710 (Q50,V35) - My 3 year long journey

I scored 710 finally after preparing for GMAT for almost 3 years(actual preparation period maybe 1.5 years) and after multiple attempts.

Some people on the forum whose answers, explanations and video series helped me a great deal are GMATNinja (especially his YouTube RC series of 4-5 videos), Bunuel, carcass , souvik101990 , mikemcgarry VeritasKarishma , daagh , SajjadAhmad and of course bb for this forum.

Also, just a disclaimer, this debrief is not written in GMAT-style English, because it is quite different from colloquial English. I scored a 5 on AWA so please do not judge me for the writing style of this debrief

The One Where I was clueless
When I started my GMAT prep, I knew very little about GMAT. I learned about the types of questions in Verbal and Quant and prepared roughly for a month with a job. I studied barely an hour daily over this month. I wasn't aware of GMATPrep and did not give any mock test. Went straight for exam and scored a dismal 610 (Q48,V25). I remember precisely after seeing the score, I was wondering if it was a good score because I didn't know what was the maximum and minimum range, or what was a good score for each section. While going home from the center, I googled a bit and realized this score was not good enough to get me into any B-school. I also learnt that my quant score was strong and I could do really well in it if I prepared with right approach for it. For verbal, I knew I had to take a long arduous path to get a decent score. In a way, I felt a strange confidence that if I put my mind to it, I can score well on GMAT with right strategies and enough knowledge.

The One where I hoped for a Miracle
I had been working in my then job for 2 years and I was getting good exposure there along with added responsibilities. So, I just kept working with full throttle at the job and took for granted that I would continue studying for GMAT side by side. I didn't have a clear goal of getting into a good business school next year since I was engrossed with my then job.
6 months went by, I was studying bare minimum for GMAT with a job that had become very demanding (10-12 hours each day). I decided to take the GMAT again, and thought to myself I will ace it this time. I had read debriefs on GMATClub of people who went with no pressure and ended up with amazing scores. I also thought my knowledge was better than last time, while ignoring the fact that I had not studied consistently, nor had I given a practice exam. All in all, I was expecting a miracle and an eye-opening miracle it was. I scored 580(Q44,V27).

Shocked would be an under-statement for what I was feeling at that moment. I knew I had been wrong all along and this exam is not as easy as I had been misled into believing. Of course, there were retake debriefs on this forum where people had struggled for multiple attempts over years and achieved the perfect score, but my foolish brain ignored them and made me think I was smart enough to crack it with minimal preparation.

The One with the Break
A few months passed by and I started hating my job. I knew I was not meant for this job. I was good at it but I couldn't see myself doing it for next 30 years. I seriously started planning for GMAT. I read a great number of debriefs and success stories, how people strategized, how they perspired through failures. I also looked up for good business schools, the concentrations they specialized in, and tried to map my career aspirations with the kind of jobs/work-life each concentration offered. I also took up egmat verbal course after much research on the forum and started working on the modules. They are time consuming but I feel they did help me in building my basics for Verbal. I owe my SC capability to them, since by the final GMAT attempt I was able to solve SC questions of any difficulty level within 1:30 mins. (1:30 is for the 700 level questions, for 600 level questions - my timing was under 1 minute).

I decided to take a 3 week break from job to focus on my prep and get done with GMAT. Convincing my manager and senior manager took a couple of weeks but I was finally going to get the much needed time-off for GMAT preparation. In those 3 weeks, I had a schedule and topics cut out for each day. I focused more on Verbal since it had been my weakest area. I read abhimahna 's debrief and liked his reasoning behind getting involved on the forum and putting explanations for each question that I solved. He went as far as solving each question that was posted on the forum. I subscribed to all the main threads on the forum and tried to keep up with solving the maximum questions I could. I feel this is a great strategy for someone who is starting his prep or who has maybe more than 6 months to prepare. I soon felt that I was not able to keep up with this strategy and was missing out on the areas that I had written down at the beginning to work on. So, I changed my strategy. I took up one area, say CR assumption questions( they still give me a hard time) and used the search tags feature on forum and solved all official and LSAT questions. LSAT ones are tough but they help in building concepts. Once you have tasted a bitter fruit, the sweet one is savory. In the beginning, questions seemed tough and took a lot of time to solve, but after you have solved 30-40 questions of an area, you can pretty much predict by reading a question what its going to ask and how to solve it. This strategy is time consuming but I realized it works for me. I could sense the improvement in my performance. As I was approaching the exam date, I realized I had not given much time to quant preparation. I had read great reviews about the GMATClub tests and I had just enough kudos to access them, so I decided to give them a try. The tests did prove to be useful, the questions are bang on on hitting the basics and they build up from basic and swoop into the advanced areas. I didn't worry too much about what I was scoring on these tests because I knew I was still in learning process. I think the maximum I scored on these tests was 47 or 48. I took the GMAT Prep tests too and was scoring in the range of 650 to 690. I kind of knew I might not be able to crack a 700. But, my leaves were getting over so I couldn't push the exam date too far. I also had my wedding coming up in 3 months and wanted to give my time in planning the wedding too. So, I decided to go ahead with the planned exam date.

The test day came and I don't recall being stressed or running out of time on any of the sections. The score was 650(Q50, V28). I was exhilarated with a 50 on quant but felt crappy about scoring 28, just 1 point more than last attempt. I had worked so hard on verbal and the result was nowhere close to it. I felt dejected but soon got pulled into wedding prep. I felt I had given my all and it was time to focus and prioritize my personal life. So, 6 months went by in a jiffy amid the wedding prep, bachelorette, The wedding, vacation, changing countries, settling in in new City et al.

The One where I almost made it
I had quit my job and moved to a new country for 4-5 months to be with my partner(that's what we had planned, but COVID shat all over it ). I decided to use this time to re-appear for GMAT (I know! How did I have the motivation after 3 failed attempts is still a mystery for me.) I ordered ESR for previous attempt, analyzed it at great length and detail over a week, discussed it on forum, asked experts and figured out my weak areas. I felt motivated again to work hard on improving my Verbal. I also decided to not pressure myself with a test date and just work piece by piece without any pressure of a looming test date. Turns out, it is a very bad strategy, at least for me. In a month and a half, I realized I was just procrastinating and studying barely 2 hours a day. I was not working, I had all the time in my life and yet, here I was, the master procrastinator. I feel if there is one thing you should take away from my debrief, it should be, how not to prepare for GMAT. Because I have tried all kinds of bad strategies.

I took an exam date and told myself it was time to get serious. I was never going to get this crazy amount of free time to focus on GMAT in my career again. I stuck with previous strategy of picking an area and working on it till I perfect it. Perfecting an area meant in a set of 30-40 questions, when I could solve close to 90% of questions correctly.

I was confident about quant and devoted most of my preparation time on Verbal. I thought I would give last few weeks to quant and brush the concepts quickly. It did not turn out exactly as I had planned. In actuality I prepared for quant only for a week. By the last leg of prep, I had exhausted all of my GMATPrep tests and was scoring between 690-710. I was confident I would be able to crack the 700 roof this time. Although I wished I could raise it to 740 ( that was my dream score because I come from an overrepresented pool of applicants), but I was happy to accept a 700 at that moment because I had been preparing for GMAT for so long.

The exam day came, and I started with Verbal, I struggled to complete the section in time, I may have guessed last 3-4 questions. I don't remember being very stressed throughout quant section. I knew it was not a good sign. I have realized that when I feel unsure about a certain section, I score better in it. When I feel I am doing great, I usually end up scoring less than I had expected. The score came and it was 670(Q46, V36). My heart sank looking at Q46. This was the best verbal score of all my attempts and worst quant score. If only I had worked more on quant in last few weeks. I wanted to beat myself, because it wasn't so much that I was bad at quant. I was good at it, hell I was great at it(remember Q50 in previous attempt), I somehow ignored quant all this while preparing for verbal.

The Last One
I decided I was in my element at verbal and should re-appear soon with better prep for quant. I knew I had to work on my timing strategy too since 4-5 incorrect questions at the end can bring my score down significantly. Booked a date within next 1 month and came up with a new schedule. I told myself, this time I would not make any mistake. I alternated between quant and verbal throughout the week. For example, I would study CR and SC for 2 days, then for next 2 days I would practice PS and DS and so on. This way, I realized I was not losing touch with any area. It was mildly difficult at first to mentally plug in and out of topics when you have been working on an area for 2 days, but eventually I aced it. It was the right thing to do. Not so much of a breakthrough of a strategy but these simple habits help so much in long run.

This time I manifested my dream score, I envisioned myself seeing that 740 on screen after my exam. I also finished a good chunk of Atomic Habits by James Clear. I have realized that knowledge only takes you so far, building the right mindset and attitude, helps big time in tackling unknown situations.

Finally, the exam day arrived. I thought I was doing fine on the morning of the exam until I realized my appetite was gone. I was just too anxious to eat anything. Husband calmed me that a little stress is healthy for exam. He has been a big support throughout this journey, at times motivating me even when I doubted myself after 4 failed attempts. I ate just enough that my body could take. Went to the exam center and started the test. Verbal was tough, my new timing strategy was going perfectly well until I reached question 18/20(don't remember correctly). It was a dense RC(3rd RC) and it took me 5 minutes to go through the passage. It was probably one of the hardest passage I had seen on an official exam. I told myself its a good sign that I am getting tough questions. By the time I got done with that RC, I realized I had spent 9 minutes on this passage, now I was running behind. I pulled myself together and continued. Question 32 was an RC again with 7/8 minutes remaining. I knew this was not the time to panic. It was a difficult RC but easier in comparison to previous one. Towards the end, I guessed at least 2 questions and finished the section somehow.

Went to the washroom and told myself that you are doing great and just focus on getting a 50/51 in quant. Quant was easy in the beginning till question 10. I remember I was thinking why am I not getting some tough questions. Then the questions started getting tough slowly. I was able to solve mostly all of them and was feeling confident, though higher difficulty meant I was left with very less time towards the end and ended up guessing a couple of them.

In the break, I remember telling myself this might be it. Maybe this would be last time that I would be appearing for this exam. Braced myself for IR and AWA. IR was easy this time and finished it in time. Dragged myself through AWA and followed the Chinese burned's guide to the tee.

The exam ended and as the score was loading I was telling myself- "Please be 730 at least!"
It was 710 (Q50,V35) . I was so happy that I didn't think twice and just clicked on I Accept. The windows went by so fast as I pressed Next, Next, Next that when the exam ended, I thought - did I actually press I accept?
Came out and received my final score print-out and checked the score again.
It was not 730 but I would take this 710 for now. I had worked hard for it and at this point it felt that this was bound to be the result and I frigging earned it.