From 600(even after 3 months of hard work)to 720(in 20 days)

I had my G-Day last week (4th Jan-2012) and I scored 720 (Q 50, V 38).
I’m sure there are lots of guys who are frustrated to see their scores being stagnant even after lot of hard work, just as it happened to me. I tried for 3 month with hard labor but couldn’t score more than 650in MGMAT and 600 in GMAT prep. My post is for those guys who feel burnt out after indulging in hard labor and still do not see any difference.

Background: I’m a non native speaker with 4 years of work experience. I planned to take GMAT twice in case I don’t manage a decent score(but now thankfully I don’t need to do that).
Books that I have used:
SC: Manhattan GMAT SC. OG-12, Verbal 2nd ED, list of GMAT prep problems.
CR: CR bible (I prefer this to MGMAT CR), MGMAT CR, OG-12, Verbal 2nd ED
RC: None in particular. Solved around 10 Aristotle RC passages ( But they don’t reflect GMAT standard and were waste of time for me). I didn’t solve RC problems from OG either.
Quant: Nothing in particular. Solved OG-12 and 700-800 level prep problems randomly collected from the GMAT Club forum and MGMAT forum. Here is a note for quant: OGs don’t reflect the standards of real GMAT quant. So don’t get hung up on that. GMAT quant questions are way tougher and trickier than OG problem. The GMAT prep software is the only standard comparable with real GMAT. I had Jeff Sackman, but didn’t use it.
My three golden rules: (I realized late, but at least before the G-Day):
1) If one particular strategy has worked for general people/someone that does not mean it will work for you. Work on your own strategy from preparation to execution. Don’t waste your time by revolving around one strategy if that doesn’t not produce result.( Keep reading my post to know how a particular change in strategy increased my score by 80 points).
2) If you are doing things the same way over and over and expecting different results then you need to rethink your entire plan.
3) There is no match for GMAT prep questions. So before jumping around from forums to forums finish those problems (Of course after the completing OG). Understand each problem and find the pattern. No exception to this rule. (There are collections of GMAT prep problems in this forum, find them). Time yourself, solve those and find authentic explanations.

My GMAT was on 4th January 2012. I started preparing from mid August. I work fulltime and my work timings are around 9 to 10 hours, five days a week. I tried to spend on an average of 2 hours a day. But with work and other things going around, the average time I used to spend 10 to 15 hours a week (excluding the tests). I maintained Error log( just the question numbers, not details of errors) for OG-12 problems only.
First I finished the Manhattan SC and solved the Verbal 2nd Ed SC (hit rate 67%). Then I read the MGMAT CR and solved 2nd Ed CRs. I tried to understand the logic and pattern. But I did everything untimed (a big mistake). In the mean time I solved Quant 2nd ED.
Then I started OG-12 and also my CAT tests. My CAT test scores were stagnant even after putting in all possible kind of strategy that I found in forums and hard labor(see my score lists). I thought I had timing issue; so I tried to take 14 SC, 14,CRs and 13 RC question randomly, and solve those in 75 minutes, spend most of the time on SCs, and go through randomly all kind of possible material I can get from internet( this was a waste of time). But there was no change in score. I was so utterly frustrated and the final blow was on 12th December when I took my first GMAT prep test. I scored only 600!(before that I was scoring 650-660 in MGMAT CATs even with little preparation).
My scores till 12th of December( after 2and half months of serious work):MGMAT CATS:
4-Sep-11 660 (Q 47, V33)
24-Sep-11 650 (Q47, V32)
25-Sep-11 650(Q43, V36)
30-Oct-11 660(Q46, V34)
10-Dec-11 650(Q46, V33)
1st GMAT Prep 11-Dec-11 600 (Q 47, V25) !!!
I was very disappointed. I realized it was not lack of effort from my side but the strategy that is failing me. I found out I have not spend enough time in quant, in which I can do better. Also I was skipping one entire RC with 4 questions to save time (because I’m a slow retainer of info, this was my initial strategy to manage time) for other verbal questions. I observed whenever I had sufficient time my RC hit rate was 11/13. I always thought I was weak with RCs. I was so wrong. I was applying same strategy over and over and expecting different result.
I stopped jumping around forums for new materials. I concentrated on basics of Quant(started spending more time on that) and worked more on inequality, and Geometry DS questions. And trust me guys; do not spend time on solving hard probability problems(I have seen this trend very often). This is not your AP maths class and you are working under stringent time constrains, so choose your battles (cliché, but true). The problems you face in GMAT are very basic statistics problems. The toughest part is Geometry and inequalities. I used MGMAT forum(GMAT prep folder) and GC forum for harder problems.
For verbal I started browsing the CR bible and solved Sentence correction problems only from GMAT prep question dumps. If I had doubts I used to find explanations only from reputed instructors (in my case I followed the MGMAT GMAT prep folder discussion). To my surprise I started recognizing the question pattern, my strength (the things I can improve), and my weakness (the things I can’t improve). I planned to go faster on SC and save time for CRs and RCs. From day one I saw everyone concentrating on SCs, so I too thought SC is the single most important thing. But things worked out differently for me. I was solving SC great without time pressure but under that ticking clock SC was a mess for me. I decided if I have to get a question wrong then let me do that faster.
After 15 days of preparation like this on 26th December I retook a GMAT prep test.
My Score jumped to whopping 710 from 600.
26-Dec-2012 – 710( Q 50, V35)(Remember by previous verbal score was V 25)
27-Dec-2012- 700 (Q 50, V34).
I got a confidence boost. I continued my preparation that way. On last week of preparation I just stayed relaxed, didn’t take any test, didn’t time myself while solving GMAT prep sample questions. Just tried to be ‘in touch’ rather than improving.

My G-Day experience:
Appointment was at 12:00 and I reached the center at 11:30. I had a mars bar, a snicker bar and water with me. The center had issue with power supply so the process was delayed. I tried to stay calm. Then the lady tried to take my picture. The machine was failing over and over. On the fourth attempt it did work. And I was escorted to the test room.
I started writing my essays and calmed down after all those hassles. Then started my quant and realized the question seemed tougher under test conditions than I have solved them before. Stupidly I spend 9 minutes on a simple calculation because I was feeling exhausted. I took a break of 30 second and started fresh calculation from scratch. Now I solved the problem in less than 40 seconds. But I have already wasted enough time and had to rush through (I had 18mins for last 12 questions, and if you are hitting constantly around 51, that time is not sufficient). Anyway I somehow finished and didn’t want to look back. ( I kept telling myself this is not the end, if things don’t go right I can try again)
I took my break, had my mars bar and water, and got back within 8 minutes. I was doing okay on time till 10/12 questions then I started slacking off. With RC and CR being showered on me, I was completely out of my time calculation. But I thought I’ll still try to solve the RC with patience and did so. The longest RC took 9 minutes of time and I had 12 questions to solve in 16 minutes with one short RC left. I did not panic. I spend 5minutes on the RC, solved the CRs and around 40 to 45 second on SCs.
After this was over I was asked sample testing of IR for 30 minutes. Once that was over I got my score. The test center gave me a print out of my unofficial and things finally got over.
Take away: 1) Build your own strategy. 2) Change things if they are not working for you 3) Work with right material. No one is perfect other than the GMAC
And I thank this thread of sharing experience. Whenever I felt down and exhausted with the prep I used to come here and read success stories. Thank you GMAT Club.
If you need any details let me know. I’ll be happy to help you.

_____________________
Ray