Hi all, I finally took (technically re-took but the previous attempt was over 2 years ago, with negligible preparation and with no after-thoughts of re-taking the exam or of applying for a MBA program. So I count this as my first real attempt) the GMAT while messing up the Quant and IR section. I just want to convey the points that I think may help future test takers. I haven't concentrated on the organization or grammar of it so please ignore these aspects here.
I spent most of my preparation time on the Quant section (my Verbal has been strong and steady). I started with basic questions covering some topics from the Kaplan and
MGMAT books. Later,
for most part of my preparation, I worked on 700-level problems ONLY. This was through GMATclub and
MGMAT tests. I also worked on some Sentence Correction problems and tried to learn from my mistakes.
I didn't study many explanations of RC and CR questions coz I knew I could get the incorrect ones correct just by concentrating more on reading the question and answer choices.
For every question that I answered incorrectly during preparation, I made sure that I spent unlimited time, sometimes more than an hour or two on a single question, trying to understand it from ground up. This I did using GMATclub forum's free and large repository of questions. This would also lead me to study other questions of that topic and I would move on ONLY after I was confident that I wouldn't repeat that same mistake (however, after I had worked on several hundred questions, I found myself repeating those mistakes sometimes!
so not sure how worthy that "unlimited time" proved to be).
In the last week before d-day I took three mock exams, all approximately around the same time as that scheduled for my GMAT exam. I kept a day's gap in between each of those exams to avoid draining my grey muscles and to increase their "elasticity". The last mock test I took was 2 days before d-day. A day before the exam I tried to remain in bed in the morning and sleep again (my exam was scheduled for next day's afternoon).
The rest of the day I kept myself occupied with things not related to the GMAT - went out and also scheduled dinner with a friend who was visiting my city then. That night when I went to bed I made a playlist of all my favorite Beatles' tracks, put on my earphones, tried to get my mind off the exam by using controlled breathing and went to sleep.
I managed to sleep unusually well - totally unlike me before any important day but I think
I felt confident with my preparation, my mock test scores were not varying too much and I just wanted to get done with the GMAT now to move on from there.
How I messed up in QuantI messed up in Quant mainly because I was too nervous and spend too much time on the first half of the section. As a result I was left only about 1.2-1.5 minutes each for the last 15 questions. I rushed through them, making thoughtful guesses and didn't have enough time to answer the last question, which happened to be a very simple arithmetic problem.
I don't remember getting any
probability questions so even if I did, it wasn't a very tricky one. I did however get a tricky
permutation/combinatorics question and many
algebra and
word problems.
Almost ALL the quant questions were unusual - none like I had ever seen before! This was shocking because they were VERY different even from hundreds of either
OG or GMATprep questions I had worked on before. They were not all difficult, but just different. In fact, they were like 600-level questions on GMATclub and other sources of GMAT preparation that I had followed during my preparation. As a result, such unexpected questions in the beginning (specially the first which seemed quite tricky) stressed me out and made me very nervous for duration of the whole section.
I wish I had included more 600-level questions in my preparation. Anyway, I got a feeling that maybe GMAC has recently released a huge database of questions.
My Quant and Verbal scores in GMATpreps and other mocksIn this order:
GMATprep 1: 730; Q48 or 49, V40
MGMAT1: 650
MGMAT2: 630
MGMAT4: 650
MGMAT5: 610
GMATprep 2: 710; Q48 or 47, V38
GMATprep Exam Pack 1, 1: 680; Q48 or 49, V36 or 37
GMATprep Exam Pack 1, 2: 690; Q45, V39 or 40
I got a 91 percentile on Verbal, same as the overall 91 percentile I scored overallThe last question that I missed on the Quant section was a very easy fraction-rationalization question that I solved mentally but couldn't tick the correct answer in time. This seemed to me like a 500-600 level question and made me feel like my GMAT score was doomed to be in between 600-670, depending on my Verbal performance that was yet to come. I went to the toilet, washed my face and told myself to read every RC/CR question and answer choice with full concentration to get at least a 670 on the overall exam. This resolve made me stay away from slacking during difficult RC or CR questions. I got 4 RCs, including a very long and difficult one. All the CR questions seems easy after I had read the premise and questions thoroughly.
I messed up the IR sectionI did not do a single IR practice question and
neither did I try to improve my IR mock-scores by any means because in my mock test I was getting an average score in IR and I have read/heard that IR scores do not matter just yet. Even on d-day I tried not to push myself to solve tricky IR questions that the section started with and carried that same attitude throughout the IR section. This I did to save my energy for the sections to follow. I wish I had not done that - it would have also given me the warm-up or conditioning (which I got from the Quant section) I needed for the Quant section.
Let me know if you have any queries, I hope the above can help future test-takers achieve their maximum potential on the GMAT exam.
Also,
bb Bunuel and others: Wondering if I should re-take the GMAT or concentrate on applying before Round 2 deadlines (in 20 days) ?
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10 Dec 2015, 14:51
