I would like to take this opportunity to thank this wonderful forum for enabling me to reach this score. So, my journey started back in October 2019 when I decided to write the Gmat during my Pre-final year Engineering course. Out of curiosity I wrote the Veritas Prep mock and got a 570 with Q43 and V26. I was devastated because of the score. I was fairly good at math throughout my schooling and the Q43 especially hurt. The abysmal score ensured that I didn't touch GMAT books until April 2020. With the onset of the pandemic I thought it was ideal to utilize the new found free time usefully. I picked up the Manhattan guides along with the GmatClub Quant and Grammar books. I spent about 15 days reading the quant books and then went on to solve about 60 questions( PS&DS- sub 600-10, 600-700-10, 700-10) each day in each topic from the forum. After a month of practice I thought I was done with Quant and gave the GmatClub mock. I got Q44 in the 1st one and was shattered, But somehow had the courage to write another one the same day this time I got a Q50
. I understood that the problem with my Quant was not a lack of knowledge but a lack of time management. Just to be sure that I was at Q50, I gave 4 mocks within the next two days and got a Q50 in each(not recommended).
Now, started the Verbal section which was my Nemesis as it is to a large number of non-native speakers. Though I was comfortable speaking and writing in English, I never really paid any attention to the Grammar and always depended on my ear. I quickly went through the Powerscore CR guide and followed it with diligent practice at the forum. Then for RC, which I was fairly strong at I just went through Manhattan guide and solved lots of questions. SC was my Kryptonite and I new it all along. The subtle differences never made proper sense to me. I started SC by going through the GMATClub guide and then did Manhattan, which I was not capable of understanding at that moment. Tried doing a few problems and boy was I in trouble. I couldn't really eliminate wrong choices properly and almost always chose the second best answer. I went through the forum and looked for other ways to improve SC. That's when I found my saviour
GMATNinja. His wonderful videos ( a must watch for all aspirants) helped me understand the subtleties and methodology required to ace SC. After this I once again went through Manhattan and now it stopped looking like Advanced Calculus to a twelve year old. I then started giving the GMATclub verbal mocks my score fluctuated between 29-39. I won't recommend the verbal mocks for those looking to gauge their performance but rather for those looking for practice. Finally, 2 weeks prior to my exam date I gave the Veritas mocks, followed by 2 official mocks and a Manhattan mock.
My practice scores were the following in Chronological order:
Veritas:
July 29 720 Q50 V39
July 31 710 Q50 V37
August 9 700 Q50 V36
August 10 690 Q49 V36
August 17 740 Q50 V42
August 25 740 Q50 V41
GMATprep- 770, Q50, V-44 ( had seen 3-4 questions in forum)
GMATprep- 740, Q50, V-40 ( had seen 3 questions)
Manhattan- 740, Q49, V-42 ( 3 days before exam)I took it easy the 3 days leading up to the exam, My slot was 1:30 PM reached the center by 12:50 PM and started the exam by 1:00 PM. Quant was slightly tough and I had to guess 2-3 questions. Verbal went well and then I screwed up IR (IR 5
) by refusing to guess a hard question. AWA went okay and I had never actually practiced for it.
I hope this debrief helps people who feel like giving up ( as I felt many times) and are looking for some motivation by reading this debrief ( as I did constantly). Thank You.