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SachinWordsmith
Joined: 03 Oct 2012
Last visit: 03 Apr 2016
Posts: 24
Given Kudos: 142
Concentration: Strategy, General Management
Schools: Anderson '17 (S) Stanford '17 (D) HBS '17 (D) Booth '17 (D) Kellogg '17 (D) Tuck '17 (D) Duke '17 (D) Johnson '17 (S) Yale '17
GMAT 1: 750 Q49 V42
Schools: Anderson '17 (S) Stanford '17 (D) HBS '17 (D) Booth '17 (D) Kellogg '17 (D) Tuck '17 (D) Duke '17 (D) Johnson '17 (S) Yale '17
GMAT 1: 750 Q49 V42
Posts: 24
30 Mar 2016, 00:43
Kudos
Bookmarks
What I learnt from taking Aptitude Tests over 6 years
1. Overconfidence does no good
The story begins in November 2007 when a 20 year old me thought that he’s so smart (Heck, MENSA said so!), he doesn’t need to prepare for what is often called the most competitive exam in the world. With just confidence (or one could say folly) as my ammunition I wrote the CAT, which acts as the entrance exam for the top Management institutes in India. It had been 4 years since I had worked on any mathematical problem and I didn’t remember most formulae. The quantitative part was more about me trying to decipher the formulae for questions than actually answering them. The results: 99th percentile in the Verbal and Logical Aptitude sections and a 52nd percentile in the Quantitative section. Some context here — even if one doesn’t answer any questions and gets a 0 in this section, he’s close to the 50th percentile. The math section thus turned out to be an exercise in wasted effort.
2. Practice is important
I decided to get a couple of years of work experience before I took the CAT again in 2009. An illness meant that I had an enforced sabbatical and I “prepared” for the exam by memorizing the formulae which I thought was the missing element previously. How wrong I was! Another disastrous Quantitative section and a lower score in the verbal section meant I did worse with some preparation than without. This made me realize that answering Aptitude Questions is less about intelligence and more about knowing the approach to solving questions. And that takes practice, practice that I severely lacked.
3. Do your research well
My focus shifted in 2011 to the GMAT, which is the Aptitude Test of choice for International schools. International schools require work experience unlike their Indian counterparts, which one can attend straight off Undergraduation. I joined GMAT classes of a trainer who claimed to have a perfect score and also claimed to have the best results in the country. His advertising and pitch were top-notch and I had the intention of scoring over 750, which was a requirement to join his classes.
The classes needed one to do self study and to be a top performer already, with the trainer providing the final push. The actual classes were 6 hours of the trainer massaging his ego in front of awed students. Needless to say I did not learn any technique and my basics were anyway lacking. It resulted in my already fragile confidence being shattered by the GMAT trainer who was similar to the instructor in Whiplash. Maybe I am not Charlie Parker, and I certainly did get discouraged.
4. Go back to the basics
By 2014, I had risen to the role of VP — Sales & Marketing but I knew there was something missing in the big picture. So an MBA again came into the picture, which brought back my nightmare of giving the GMAT . I decided to change my approach completely. I went back to the basics — middle school and high school Math — and worked from the ground up. I realized I had a passion for solving problems and this meant I looked forward to the Mathematical section rather than dread it.
5. The approach is the key
I progressed to using resources from the GMATClub website —truly a Mecca for all GMAT aspirants. A particular user by the name “Bunuel” — he really is the Math Master! — was the inspiration and his approach to solving problems acted as the holy grail.
Both the Quantitative and Verbal sections are primarily about avoiding the traps and knowing a few rules. This needs one to first think before diving into the question. With this approach, maybe 15 seconds is spent on thinking. But around a minute is saved in solving the problem and on the GMAT, time more than anything else is the biggest enemy. Abe Lincoln said it best — “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” This is precisely the approach I took and suggest for everyone.
6. Do not stress out
I was so stressed out a week before my GMAT was scheduled that I fell ill. I wasn’t able to sleep properly and worse, when I did manage to, I would get nightmares that I somehow slept late and missed the GMAT. The night before the GMAT I turned in at 9PM (throwback to my childhood!) but I only slept by 3 AM. Sometimes even the best preparation can come undone and I thought this was what had happened.
The GMAT is a stress inducer, no two ways about it. But what helps is to think of it as a platform and not the destination. Another idea is to think of it as an extended Diagnostic Test (Everyone takes 2 anyway!).
7. Be calm — Visualize success.
The morning of the GMAT, I went for a walk around the lake near my home. I saw the Sunrise and birds flying out early to get food for their little ones. It gave me perspective on how I’m worried about something that I was prepared for, while the birds venture out into the unknown with zero hesitation.
I felt better, but the fever hadn’t subsided. I nevertheless felt I could conquer the GMAT.
8. Trust your knowledge
Cut to the GMAT experience.
Usually the topic given in the Analytical Writing Assessment (Critical Reasoning) has fundamental flaws. But to my luck, the topic given had genuine merits. I had to change my prepared tactic of dealing with the essay to suit this development. The Integrated Reasoning (Graphical Analysis) was math-intensive and I was struggling to do simple calculations. I also double and triple-checked my answers. This resulted in me not being able to finish the section.
Post a short water break , it was the Quantitative Aptitude section. I was still struggling with calculations, but I decided not to double check my answers in order to save time. Strangely none of the questions seemed fundamentally difficult. This being an adaptive test — correct answers result in harder questions — I thought I had blown the section completely.
I knew I was not in peak condition, but I had to soldier on. In the GMAT, it is the score for the Verbal Reasoning section that largely determines the overall percentile. Verbal ability has always been my strength and I told myself that in the worst case scenario, I could cancel my scores and write the GMAT again.
I had tunnel vision. I trusted my reasoning ability on the question prompts that were presented and answered fervently. Each question has to be typically answered in less than 2 minutes and most people complain about the verbal section being especially fatiguing. I had coasted through 30 questions within 45 minutes, leaving me 30 minutes for the final 11 questions. These 11 questions were at a level that I hadn’t seen in preparation and it was a matter of going where I haven’t gone before by leveraging my knowledge.
After the section, I filled in certain administrative details and clicked to view their scores. The scores appeared so suddenly that I didn’t have time to prepare for my reaction. I saw a score of 750 (98th percentile) and I fist-pumped and might have shouted a “Yes!”. The proctor saw my score and mentioned that it was the highest in a while.
9. Celebrate your wins. And your setbacks!
This perhaps is the most important lesson I learnt, which is handy in my everyday life as well.
I had numerous setbacks in the Aptitude Test arena which all served a very important purpose. It taught me to be grounded and to fix my basics. Perhaps I would not have done either if I had succeeded in my very first attempt in 2007. Success makes one comfortable and hardly teaches anything. It is setbacks that push one further and teach numerous lessons that are critical further on life. And life is not a 100m dash but rather a marathon.
1. Overconfidence does no good
The story begins in November 2007 when a 20 year old me thought that he’s so smart (Heck, MENSA said so!), he doesn’t need to prepare for what is often called the most competitive exam in the world. With just confidence (or one could say folly) as my ammunition I wrote the CAT, which acts as the entrance exam for the top Management institutes in India. It had been 4 years since I had worked on any mathematical problem and I didn’t remember most formulae. The quantitative part was more about me trying to decipher the formulae for questions than actually answering them. The results: 99th percentile in the Verbal and Logical Aptitude sections and a 52nd percentile in the Quantitative section. Some context here — even if one doesn’t answer any questions and gets a 0 in this section, he’s close to the 50th percentile. The math section thus turned out to be an exercise in wasted effort.
2. Practice is important
I decided to get a couple of years of work experience before I took the CAT again in 2009. An illness meant that I had an enforced sabbatical and I “prepared” for the exam by memorizing the formulae which I thought was the missing element previously. How wrong I was! Another disastrous Quantitative section and a lower score in the verbal section meant I did worse with some preparation than without. This made me realize that answering Aptitude Questions is less about intelligence and more about knowing the approach to solving questions. And that takes practice, practice that I severely lacked.
3. Do your research well
My focus shifted in 2011 to the GMAT, which is the Aptitude Test of choice for International schools. International schools require work experience unlike their Indian counterparts, which one can attend straight off Undergraduation. I joined GMAT classes of a trainer who claimed to have a perfect score and also claimed to have the best results in the country. His advertising and pitch were top-notch and I had the intention of scoring over 750, which was a requirement to join his classes.
The classes needed one to do self study and to be a top performer already, with the trainer providing the final push. The actual classes were 6 hours of the trainer massaging his ego in front of awed students. Needless to say I did not learn any technique and my basics were anyway lacking. It resulted in my already fragile confidence being shattered by the GMAT trainer who was similar to the instructor in Whiplash. Maybe I am not Charlie Parker, and I certainly did get discouraged.
4. Go back to the basics
By 2014, I had risen to the role of VP — Sales & Marketing but I knew there was something missing in the big picture. So an MBA again came into the picture, which brought back my nightmare of giving the GMAT . I decided to change my approach completely. I went back to the basics — middle school and high school Math — and worked from the ground up. I realized I had a passion for solving problems and this meant I looked forward to the Mathematical section rather than dread it.
5. The approach is the key
I progressed to using resources from the GMATClub website —truly a Mecca for all GMAT aspirants. A particular user by the name “Bunuel” — he really is the Math Master! — was the inspiration and his approach to solving problems acted as the holy grail.
Both the Quantitative and Verbal sections are primarily about avoiding the traps and knowing a few rules. This needs one to first think before diving into the question. With this approach, maybe 15 seconds is spent on thinking. But around a minute is saved in solving the problem and on the GMAT, time more than anything else is the biggest enemy. Abe Lincoln said it best — “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” This is precisely the approach I took and suggest for everyone.
6. Do not stress out
I was so stressed out a week before my GMAT was scheduled that I fell ill. I wasn’t able to sleep properly and worse, when I did manage to, I would get nightmares that I somehow slept late and missed the GMAT. The night before the GMAT I turned in at 9PM (throwback to my childhood!) but I only slept by 3 AM. Sometimes even the best preparation can come undone and I thought this was what had happened.
The GMAT is a stress inducer, no two ways about it. But what helps is to think of it as a platform and not the destination. Another idea is to think of it as an extended Diagnostic Test (Everyone takes 2 anyway!).
7. Be calm — Visualize success.
The morning of the GMAT, I went for a walk around the lake near my home. I saw the Sunrise and birds flying out early to get food for their little ones. It gave me perspective on how I’m worried about something that I was prepared for, while the birds venture out into the unknown with zero hesitation.
I felt better, but the fever hadn’t subsided. I nevertheless felt I could conquer the GMAT.
8. Trust your knowledge
Cut to the GMAT experience.
Usually the topic given in the Analytical Writing Assessment (Critical Reasoning) has fundamental flaws. But to my luck, the topic given had genuine merits. I had to change my prepared tactic of dealing with the essay to suit this development. The Integrated Reasoning (Graphical Analysis) was math-intensive and I was struggling to do simple calculations. I also double and triple-checked my answers. This resulted in me not being able to finish the section.
Post a short water break , it was the Quantitative Aptitude section. I was still struggling with calculations, but I decided not to double check my answers in order to save time. Strangely none of the questions seemed fundamentally difficult. This being an adaptive test — correct answers result in harder questions — I thought I had blown the section completely.
I knew I was not in peak condition, but I had to soldier on. In the GMAT, it is the score for the Verbal Reasoning section that largely determines the overall percentile. Verbal ability has always been my strength and I told myself that in the worst case scenario, I could cancel my scores and write the GMAT again.
I had tunnel vision. I trusted my reasoning ability on the question prompts that were presented and answered fervently. Each question has to be typically answered in less than 2 minutes and most people complain about the verbal section being especially fatiguing. I had coasted through 30 questions within 45 minutes, leaving me 30 minutes for the final 11 questions. These 11 questions were at a level that I hadn’t seen in preparation and it was a matter of going where I haven’t gone before by leveraging my knowledge.
After the section, I filled in certain administrative details and clicked to view their scores. The scores appeared so suddenly that I didn’t have time to prepare for my reaction. I saw a score of 750 (98th percentile) and I fist-pumped and might have shouted a “Yes!”. The proctor saw my score and mentioned that it was the highest in a while.
9. Celebrate your wins. And your setbacks!
This perhaps is the most important lesson I learnt, which is handy in my everyday life as well.
I had numerous setbacks in the Aptitude Test arena which all served a very important purpose. It taught me to be grounded and to fix my basics. Perhaps I would not have done either if I had succeeded in my very first attempt in 2007. Success makes one comfortable and hardly teaches anything. It is setbacks that push one further and teach numerous lessons that are critical further on life. And life is not a 100m dash but rather a marathon.
30 Mar 2016, 06:19
Kudos
Bookmarks
SachinWordsmith
The first attempt becomes a lot easier if you accept that a second attempt is not only likely, but also (perfectly) normal. More test takers need to be made aware of this.
31 Mar 2016, 19:37
Kudos
Bookmarks
Sachin,
Congratulations on your 750!!
Is Sandeep Gupta from Bangalore the test trainer that you mentioned about?I am planning to join him but I find a lot of negative reviews about him.
Please could you elaborate your experience with that trainer? Is he atleast good for the basics?
Thanks,
Al
Congratulations on your 750!!
Is Sandeep Gupta from Bangalore the test trainer that you mentioned about?I am planning to join him but I find a lot of negative reviews about him.
Please could you elaborate your experience with that trainer? Is he atleast good for the basics?
Thanks,
Al
