My incredible journey from 610 to 720 in 20 days

Hi All,

Today I gave my GMAT exam and happy to announce that I scored 720 (Q49, V40, IR8) after 4 months of rigorous preparation. It has not been an easy ride for me - someone who is 35+ years old, long away from study, working as an expat in a foreign country and who has a family & two young kids. I started my preparation in early August hoping to wrap up the study within 2months and at first scheduled my exam date on 30th Sep. However as the study progressed, I realized that 2 months was never adequate and rescheduled the exam date to 30th October.

The outcome of my GMAT 1 exam was a disaster. I scored only 610 (Q49, V24). I was shocked by my verbal performance. I never had scored so poorly in verbal in earlier mock tests. Something went wrong on that day. I decided to reapply for the exam and scheduled within the next 20 days so that I don't loose momentum. In this meantime, I revised my maths again and practiced in the verbal section. And finally, today I have come out triumphant. Honestly, Q50 would have been a perfect icing on the cake, but I am still happy and proud of what I have achieved.

Finally, I will like to share my gratitude to a few and also share some tips or my own realization as I prepared for the study.

1> I have to first express my thanks to Brunel, GMATNINZA and other GMAT club contributors for making this forum so effective for GMAT applicants. Your maths (700 question bank compilation) is a treasure and practice questions & associated explanations really helped me to push Quant from 45 to 49.

2> I need to thank EGMAT for its contribution to my SC ability. I like EGMAT VERBAL for two reasons - a> It start from the basics, important for non-native English speakers & b> never leaves you alone in your development journey on acquiring verbal skills. Honestly, I like EGMAT's SC better than CR/RC. The pre-quiz, concept files, Application files and follow up practice files ensure that you understand each module from very basic and gradually step up competencies. Also, the verbal scholaranium, in the end, has about 750+ questions which have been immensely helpful in handling various types of SC question-answers & their nuances

3> I need to thank Brent, of GMATPREPNOW whom I followed for math preparation. Brent has discussed almost every aspect to form the basic building blocks. Also, he has added reference of a variety of top quality questions (easy/medium/hard) in each of his module, which covers the complete spectrum. most importantly, he has also shared tips & tricks for handling difficult question types. I am particularly grateful to him for solving difficult Geometry DS questions

4> Manhattan (existing versions on the internet) should remain the bible for every GMAT applicant. Those volumes are thorough and cover the basic aspects. I used Manhattan for SC & Maths only.

5> I also liked Magoosh approach for SC questions - approach for looking splits & aggressive elimination

6> It's very important to be in test mode before the exam. Because I had exhausted 5 Official Prep Tests before GMAT 1 exam, I also purchased Manhattan GMAT Prep (1 free + 5 CAT). Although Manhattan questions are much tougher & lengthier, practicing them will prepare you for the D day perfectly. I also solved 800 Scores question papers (they come free with EGMAT subscription). Their QUANT is representative of OG standard but verbal is not.

7> Don't trust the result of Official GMAT Prep Test blindly as your ability indicator. I scored Q51 and Test Exam 6 and questions were relatively easy. But, today I really had a difficult time. I suggest that you trust the outcome of Test 3-6 as the range of your ability (for example Q 47-49 or 49-51 or Verbal 28-32 or 35-37) and hope that on D day, you give your best. As you practice, your aim should be to improve the range in each practice exam. For Manhattan CAT, try to maintain Quant 45/Verbal 35 to achieve 700+ score in real exam.

8> Meaning is very important in GMAT verbal. I particularly focussed on meaning analysis for both SC & CR before scanning through the answers. For both SC & CR, I attempted to correct the questions in the question stem itself. This really helped me to save a lot of time by not reading every answer choices. I adopted the same approach in RC. I internalized each paragraph in my native language and formed a summary. I SUGGEST THAT DO NOT ATTEMPT DOCUMENTING SUMMARY. IT IS VERY TIME-CONSUMING & IN NEW FORMAT WITH 4 RC'S, THIS APPROACH WILL ONLY ADD STRESS. And during scanning answer choices, once I found the option closer to my pre-thinking. I clicked it and moved on.

9> Don't ignore IR & AWA. Those results complement your Verbal & QUANT scores. And any poor score in them will pose doubt on your otherwise good Quant & Verbal scores.

And finally, I will like to wish all my fellow MBA aspirants best of luck. I have not decided whether I will pursue MBA or not, but if I do so, I hope to meet some of you in my MBA school.

Cheers