sharing GMAT experience for Bangladeshi students.

there are plenty of story in online but most does not serve those who are willing to take GMAT from Bangladesh because we do not have any good tuition provider and because we do even do not know what to do . but some Bangladeshi students are still willing to take the challenge . I have written my story to serve my fellow Bangladeshi test takers . if you are not Bangladeshi , you had better skip or you can read at your own risk sorry to write a long debrief .



Total score : 660 , verbal: 34 , Quant: 47 , IR: 5 AWA: 4

Test Date : 21 march 2015





1) Do not Study any Local Materials

I started studying GMAT nearly two years ago with S@ifur's book series . Like many GMAT test takers in BD, I had been suggested that official GMAT books are too hard, so one should start with S@ifur's book and look at official guide only seven days before the actual GMAT test day ! ! ! Thus I made my first strategic mistake , squandering my valuable study time ( at least 400 hours ) . Fortunately I got the link of this group and the booklet prepared by Asif vai . So I brought all books listed in the booklet . After studying official guide , I was fortunate to immediately comprehend the danger of solving unofficial questions at early stage of preparation. GMAT is a test of logic but does not test your brain power or creativity or any specific knowledge on any subject including math ! you just need to build sense of logic but these local materials emphases on some sort of math and language skill. If practice contents of these books , you may perform well on problem solving but will certainly face difficulties in Data sufficiency . Many students wonder why Data sufficiency is so hard . But if we investigate the reason of why students feel uncomfortable with D.S ?. IN almost all cases, one reason will be revealed , he or she solved local materials or nova kaplan . Some students are still not convinced that we they should follow Nova , Kaplan , S@ifur's, Mentors or any IBA materials . If you are still not convinced of the dangers that lowest quality materials may pose , then you can keep solving! Barron is notorious : correct answers of many questions are not even relevant, the construction of most questions is flawed . Everyone should also be warned about mentor's . These books will destroy your clarity of concept and make you confused while solving actual GMAT questions .



2) Do not fall in Despondency for low mock test score

Mock tests : 1) Manhattan GMAT

Total score = 580 Quant 43 verbal 27 . Mock test date 16 February 2014.

2) GMATPrep - One .Total Score = 590 Quant = 47 verbal = 25 . Date = August 2014 [ forget the actual date ] . After studying six months , I had been able to improve only 10 points ! At this moment , I was going to give up .

3) GMAT prep - two score = 640 Quant = 47 verbal = 30 . While reviewing the test , I few weeks later realized that it was not GMAT prep two but it was GMATprep one . I took no. one test in old version but took GMATprep no. 2 in new version. Thus I did not realize that I had taken the same exam two times , a comprehension that shattered my confidence and that made me believe that I should not take any mock test . I was really sacred off mock test and concluded that what would be if I know the actual score ! Even Few weeks before the actual exam , I felt that I should not take a mock exam but I suddenly changed my mind while reading an interview of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Foreign Affairs journal . "" The synopsis of the Jeff Bezos's view expressed in the article was that an experiment is associated with failure . If you fear the failure , you can not take the opportunities that life throws at you ."" so I decided to take a mock test !

4) Kaplan score = 730 kaplan did not provide Quant and verbal sub score . Test date = 12 march 2015 . After getting 730, I feel confident but decided not to take any test by making a reasoning that I would lose my confidence if I take another mock test and get a low score. a foolish thinking !



3) Do not follow any strategy blindly .

chinseburned template is widely available on internet . It is the best template and most student uses . I also got the template one week before the exam . it took me 20/25 minutes to write the template due to slowest typing speed . I realized that I have to either write the template or write main concepts of argument . Despite knowing the danger of not using any template , I decided to write only analysis of argument and borrowed the language of the opening part of easy from official guide. At the end , I had been able to write a short easy and got only 4 . I am still happy with 4 because this score is adequate . If I followed the template as every test takers does , I would end up scoring a 2/3 in AWA but a correct decision has saved me from disaster . Thus you need to evaluate each strategy before adopting in your study . One strategy may work well even for everyone but the same strategy may ruin your potential .




5) Quant section

Familiarize yourself with gmat's taste . Quant section in actual GMAT exam stunned me and I was really surprised to see questions being thrown at me . Quant questions were completely different from what I had solved . After completing official guide 13th edition in Aprill 2014 , I did not look back at OG and concentrated on harder question in gmatclub question bank instead , thus losing the taste of actual GMAT math and scaring other test takers by posting unnecessary hard question in this group ! There is nothing wrong with solving some hard question because these hard questions continuously hit your basic and test your imagination power . But the problem with these hard questions on GMATclub is that these are not official questions and thus do not have the flavor of GMAT . So It is better to come back to official GMAT Quant [ GMAT prep OG] at least one month before your actual test day . Otherwise you will feel that Quant section is testing something that you did not know . I was observing the difficulty level of math at the last stage of the exam . I had a sneaky feeling that I am not doing as I expected at least 49 . I guessed that I'm going to get a 47 in Quant because the feeling of math was the same as feeling of Q47 in mock test .



6) Formulate a strategy to tackle any situation .

A sense of losing momentum had struck me during the break and came back to my computer desk but I was 51 seconds late . I had struggled with time in all 4 mock tests and now I was one minute late , a situation that posed extreme stress but somehow I controlled myself by the reasoning that I could cope with the arising situation if I remain aggressive . If I evaded the thinking of how I performed in Quant , I would not come late and perform better in verbal . You may confront with such circumstance that may force you to take wrong decision. You have pre planned strategy to face such situation, you will be better able to handle the difficulties. . At test centre, you face one problem ,now you know what to do , just do it . It is better to decide before the exam what you will do if this happens or if that happens .



7)verbal section

Critical reasoning : there is no alternative to powerscore critical reasoning bible. I have used this book to learn what is CR but most of rules did not work for me . Some rules I borrowed from LSAT forum , some I got while observing how my study partner solve a CR , some I formulated by my own . This is the best attitude to learn any content . All rules in one book will not work for you . You have to decide which works and which does not work for you .

Reading comprehension ## I do not have any particular strategy for RC . Scientific American , science daily and new York Times are best resources to build reading skill .

Sentence correction ## Like Quant , SC section in actual test also stunned me . I solved Manhattan , Veritas, and gmatclub SC questions . It seemed to me that I am being tested completely different matter in SC . I would like to suggest everyone to use official question [ OG10th OG13th GMATPrep software question ] . If you are running out of SC materials , you can learn from non- underlined portion of a sc question . We learn from underlined part of a sc question but GMAT SC tests how an idea is expressed in clear and concise manner . So you can observe structure of all sentenced written in official guide .



8) Lessons learned from taking the test


1) there is a huge gap between solving a problem at your home and solving a problem at actual GMAT exam . You may solve a question easily but you may not be able to solve that question at test centre . To reduce this gap , You should take at least ten mock tests before taking actual GMAT exam

. 2) On GMAT test, there is something called pattern . GMAC may test your basic in billion ways but they have limited options in producing new patterns . Let me interpret what does pattern mean . For example , a quant problem dealing with a figure "a square is inscribed in a circle" . The pattern in such question is that you have to work with diagonal of square and Diameter of circle . if you this information, you will be able to find out the measure of each part of the figure . Now let GMAT produces billion questions using this figure but you can answer all questions related to this question because you know what to do with this . It is a simple example of pattern . This is why it is important to scrutinize official questions because actual question in real GMAT test will follow the same pattern of official guide , not Manhattan or Veritas . Observing structure , pattern and logic used in producing a question depends on your personal skill . Another test taker may formulate an approach completely different from what I stated here .

3) Quality vs Quantity ; I want to share two suggestions . First one I got from my friend .Quality is more important than Quantity .some people misinterpret this statement ,assuming that we should practice a few number of questions . You have to balance the combination of Quality vs Quantity . One friend of mine ,whose name I am not allowed to write here and whose mock test score is hovering around 780 , told me that she had solved nearly 2500 CR questions , 1500 quant problems, 300 Rc passages , and 1200 SC questions . But do not forget that Quality is of course important than quantity . Do not try to solve many questions quickly .

4) Do not let Forum fool you : another important advice I got from GMATninja .Everyone also read a lot of GMAT success stories and think that why I'm not cracking GMAT easily as everyone is doing . Everyone is suffering just as you are .

5) you can raise your score 60+ points without studying a single word if you do not fret verbal and RC and can stay calm at test center. Fear plays tow roles . First fear compels you to take a wrong decision even if you know all information. Second the impact of Anxiety and fear works upon yourself even if you feel relaxed at test center , weakening your nerve and preventing you from delivering your best performance . In case of Bangladeshi test takers , we are scared off RC section ,so most test takers even do not look at RC but she or he has already spent three months studying GMAT. Fear plays a big role in forcing us to take such ludicrous decision .

6) Trust yourself . I think that I could have got 700+ but stupid mistakes prevented me from being a member of 700 club . I also think that I am not arrogant. am I wrong about my claim ? may be YES but what I believe is that such high ambition will help to gain 700+n in future . so do not lose hope.


I still do not regret of blunders I made and of time I squandered because I have gained so many things that are not written on my GMAT report and that are as important as GMAT score ! GMAT score is not everything in your life . so Do not allow GMAT to let you down .