant)

Speaking of quant, the GMAT club quant tests really helped me cement my quant score. I may have gotten lucky on my first attempt with the Q49, since many of my practice scores had some pretty wild fluctuations (Q43-49). Although my dream of making it to Q50 never really materialized, the rigor of the gmatclub quant CATs helped me cement my Q49 (which was definitely not luck this time). These tests were pretty overwhelming for me at first, so don’t get too flustered by bad scores (I scored horribly in quite a few of my attempts). Take your time and build ability in the process.

Prep phases and time spent:

In my opinion, disregard the entire ‘120 hours’ (median GMAT score for 700+). I’m not sure if people take that seriously, but I know I shouldn’t have. It truly is pointless to try and use ‘time spent studying’ as an indicator of readiness, I have seen stories with 4 years to 760 (again, the ridiculously inspiring @souvik101990) and ‘760 in 60 days’ (seen on an E-GMAT video debrief). The point I’m trying to make is, everyone starts somewhere, just build ability and improve skill level.

Don’t sweat it too much if you’re not constantly on the GMAT grind:

During the course of my prep, I also stumbled across several roadblocks, In the 6 months of my prep, I gave 2 end-semester college exams (spanning about 20 days each), a midterm (a week long), came down with a nasty case of dengue fever (1 month). Most of the people taking these tests would have found that at several instances, life gets in the way. We all have our priorities, and some may disagree, but to me, there were several things that took precedence (in the moment) over GMAT. What helped me here was letting myself cease GMAT prep guilt free to do what must be done, but, keeping GMAT in mind and making sure I maintain my ability level by solving questions every now and then definitely helped. I called this ‘freestyling’ xD

Freestyling – basically meant me using the GMAT ‘practice’ tool on the GMAT mobile app to solve questions whenever I was in a situation that did not allow me to do serious prep (this worked much more for verbal than quant). This is nothing revolutionary, but it definitely kept my mind focused on the big picture, even during these ‘life moments’ I’d talked about. I would ‘freestyle’ in the cab on the way to a dinner, on the bus to college, during a break I’d taken from studying for finals…. you get the gist.
This is absolutely not a substitute for solid, timed, serious practice, but it did work pretty well. I was exposed to the opinions and strategies of a lot of solid heavyweights (massive shoutout to GMATNinja, daagh, mikemcgarry, chetan2u, the gmatclub godfather - Bunuel, VeritasKarishma and many other experts who share their strategies and opinions regularly) Before I knew it, I’d ‘freestyled’ a substantial 2390 questions on GMAT practice alone.


Did I still do serious solid timed practice? Yes, I finished most of E-GMAT’s verbal and quant courses and used its scholaranium for ability quizzes and general practice. I’d gone through the OG, OGQR and OGVR cover to cover (I redid the harder questions by filtering through the online app) later in my prep and I also spent a substantial amount of time doing drills and CATS on gmatclub’s online tests (solved roughly 850 of their quant questions). I took the GMATprep mocks 1-6 twice, and took only the quant portion of the tests thrice.

Note 1: It really does not take long to blaze- click through a GMAT verbal section, use gmatprep tests for the quant portion alone if you need to simulate a GMAT-like quant CAT. They are solid reliable indicators, and imo seeing repeat quant questions sways your score much less than repeated verbal questions do (for those retaking gmatprep)

Note 2: There really is no point of blazing through tests if you don’t learn from your mistakes. Take the time to analyze and understand where you’re faltering. Do not brush it off saying you’ll ‘look at errors later’, the day rarely ever comes :P I faltered bigtime during my prep by not taking analysis seriously.
All things considered, pick a prep style that is sustainable, and works for your time-frame. I’m sure there are several people who’ve worked harder, just as there are several who have worked quicker and smarter. DON’T look at the above numbers and assume you need to match them, DO understand that effort requirements are ALWAYS subjective, and be prepared to put in some work.

Lastly, some little things one must keep in mind at the test centre on test day:

This isn’t a ‘get good sleep, eat healthy’ sort of answer, I actually want to focus on a few peculiar things that helped me out the second time around.

Cross out the remaining pages/sides on your scratchpad, before you walk out to ask for a new one after a section– Surprisingly, both of my test centers were particular hard asses about giving me a new scratchpad, even when I had just one side left. Don’t take the chance if you don’t have to.

The breaks aren’t really 8 minutes long – In both attempts, I found that the check in/check out process (palm verification, ID tag issuance) takes a good minute each way. So, practice with 5-minute breaks to be safe, and don’t overestimate the time you have to get back to your chair)

Always check your markers before you start, and don’t forget put that cap back on once done – There have been several times in the Verbal section wherein I found that my marker had dried up because I’d left it open for too long while reading a CR or SC question (I usually jot stuff down only for RC). Losing time over a dried marker is the stuff of nightmares.

Make sure your headphones (if you choose to use them) comfortably fit your ears – Make any adjustments you need to during the tutorial section; an uncomfortable, ill-fitting pair of headphones can seriously throw you off your game.

Use your fingers – On verbal, I found that constantly glancing at my scratchpad and then back at the screen broke my flow. Switching to using my fingers as ABCDE (thumb, Index, Middle, Ring, Pinky) really helped speed things up. (Curl a finger in to eliminate an answer choice, and pick the only finger that’s left standing; I read about this on another gmatclub debrief, but just cannot seem to find it, kudos to the lad who shared this)

Use the restroom, every chance you get – a partially full (yet ridiculously annoying) bladder can unnecessarily force you into an error. I recommend that you stay clear of such an annoyance

With that, I bid my GMAT journey farewell. It has been quite the ride, and has taught me a lot about the value of concentrated effort. All the best to you killers taking the GMAT in the future, simply being a part of this forum is an indication of your intent to excel! Feel free to comment on this thread or pm me about certain specifics I may have overlooked, I’ll do my best to respond asap.