My story: 650 to 780 in 3 weeks

Question

I started preparing for GMAT exactly 25 days before my final exam. And my score increased from 650 to 780 in the same period. For those of you who wanted to know if it can be done, the answer is yes. Below is my story. I shall type quickly, so please pardon the poor structure or grammar if it bothers you.

Mock test results and timelines:

10/1/15: Veritas Prep test: 670 (not counting this as official score as the test can't be relied upon)
13/1/15: MGMAT: 650 Q 50 V 31
17/1/15: MGMAT: 680 Q 48 V 34
21/1/15: MGMAT: 670 Q 50 V 33
26/1/15: GMAT prep: 720 Q 50 V 36
29/1/15: MGMAT: 760 Q 49 V 44 (saw a lot of repeat questions here)
2/2/15: GMAT prep: 750 Q 51 V 40 (built up my confidence)
4/2/15: Official GMAT: 780 Q 50 V 47 IR 8 (wish I got a 51 in Quant)

Background:

Story of extremes - Extremely strong in quant, extremely weak in verbal. Hence, I spent 90% of my time studying Verbal. Only in my spare time, did I study quant/AWA/IR.

Story:

I Knew I only had 3 weeks to prepare for GMAT, so took it very seriously from the beginning. I set my initial target at 750 as this seemed a number most B schools are happy with. Purchased the Official GMAT book and started studying. 3 - 4 days into the preparation, I took my first mock. Scored 650. Was disappointed. A couple of days later - 670. Felt worse. But from these 2 tests, I learned a lot. First, I am good at quant so no need to study for it. Second, while verbal scores were poor, I realised my CR was strong, and I used to get just 2-3 questions wrong (out of 13). My weak spots were SC and RC. RC was weak because it took me a lot of time to complete the questions. In fact, I remember that my RC from the OG was pretty strong when I didn't time myself. SC on the other hand was just plain POOR - I used to get 30-40% in my tests.

Key tip: Take a lot of practice exams. Otherwise you will never find out your weaknesses. I am also aware that people feel a poor score will lower their confidence. For these guys - you need to be more positive. Doesn't matter if you do badly in mocks. What matters is the real exam. Id rather get 400 in all practice tests and 800 in the real one than 730 in practice as well as mocks. Another reason why practice tests are important is because they help with your timing. My timing was a mess. I still remember leaving questions in a mock. But I improved so much that I completed quant in 50 minutes and verbal in 64 minutes in the real exam. I submitted before time and people looked at me as if I am a dumb ass who didn't care about the exam.

Next step was to focus on improving:
1. RC timing
2. SC
Methods:
1. Practice lots of comprehensions in a timed environment.
2. Apply brutal force to get SC correct

Slowly but surely, scores improved and eventually I ended up scoring more in verbal than quant (percentile wise).

Resources used:

Quant:

I hardly put in any time for quant. Reviewed concepts from 2 sources: OG and Bunuel's threads on gmatclub.
One of these is mentioned below, must check out others too:
math-coordinate-geometry-87652.html

In spare time, or before going to sleep, I practiced a few questions from this thread:
100-hardest-data-sufficiency-questions-162413.html

You'll understand the tricks the GMAT uses. Even if one knows everything, there are lots of times, when one makes careless mistakes. By doing questions on this thread, these can be limited. This isn't the thread if you want to improve your quant. Sorry.

Verbal:

As mentioned, my weak spot. Worked hard on this. Bought the MGMAT Verbal, but it wasn't extremely helpful. My best buy would be MGMAT SC book.

1. SC:

Studied MGMAT SC and practiced every question I could get my hands on. Literally. This included all questions from OG, MGMAT online prep, GMATprep questions, tests, 2 - 3 forums resources on this website (especially the one with 700-800 level SC questions).

2. RC:

No need to study. Practiced a lot. All questions from OG, MGMAT online prep, GMATprep questions, tests, 2 - 3 forums resources on this website (especially the one with 700-800 level RC questions).

3. CR:

No need to study here either. Didn't practice much. In fact, didn't even complete the OG questions. I'd say 90% OG questions, all GMAT prep questions and MGMAT online prep. Otherwise, was consistent in the tests.

AWA:

Only started 10 days before exam. Practiced 3-4 essays.
gmat-how-to-score-a-6-0-on-your-awa-154985.html
awa-compilations-109-analysis-of-argument-essays-86274.html

IR:

Only studied the questions in the GMAT prep software. Found timing the only difficult element of this section. Did this section in 3 - 4 of the full length tests only.

Exam day tips:

Step it up guys. This is the only one that matters. Be focussed and give it your best shot. Real exam is much simpler than the practice exams in MGMAT. Period. I don't think anyone can argue on this front. The difficulty level is similar to the level on the GMATprep software. I was much more serious in the official GMAT than in my practice exams, for which I didn't care much. FYI, it takes time to get comfortable with the pen and "paper" in the real exam!

Good luck to everyone.

fireinbelly · Answer

Many congrats for the almost perfect score

and thanks for sharing your valuable insights

parikshit89 · Answer

2 more things: 1. Just got official report - 6.0 in AWA

2. If anyone needs any tips on verbal improvement, please feel free to reply to this message. I will be more than happy to help. As mentioned, my scores in verbal improved from 30 to 47 in 3 weeks.

fireinbelly · Answer

Hi Parikshit,

Wow! Your AWA score is more than a cherry on the cake and goes on to prove your mastery on Verbal....you completely nailed it man!

Could you please share your tips on improve verbal? I will be very grateful. Thanks.

Regards

parikshit89 · Answer

Thanks a lot.

I actually asked one of my friends for tips on improving verbal and all he said was "practice, practice, practice". I can't stress enough the importance of practice questions and full length practice tests.

Step 1: Identify your weak areas - this should be straight forward. In case all 3 types (CR, RC and SC) are weak, you will still have a comparative advantage in one of the sections. Focus on the weak sections only. The strong section will improve automatically with time.

Step 2: Read tips for each section.

SC: If you are bad at this section (get <50% questions correct), then must purchase the MGMAT SC book. Read it cover to cover. 3 -4 times if needed. Memorise as many rules as you can. I still remember 2 questions in the actual GMAT that directly used rules I read in the book. Answered the question in <10 seconds each. Boom. Must practice as many practice questions as you can. There are abundant questions available on this website. Just get hold of them and practice. I used to try and do 5 questions at a time and then check answers and explanations. Time yourself. Eventual target should be not more than 7 minutes for 5 questions. I must have practiced 500 SC questions at least. After so much practice, you tend to get them correct. Somehow. I can't describe how. Eventually you will reach a stage when even if you think you've answered only 3 out of 5 correctly, when you check answers, all 5 are correct. I applied brutal force for SC really. No other way.

RC: Again applied brutal force methodology. This time it was more improving reading. I went from reading passages in an average of 4-5 minutes to in under 2 minutes. Improving reading is particularly important in the real exam when the brain is fried and one needs to be focussed. What did I do? Practice. Got hold of as many passages as I could. I would say 50-75 RC passages at least. Loads available on this website. Eventually you will start getting a hang of reading. I don't think the questions as such are difficult. (Please tell me if you disagree. I think most of us are able to narrow down the answer to 2 choices. Practice will help in understanding how to get the correct one of the two). Time yourself. I used to do 3 - 4 passages at a time (~15 questions) in 30 mins and see how I did. I can't emphasise the importance of time management in RC. In the real GMAT, expect 4 RCs and significant proportion of your time spent on these. I used to get a lot of questions in the official GMAT book correct - When I didn't time myself. But timing these made thinking very different. There are loads of strategies that books recommend - writing a story, drawing a diagram on the side, eliminating answers on the notepad etc. I didn't need a booklet to write on for the entire verbal section. So didn't believe in all these strategies. Just practice man. Timed.

CR: This was my strength in verbal. Didn't need to do much. Some practice tests and 5-10 questions a day for 3 weeks were enough.

Step 3: Practice the full length tests to get your timing right - not very easy in my opinion. These tests also provide great insights. For example, when I completed the MGMAT tests, I realised the importance of getting the last few questions correct. From my understanding, if you get all of the last 5 - 6 questions correct, it boosts up the score. I am not sure about this, but just saw this trend in my scores.

Step 4: Remember that the actual test is much easier than the MGMAT tests. And if focus level is high on the actual test, one performs much better.

Sorry for the messy essay. I hope you can pick out the relevant bits.

fireinbelly · Answer

This was helpful...thanks a lot!

apolo · Answer

Thanks Parikshit89 for your interesting and useful experience and advice, Also congrats for such a great score, Could I ask you a few questions: 1. Are you a native speaker of English? Or have you lived for a considerable period of time in an English-speaking country? 2. Could I ask your toefl/ielts score? 3. I noticed that you finished the verbal part in 64 minutes in the real exam. Could you get a higher score in Verbal if you had used all the available time for this section? I mean it seems that time has not been th reason that you could not score a perfect 51 in the verbal section. Yep? 4. Do you suggest or did you use any other really useful book for SC, other than Manhattan GMAT book? 5. So the main theme of your experience is: Practice makes perfect! (and it has made, indeed)

Thanks.

parikshit89 · Answer

Hi,

To answer your questions:

1. Are you a native speaker of English? Or have you lived for a considerable period of time in an English-speaking country?

I have indeed lived in an English speaking country for 4 years. So that helps a bit. But, I believe it was more practice rather than just living in the English speaking country.

2. Could I ask your toefl/ielts score?

Haven't taken these exams. I am not required to.

3. I noticed that you finished the verbal part in 64 minutes in the real exam. Could you get a higher score in Verbal if you had used all the available time for this section? I mean it seems that time has not been th reason that you could not score a perfect 51 in the verbal section. Yep?

I don't think I would have scored higher in Verbal. I answered all the questions without caring about time. Towards the end, I had more time per question, so paid extra attention and re-checked. But still finished before time. In quant I could've scored higher. I think I got one questions wrong in the beginning (6th or 7th question). I couldn't solve the question and picked the closest option. Had I known that I would have ample time at the end, I would have tried harder to solve it. So yes, had I known the real GMAT is so much simpler than the mocks, I would have scored better in quant for sure. And maybe had a 790.

4. Do you suggest or did you use any other really useful book for SC, other than Manhattan GMAT book?

Did not use any other book. However, when I came across something interesting in the book, I would google it. One of the keys was to focus on output. I always study so that I can get something out of the session. Blindly reading the book and thinking one will improve will not help. Try to read and then apply the concept. Parallelism was a key topic, so I tried focusing more on it. the chapter "Odds and ends" was particularly useful because it states simple rules that directly help. I didn't care about some of the unimportant topics like nouns.

5. So the main theme of your experience is: Practice makes perfect! (and it has made, indeed)

For me hard work was the key. But again, I was smart in realising that only SC and RC needed effort. And what kind of effort. So I would say more of smart practice. One day before the exam I felt as if I was fully prepared - I was super confident. In my opinion, 3 weeks of intense preparation is enough. No need to put in 6+months for GMAT.

apolo · Answer

Many thanks, And a final question (just kidding): your IQ score, :wink:

? perhaps >145. Though It is reasonable to think that there is a positive correlation between GMAT score and IQ.

SilverBull · Answer

Why can't the Veritas Prep exams be relied upon?

Posted from my mobile device

parikshit89 · Answer

I apologise for writing it that way. 2 reasons I felt the Veritas prep wasn't that reliable:

1. Loads of students on forums have claimed a ridiculously high score in that test.
2. I felt the questions were quite different from the actual exam. And even though I got a very large proportion of questions incorrect, I got a high score.

In summary, I felt the scores were a bit inflated. Hence, I didn't care for that score.

viktorija · Answer

parikshit89, congratulations! I am amazed how clear and straightforward your answers are. I have a few questions for you.

1. What was your daily routine of preparation? In other words, how many questions for how long did you practice? Was it everyday? I have a little less than 3 weeks left until my official test and my verbal score on practice exams is ~31. So I am trying to build some kind of a plan in my head for the coming days. Your story gave me high hopes of possible improvement in a relatively short time

2. How did you do the analysis of your mistakes? Would you review only the questions that you got wrong or would you analyze every single one? There is a tip that everyone is giving - to keep an error log, did you have an error log or did you do something similar to that?

Thank you!

2. How did you do the analysis of your mistakes? Would you review only the questions that you got wrong or would you analyze every single one? There is a tip that everyone is giving - to keep an error log, did you have an error log or did you do something similar to that? Thank you!

parikshit89 · Answer

Hi viktorija, Below are the answers to your questions: parikshit89, congratulations! I am amazed how clear and straightforward your answers are. I have a few questions for you. 1. What was your daily routine of preparation? In other words, how many questions for how long did you practice? Was it everyday? I have a little less than 3 weeks left until my official test and my verbal score on practice exams is ~31. So I am trying to build some kind of a plan in my head for the coming days. Your story gave me high hopes of possible improvement in a relatively short time

It is important to remember that the plan will depend on your strengths and weaknesses. And daily routine varies from person to person. I did not have to devote much time to CR. On average, I would do 1 hour SC studying from MGMAT book (very important since you can easily get a few free answers in the actual GMAT just by going through this book), 20-25 SC questions, 2-3 RC passages per day. Added to that some CR, Quant, and IR/AWA practice whenever I had spare time. And mocks of course. But I made sure, I get at least 15 SC questions in every day. It was my biggest weakness. Again, identify weaknesses, and work had on them. Don't work too hard on strengths. Had I done that, I would've got a 51 in quant but a 40 in verbal. Not as good as my current score. 2. How did you do the analysis of your mistakes? Would you review only the questions that you got wrong or would you analyze every single one? There is a tip that everyone is giving - to keep an error log, did you have an error log or did you do something similar to that? This is a very good question actually. I honestly don't believe in complicated techniques such as 'error logs'. Nor do I believe in tips that just waste time such as making notes for RC and CR questions - but that's a separate topic. You can spend the time you save by not making an 'error long', practicing many more questions!! So my motto - practice hard, but don't believe in these complicated techniques. I would definitely go through the in-depth solutions to the questions I would get incorrect. This is very important. I don't think anyone would disagree with me on it. Going through the solutions once is enough. I would also (10-20% of the times) look at solutions of problems I got correct but wasn't sure of when I attempted them. Towards the end of my preparation, I started getting more and more answers correct and hence needed to go through lesser solutions. As I have mentioned before, practice is key. If you practice hard enough, you will just start seeing patterns of SC and RC questions and automatically start getting them correct (without even realising!!). Thank you!

viktorija · Answer

Wow, I love your approach, parikshit89! I asked about the error logs, because I always doubted their effectiveness (personally). After all, they never worked for me. Taking notes on verbal questions which I would get wrong seemed to be a big waste of time as well. Now at least I know that can do totally well without using these techniques

I am not an English speaker. I moved to the U.S. quite recently, so when I first took GMAT I got a score of 17 on verbal section. Then after reading MGMAT SC I improved by more than 10 points and I have not gotten less than 31 on verbal sections since. I consider reading it again and just focusing on practice now. Thank you so much for your response. Good luck with your applications to b-schools!

adityadon · Answer

Congrtas for the great score !!! 
Is this Mock tests i am planning to have are enough ? 
MGMAT all CATS + Gmat Prep 2 free tests + GMAT prep 2 tests ( i ll purchase )
Should i go for Verits prep or not ? Scored 650 in their free mock test , but only 610 in manhattan free mock test.

parikshit89 · Answer

The mock tests you are planning to take are enough. No need to purchase Veritas. Do free test at Kaplan also. I though the level of questions on that test was pretty similar to the real exam. I didn't complete the test on it, so didn't write it here.

winAlways · Answer

Congrats parikshit89. You did great!

winAlways · Answer

Absolutely golden words.

robzzz · Answer

Hi, Hi All, I would appreciate if any one present on this thread could help me with following queries 1. I appeared for GMAT in Nov,2014 and scored a disaster 560

. I joined a class for same and scored 650 on GMAT PREP1/PREP 2. Was expecting atleast 650 on real GMAT ,but yes I was panicked like hell. Messed up right at the start with IR(3/8). Could not gather mysleft post IR. Lot of panic throughout. But, I did miss out some average level questions too. I am planning to re-apear in April/May. Could you please suggest how should i proceed with re-take like what courses should i start with, how should I plan out ? 2. I am BE in Computer Science and have 2.8 yrs of work exp. 1.5 years into IT operations and post that I took Pre-sale in IT. I would like to pursue MBA is Sales/Marketing. My 10th - 83% ,12th- 76% and BE - 74.5% . Also I have received scholarship from Maharashtra Government for 2 consecutive years. How good is my profile? What should I do to improve as I have one more year to go ahead with admission. 3. Which colleges should I target ? How do I ensure I am best candidate for scholarship ? Awaiting a positive response

alexau · Answer

Congrats on the great score!

2 Quick questions for you on the score:
1) What resources other than MGMAT SC book did you use for SC? I am trying to bump my Verbal score up within the next month and need as many 700+ level questions as I can find.
2) Did you feel that the MGMAT tests prepared you well? I am debating between taking those and the Veritas ones to fill up my time until my exam.

Thanks for all of the insight!

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