My journey from 680 to 780 in two months and a half!

Question

For many months, I have pushed the beginning of my GMAT journey. Working in management consulting, I have many colleagues who have already been to business school and gave me tons of advice on how to best prepare for the exam. With this information, there were many points in time when I read some materials available online, and almost kicked-off my journey. However, any of the recommended paths felt right for me. Also, I felt that there was an ocean of content that I would have to navigate through, and I felt as I was out of time.
This is when one colleague recommended the e-gmat course to me, and I found a single source of truth that combined the best practices from all the other resources:
1) A personalized study plan
2) Clear and structured content with the possibility of going faster over concepts that one already knows to focus in closing knowledge gaps
3) A super-powerful question bank with detailed answers
4) Mocks that are representative of the real exam.

Part 1: Building a personalized study plan 
I registered for the full course of the e-gmat: quant + verbal. I began by taking a first Sigma X Mocks as a diagnosis and I scored a 680 (Q44, V39). This result really surprised me because I thought that I would do much better in quant and much worse in verbal because I am an engineer and I am not a native speaker. 
With this result in hand, I entered the LMP (last mile program) from e-gmat invited by Archit Bhargava, who was my mentor throughout all the program. Archit set up an hyperpersonalized study plan to address my conceptual and process flaws. Archit built a plan that was ambitious yes, but most important, feasible around my work commitments.

Part 2: Executing my study plan 
For two months, I completed my study plan through e-gmat. Where I had conceptual gaps, I went through the concept files, which cover all the relevant points that are important for the gmat. All concept files first explain the basics and build on top of this to explain the full topic. I followed the Concept -> Process -> Cement flow for each of the topics until I have covered them all. Their question bank, Scholaranium 2.0 allowed me to identify my weaknesses and strengths so that, together with Archit, I could make little tweaks to the study plan. Let me be honest, I did not go to the concept files of all subtopics because some concepts I already had very clear from my background. It most certainly takes more than two months to cover the full e-gmat course in detail.

Part 3: The final push 
I completed my journey by taking some more mocks from e-gmat and also the official ones to practice for IR and AWA sections. To prepare for this last two sections I used the e-gmat IR course and the resources available in gmat club forum. Archit was there to support me when, after scoring between 730 and 750 in my mocks, I receive the surprise of a 680 5 days before the exam. He helped me identify what went wrong, how to “troubleshoot” but what mattered the most, to rebuild my confidence and do great in the real exam. I scored a 780 (Q50, V48, IR8, AWA 6)

My recommendation to you?
  Invest time to build a feasible study plan that really works for you. 
 Decide what resources you are going to use – don’t try to boil the ocean! Work with a platform that allows you to identify where you are failing and where you are doing well. 
 Be consistent in your study, try to study every day. 
 If you can spend 350 USD, I recommend the e-gmat course for this. 
 If possible, find a mentor. If you can find someone to guide and support you in your journey, through the good and the bad, it will change the game. For me, this person was Archit. If you are able to work with him, it will be great!

isandyy · Answer

It is fascinating .

Hopefully it will motivate others to do well in their exams too

good luck guys and thanks for sharing Mcarenzo

Regards,
Sandeep

Akash1165 · Answer

Dear Moderators,

Is there any way that this review's authenticity can be verified?

Please note that because of so many reasons, even a child can tell that it is 100% fake.

bb · Answer

Wow. That is an awesome score! How did you get the 680? Was that your starting score? Would be great to understand your starting position.

Thx. BB

MagdaCar · Answer

Hi bb, yes that was the score I got on the first mock I took as "diagnostic test" to understand where I was starting from.

bb · Answer

Wow! That's a pretty amazing score for the starting point! I thought perhaps you had one attempt and got a 680 and then upgraded it to 780 but a 680 is a nice place to start. I had humbler beginnings with a 540 (after a few months of thumbing through the Princeton Review book). So you are applying to HSW?

(unfortunately the score is not everything at those programs but hopefully you have a strong background professionally and academically (I suspect you should with a 680 starting point - that's sharp!)

egmat · Answer

Akash1165 - This is a verified score. The tick against the score validates that the score was verified using an official score report live link. Please take a look at the link below to see how the reviews are verified:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-club-re ... 09438.html

-Rajat

bb · Answer

Dear Moderators, Is there any way that this review's authenticity can be verified? Please note that because of so many reasons, even a child can tell that it is 100% fake. Apparently children are gullible - who would have known? I missed your friendly comment here.... yes, it is a verified review with a green tick mark (visible on desktop or on the post or profile on mobile) So this user has indeed gotten a 780 and was able to prove it. It is an automatic process that checks the mba.com site. https://gmatclub.com/forum/new-feature- ... 36030.html

egmat · Answer

.. and you can watch her interview with Rajat, one of our Co-founders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpwRC75N8bA

Cheers!

SalahT · Answer

Congratulations on 780! nearly a perfect score. I am in similar circumstances as yours. Your debrief has been a significant help to bring myself in track. Best of luck to your application process.

egmat · Answer

Dear Magdalena,

Congratulations on your prodigious score of 780. This is hugeeeeeeeeeee. I am so proud of you!

Scoring a 780 on the GMAT takes a lot of effort and dedication. You have shown utmost diligence and that is why you could reach this feat. Let's understand what your key areas in your GMAT Journey were:

A clear idea on strengths and weaknesses: Since you started with a V39 and a Q44, you knew the exact areas where you need to focus on: fixing quants and precisely targeting weaker areas in verbal. This gave you clear milestones to complete and track progress on.

Focus on Quant prep: You started with a lower score in Quant and that dictated you to do the course files in the course. Your attempts have been fantastic which shows that you were ready for the next stage: Practice to solidify all learnings from the course files.

View the Screenshot here:

Scholaranium Practice: Your Scholaranium attempts for Medium and Hard questions were great! You maintained a score of 70% in Medium and 55% in Hard quizzes which shows that the candidate is nearing the Q49ish score. You did Test Readiness diligently to ensure that you trained your mind well on doing 31 question quizzes at a stretch. This is a key part of success.

View the Screenshot here:

Verbal Precision Targeting: You also made sure you practice sufficient questions to get an idea on your weak areas and patch them up with suitable revision. Your Scholaranium Quizzes show how well you performed on them. These stats are clearly an indication of a 95%th student

Strategic Review and Error Logs: More often than not, students think that this is a waste of time, whereas this is the MOST IMPORTANT aspect to improve. You were very diligent in the process of doing reviews and maintaining logs which paid off immensely.

I have recorded an account walkthrough that entails your prep journey. Watch it here:

https://success.e-gmat.com/Account-Walk ... -Magdalena

I am very happy for you and wish you all the very best! I am sure, your journey will motivate a lot of test-takers out there.

Keep shining!

Regards,

Atreya

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