Hi Guys,
It feels so good to score above your initial expectation. Hard work and consistency paid off.
I thought of sharing my experience with the community. There are already great debriefs here, I would like to focus mostly on the tips and feedback that helped me.
Journey:
Around April I decided that MBA is my next journey and I geared up for the GMAT. It took more than a month to get serious. Scheduling my GMAT helped me kick-start my study plans. I gave the first mock to access my level (Q49, V25). I was good in quant but I needed to improve my verbal a lot.
I started with
Manhattan books for sentence correction while solving OGs simultaneously. Maybe I was not that good but the
Manhattan books didn’t help me. I got almost all exercise questions correct in the book, yet in
the official guide, my accuracy was bad around 50-60% (particularly for SC). With one and half months to go, I desperately needed to improve more, and therefore I took
e-GMAT verbal online. It was really good. I improved my basics a lot. But since it took a month for the course I was unable to practice much. With strong basics and no practice, I went to give my GMAT and I flopped big time. As I thought magic will occur. There was no magic.
Official Exam - try 1 - Aug 1, 580 (Q50 V27(don't remember exactly)). I canceled the scores without thinking for a second.
Now after resting for a couple of days I was ready for my second innings. This time I knew I need a lot of time for applying to universities and cannot afford to waste much time. I started practicing again. After the
e-GMAT course basics of SC were strong. I studied only
e-GMAT documents for CR, as videos would have consumed more time, and CR was not that bad. Solved Official guides again (All). My accuracy was around 80-90% this time. I could not believe that. Yes, practice helps big time. I realized when I was getting questions wrong initially, solving them again without time constraints will get them right. So in all, after strong basics, practice improved my accuracy percentage and timing. I bought the official exam pack 2. This time I gave 6 exams. 2 free GMAT preps again. 2 official new exams, and repeated them as well. I was always solving IR and AWA as well just to hack my brain to function till the end, after 3.5 hours of the exam. This is important since I was getting the questions wrong in the last part as my brain would not be functional till the end.
Official Exam - try 2 - Sep 11, 700 (Q50, V33). This time I was feeling better, despite guessing the last 3 questions due to lack of time I managed 700. Immediately after coming home, I thought 700 for an Indian engineering male will not get me in the top 10 universities and I don't want to be waitlisted. I had already made up my mind to go for MBA this year. For me, 730 was the target score. This time I scheduled my exam immediately for Oct 19 (to give me a month for practice). I could not afford to give more time than this, considering how many other application things we need to focus on.
I was geared up for my final try now. Scheduled each day with what and how much I will be practicing. My targets were aggressive. I bought exam pack 1. I planned every Sunday for an exam. Two new exams + repeating them, 4 Sundays were planned. This time I was practicing a lot. This time my
error log was better as I was writing details about why I was getting the questions wrong and even had links of questions to GMAT club to practice them again in the last days. Even this time I practiced quant questions that I got wrong when I solved them before my first exam to improve my quant score, which was always 50. I revised
e-GMAT concepts a week before the exam. Yes even for interactive lectures they have a summary. Believe me, I learned at least a new thing from the summary every time I revised them. This time I was ready for my exam.
Official Exam -try 3 - Oct 19, 760 (Q51, V41). Before my score flashed I knew it went well. I was hoping for 730. I was like please don't give me 720. I was so happy that hard work paid off. Even I told to the administrator who gave me the score printout that this was my third time. And he was like congrats. I remember you.
Well to summarize my experience I will say do not even think of magic on test day. There are only a handful of people who experience this. Expect that you won't be the one. You need to learn basics first, and then practice and practice and practice. Keep a tab on the errors you are making. Also, I would like to thank souvik101990. His all official questions material gave me everything I needed to practice, yes everything official. This has some repeat questions from
OG but many questions were new since it has prep and
official guide questions that are removed for the new ones, an ideal material for practice. Keep in mind it contains questions from exam pack 1. Your score will inflate. Link to the material is in [1], [2] and [3]
Some other tips:- I dedicated 3 days in my first test to Integrated Reasoning. Before this practice, I was getting IR 4,5 kind of score. To learn the key concepts once and then practicing with mocks is only what you will need. For me, the
e-GMAT integrated reasoning course did the trick - came free with verbal online.
- Initial Manhattan tests brought down my confidence. They are difficult. Maybe I was not prepared at that time but I never did them again, especially full tests. I tried to give only official full tests. By full I mean all 4 sections. Yes, we should get used to them. I used only a verbal test from Manhattan for practice.
- Gmat club Quant tests are most close to real GMAT quant. I tried 4-5 of them in my first test to improve to Q50 and even Q51 (sometimes).
- Since my verbal was weak and I needed more practice in it, I practiced the verbal section of all free tests (Kaplan, Veritas, Economist). Yes this helped
- Repeating the tests gave me confidence as well. My final mock score was 800 (Q51, V41). Yes, that was a repeat test. And even in the material in [1], I encountered questions from these, but still, this boosted my confidence as for me I will always solve the questions logically.
-For SC practicing the questions again is ok since the process is applying basics. For CR though, practicing again is not that good, as we remember the argument and flaws.
-Also my real improvement for SC might be related to one of the emails send by
e-GMAT to me. I wrote them about my first test and how I somehow choked. I received a spreadsheet in return to fill and explain what was my score in their practices if I completed my full exercises, and most importantly if I am applying the three-step process they are teaching. This was an eye-opener as I was not understanding the meaning of the sentences completely at that time. From the practice, I started for my second exam understanding the meaning of the sentence was most important for me.
- I was really bad at writing. For Analytical Writing I guess everyone is aware of and if not should be aware of the chineseburned template in[4], but what to write came from this lecture in [5] for me, super helpful and that too really short. Also, I learned the template in [6] by heart. I believe it is enough to get 6 in AWA. For me, typos must have been responsible for 5 scores as I made a lot of typos in practice as well.
- For the verbal prep questions explanation or even for the official question which was not having good explanations I will just Google and open the explanations in the order mentioned below.
e-gmat (detailed experts solutions)> manhattan (solutions always by an expert) > gmat club (requires time)
-For quant questions, explanation GMAT club is best. You’ll find Bunuel (math expert) on almost every question with one of the best solutions.
- For me reaching 51 from 50 in quant required a lot of practice. Gmat club quant handbook helped. Although I spent a little time on this one. Just seeing the topics and formulas helped.
-The easiest of 700 level questions on quant is from standard deviation, though I was getting them wrong. [7] and [8] were really helpful to get them right.
- The last tip, you really need to breathe GMAT. It should be your only focus. The day before my final GMAT I was dreaming about the exam. It didn’t go well in dreams as I faced admin problems (:P), but I just want to say, GMAT was my only priority.
I am unable to post urls so attaching description that you can google
[1] the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-sc gmatclub
[2] the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr gmatclub
[3] the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-rc gmatclub
[4] how-to-get-6-0-awa-my-guide-64327 gmatclub
[5] gmat-analytical-writing-assessment/video/765 gmatprepnow
[6] awa_essay_template#text-argument platinumgmat
[7] ps-questions-about-standard-deviation-85897 gmatclub
[8] standard-deviation-on-the-gmat magossh 2012
PS: What kept me going? - "the one who practices, again and again, will eventually succeed"
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Updated on: 21 Jul 2021, 16:58
