Hey Guys,
My name is Akshay and I am currently 24 with a 1 year experience in startup analytics, scout, business plan development and overseeing development of Renewable energy projects with government bodies in India. I have been involved in working with IIT-B Startups, Governement Research associations for development of Ethanol engines, and rural course development for EV technicians. I want to go for my MBA in 2023 Sept and want to start my own VC firm to fund innovative startups in India.
what I have done so far:
I have been preparing on-off for gmat since this March, and really dived deep in the GMAT Preparation about 2-2.5 months prior from today. I want to go from a ~600 to a 720. I wish to apply for the September 2023 session and I think it would be the best time to get through with my gmat now. But it is looking pretty bleak right now. Here is the material that I have been using for my GMAT Preparation:
Material Used:
Magoosh Premium Prep for covering all my basic concepts. I wouldn't say I was the best at mathematics or even at mental maths, but I feel like I really have improved (thank god). That's where all my notes for revision are from.
Moreover, I have solved the questions from Manhattan guides (1 through 9) by using online available material, I could not afford the latest books at the time. Did not feel the need to go through the material as I felt like I was pretty decent with my concepts.
I have solved about 420 Quant questions and 264 Verbal Questions from
magoosh question bank and hit about a consistent 60% accuracy in adaptive custom practice.
I have given about 8 mocks (I wasn't aware that mocks were as limited of a resource as I have now realise they are. I regret giving all these mocks. I will probably purchase another set from
Manhattan Prep to give them all for my next attempt), 6
OG and 2
Magoosh. I am not satisfied with my mock results. Here they are:
Mock 1: 530 (Q37, V25)
Mock 2: 580 (Q42, V28)
Mock 3: 610 (Q44, V29)
Mock 4: 600 (Q42, V31)
Mock 5: 580 (Q39, V31)
Mock 6: 650 (Q42, V37)
Mock 7: 510 (Q30, V30) (I must admit I didn't exactly give this mock in Ideal Conditions and that I was regularly disturbed while attempting this mock)
Mock 8: 560 (Q42, V25)
On my last 2 weeks of GMAT prep I was doing round about 80 questions, 40 of each sections daily. I kept an
error log and noted and understood all the solutions. By doing so, although it might not seem evident looking at my mock scores, I have improved in understanding where I lack. Here is what I feel:
Quant:
Whenever I get a question wrong and look at the solution (on
magoosh), it is almost evident to me where I messed up. I have come to a point where when I see the answer (just the correct option) I can solve the question and figure out exactly where I messed up without looking at the explanation. I also do the question correctly and sometimes (less frequent than not) select the wrong answer because fairy god-mother tells me to and believe me I feel really dumb when I do that. There have rarely been any questions I feel like I don't know the concepts to. However, if I could narrow it down, I would say Progression, probablity, counting principle and statistics aren't exactly my strong suits.
Verbal:
Now, I don't mean to brag, but I am a fluid communicator in spoken English. I often feel like I communicate better in English that I do in my native language (i.e Hindi). But Verbal is my worst enemy. When I am solving sentence correction, I just pick the answer which would seem the best in spoken English. I never break a sentence down into it's constituents. Only recently I started to break sentences to be in sync with the main subject and follow a homogeneous verb tense structure (I just do it naturally while speaking english). This fact is faintly evident in my verbal score record in mocks. Often the correct answer choices seem arbitrary and it sometimes feels like I can make the case for selecting the wrong option too. Again, just as I do the question correctly in quant, I sometimes don't completely read the answer choices and then when I see myself making the most obvious of mistakes which I know I wouldn't have made if I was not under stress, I feel as dumb as a bad of rice. Other than SC, verbal questions follow almost the same typical routine for me. I select the option and feel like the correct choice is rather arbitrary in RC and CR parts also.
Where I am at currently:
So my first GMAT is on the 30th Aug 2023, i.e. day after tomorrow. I wanted to defer it to a later date but I had already deferred my GMAT once from the 22nd to the 30th in hopes to apply for round 1. So I feel like if I do it again, I will just get stuck in the cycle of deferring. I will rebook my gmat for a month and a half later. I originally wanted to Attend Rotterdam School of management (QS 30) but have been adviced to get my MBA from Insead or HEC (I want to go to Europe. I calculated the ROI for a 2 year program and it is not paying the investment off as well as a 1 year program against the current interest rate on education loans in India). I was orignally aiming for a GMAT score of 720. I took about a month off becasue my work was getting in my way to clear my concepts, but got only to an average of 600 so far. I am gonna continue with my work and prepare for GMAT on the side for the next month and a half and see where that lands me.
My questions:
What do I do? How can I improve? Is it even possible?
Would it be too late for me to get my gmat by late october-early novemeber to apply in universities? I wanted to go for round 1 because I thought I would have the most chances. Could I aim for scholarships by that time?
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you GMAT-knights.
close
28 Aug 2022, 08:12
