Hello Everyone,
Firstly, thanks to everyone who is been contributing to the GMATClub, whatever said and done this is the best resource for any GMAT takers. No its not OG, not the guides, not the video lectures by anyone but the GMAT Club forum because this is my link to all the other things. I decided to take GMAT on 12th July 2013, registered on the GMAT club by 14th July, booked my official date as 12th October. In hindsight I do feel if I would have given a couple more weeks I could have crossed that 700 Mark but I am happy where I am right now. Got my AWA score today so I thought I will write my debrief as well. Yes after reading almost each and every debrief on the Best Debrief section, I wished I could get a 750 but then later changed my Target to a 700. I was too hard on myself while preparing for GMAT, took lot of stress, the best part was my wife was there to calm me down. She was my real support in braving through this Journey.
First thing first take your time to prepare, but book a date. I am happy with my score because I knew I have to apply to colleges this year and although I am open for rejections, the applications itself is a process for self-awareness just like GMAT and I did decide during my GMAT its high time to go through that process. So take your time to prepare but know your goals, when you want to apply? Thats the major goal for taking GMAT.
Secondly treat GMAT as a means to an End an not an End in itself. Trust me when you start studying and are completely focused its easier said than done. What helps in this case is be a part of college threads on GMATClub from the beginning. It will help you remind that you are taking GMAT to attend a BSchool and not taking it to get a good score. Good score is a result of your studies and efforts but GMAT is a means to enter that dream Bschool.
Last Gyaan, Try and relax, I don't think I was able to sleep a week before the GMAT but on the last day my wife took me to watch Gravity and we had few drinks(remember few is the key word here). After watching Gravity(although not a true story), I started having a perspective that GMAT is not the end and I need to take it easy, finally I had a better mindframe than what I had during all my Mocks.
Background
Although from India, I am not from the competitive pool of IT Male, I am a commerce graduate and a Masters in Human resource working in Retail and Managing Brands. Around 4 years of Work Ex in India and in Middle East.
So coming back to GMAT
Official Score 690 - 87%
Quantitative - 49 - 81%
Verbal - 34 - 70 %
IR - 6 - 67%
AWA - 5.5 - 80%
MOCK ScoresDate Test Quant Verbal Total %ile
20-Jul-2013 MGMAT CAT 1 45 29 600 62
27-Jul-2013 MGMAT CAT 2 42 28 580 56
30-Jul-2013
KAPLAN TEST 1 46 22 600 62
3-Aug-2013 MGMAT CAT 3 40 33 600 62
11-Aug-2013
KAPLAN TEST 2 48 22 630 72
17-Aug-2013 MGMAT CAT 4 45 32 630 72
24-Aug-2013 GMATPrep 1 46 32 640 73
22-Sep-2013
KAPLAN TEST 3 49 36 690 87
25-Sep-2013 800score 1 44 40 680 85
6-Oct-2013 MGMAT CAT 5 45 36 670 84
8-Oct-2013
Kaplan 4 49 36 690 87
9-Oct-2013 MGMAT CAT 6 45 35 660 81
10-Oct-2013 GMATPrep 2 47 31 640 73
In all I gave 13 Mocks mostly on weekends but 4 in the last week of my prep. I was really disappointed by the last Mock score.GMAT Prep 2, 2 days before the exam i scored 640. For me most of the Mocks were like not much of a difference.
Kaplan was closest to my real score in the end. Till September I was targetting a 750 but in October i revised my Target to a 700 since I knew I was very poor in Verbal and needed to work a lot if I wanted to improve my score I changed my Target score to 700 with a 49 in Quant and 37 in Verbal. Although, I achieved my Target score in Quant
, couldn't do that in Verbal
RESOURCES1.
GMAT Toolkit :One of the most underrated GMAT resource is the GMAT TOOLKIT. This awesome thing on a phone was the best resource for me. It gave me access to GMATclub forum anytime of the day and came with more than 3000 questions plus links to discussions on the forum. An excellent tool called OG Tracker, Blog updates, Flashcards, You can write in your own notes, Timer, Gmatclub Quant guide Quant Games to build stamina. I think this was the smartest investment. Ofcouse you need a smartphone but most of us do have it and I think its worth the money (I bought it for INR 1499 in Indian App store). People who travel a lot its a must have for you guys, you don't have an access to Internet, no problem there are problems you can solve and view solutions later.
2.
EGMAT : For me this was the best resource for Verbal, although my score doesn't reflect the true measure of this course, I enrolled for
E-gmat and 12th August and had an accuracy of 30% in SC but it improved tremendously to 60-75% later on. Any Non-native speaker should seriously give this course a thought. I was hovering in the 20's before i started this course and I believe only because of
E-Gmat I was able to land somewhere in 30's. They have an amazing team with Rajat and Payal leading, attend their free sessions, I just wish I would have enrolled a little earlier. I enrolled for the Verbal Online course which is very well priced in terms of the support and the lectures and the flow of course.
3.
MGMAT Guides : Quant guides are a must have plus advanced quant guide if you want to convert that 49-50 or a 51, honestly I had bought the advanced quant guide but finished like 20 pages before i went back to Verbal since I already decided that I will be happy with a 49 score.
4.
Official Guides : Last month was dedicated to all official questions from the OG13 and Official Guide Quantitave Review 2nd edition and Official Guide Verbal review 2nd edition. Again I will reiterate the benefit of toolkit, The OG tracker on my phone was just an awesome thing to have, I understand that most of the people maintain an
error Log on their PCs and Laptops, so did I but honestly thing was something else in terms of your timing analysis, discussions reviews, and maintaining a comprehensive statistics( GMATClub has not paid me to write this
)
GMAT DAY EXPERIENCE Scheduled my test at 2.00 pm.
Ok lot of hiccups on my Gday, first Test was in the afternoon on a saturday, I know the place pretty or I thought I did but as soon as I left from home I got bad traffic near my home and was at the same spot for 15 mins. Finally told the driver to take a U-turn, was planning to reach 45 minutes before the scheduled time, finally reach 15 minutes before time. But the good part was I was before time. AWA and IR was a breeze, I knew I am not going to give a lot of time to both sections since they weren't so important for me.
Quant was decent, gave maximum time to First 15 question but did the last 5 questions in 3 minutes. Alternate guessing worked. The most important part that I learnt during Quant which helped me during GMAT was letting go of the problem. Whenever I guessed something I used to tell myself Its ok that you don't know this one. Thats how I got through Quant.
Had snickers and some Glucon D during my breaks. During my Verbal section I was feeling exhausted. Last 30 minutes were horrible. Although I took multiple Mock test I still felt drained during the GMAT.
TAKE AWAYSGive as many mocks as possible.
Build Stamina for Tests.
Remember GMAT is the means and not the End.
_________________
Cheers
Farhan
My Blog - Student for Life ( Oxford MBA)
close
. Target 750 next GMAT
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