Previous Topic:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/another-unex ... 49352.htmlPreparation
I prepared for the exam in February and March 2020 using the following:
1. [https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-self-prep-study-plan-245667.html](
https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-self-pr ... 45667.html)
2.
MGMAT 6th Edition Books
3. GMATClub's Resources:
e-GMAT's articles, GMATPill's articles, Bunuel's explanations
4. GMATNinja's YouTube Videos, Ultimate Guides, and Answer Explanations (most helpful free resource by far)
5. For timing and booklet use, I referred to
MGMAT's blogs written by Stacey Koprince.
Back in February and March 2020, I was still a college student and had a lot of free time on my hands so I studied GMAT almost 4-5 hours per day for about a month or so. I developed a study plan before hand after looking at various resources and I would encourage that you do the same.
Exam
Got 700 (Q49, V35, IR8) - while it might be a good score, I know I can do better. I scored the following in the GMAT Prep Exam 5 and 6:
1. GMAT Official Mock Test #5: 760, 99 percentile, 51, 96 percentile, 41, 94 percentile
2. GMAT Official Mock Test #6: 770, 96 percentile, 50, 81 percentile, 44, 98 percentile
What happened in the exam?
1. I hadn't got enough sleep in the week and wasn't well rested. Moreover, the monitor screen was too bright for my eyes and they started watering. But I thought I can ignore the problem. Boy was I wrong.
2. General test-day nervousness. I had to read all the things twice or thrice and that ended up taking a lot of time so much so that I had to skip one entire RC. I had nailed my timings in mock test but I became way too much nervous in the test.
3. The software crashed after verbal. Luckily the administrators were very responsive and immediately restarted the computer but when the test was restarted it said that my break was gone. So I had to immediately jump from a bad verbal to quant and consequently, I messed that up too.
4. Took the break after Quant and ate some glucose biscuits, drank water and got back with a sharp mind. Ended up scoring 8 in IR with all the questions correct. I think AWA also went great but I am still waiting for my score.
Retake
I am definitely going to go for a retake because I know that I have a better potential. The question is when and how. This time "when" isn't straight-forward. I'll take a few days off, and start preparing again. Will list out all the things that require work and book a date when I feel ready.
The problem is getting a tutor. Before you go on, note that I am from India and seemingly small amounts in USD convert to almost half of my monthly salary in Indian Rupees.
I considered my options and
GMATNinja makes sense to me: I am extremely impressed by Charles and, his methodology to solving questions seems to work for me. My accuracy on SC improved a lot after I watched the free webinars in the last few days and believe me when I say I tried a lot of methodologies for SC, CR, and RC. No single resource has ever had this big of an effect on me as GMATNinja's articles have. The problem is money. It costs $ 280 per hour and every session is of two hours. If I want Charles as a tutor, then it will cost me $ 380 per hour. Since the page says that all tutors are trained equally, I guess I can pick $ 280 per hour deal. But even then, I will only have the amount for one session. So at this point, I am really evaluating whether a single session will be helpful for me.
I am really stumped about what to do next and I would love unbiased opinions here.
bb souvik101990My target score is 780 and I genuinely believe I can make it. I have to because I come from an Indian IT pool (Software Developer at a FAANG company) and I fall in 11-20%ile of my class. I have had good leadership experience in the past.
I already have an ESR so let me know if that would help you help me. If you want to know anything other than that, please post below.