For the last 17 months, I have prepared for GMAT, yet I needed only two months (working full time, no vacation) to score 770. All I needed to learn was how to swim. Once I learned swimming, beating the GMAT became a piece of cake. So I hope that this debrief helps those who have been studying for a long time as well as those who want to ace the GMAT in 30-60 days.
A brief background about me – I am an Indian working in US for the past decade. Having worked in the IT industry and made enough money, I decided to do something different. Since I am from a over-represented group and want to study at Harvard/Wharton so I realized that I needed to get at least 730-740 for my application to be competitive for the top 10 schools.
How I wasted the first 12 months?When you are really well settled in your job and personal life, making changes becomes very difficult. For the first 12 months, I studied on and off to the extent that I skipped the GMAT in 2013. It’s not that I did not spend time studying, I did study all the
MGMAT books, spent on average 10 hours per week on the GMAT, yet I never got into the GMAT rhythm. What’s worse is that I neither enjoyed nor studied – just a colossal waste of time. This brings me to my first takeaway –
Complete Commitment: Start studying for the GMAT only when you are ready to fully commit to the same.
March 2014 – Owning the goalAs I turned 31 in March, I realized that if I don’t change my career now I would be stuck doing whatever I am doing know. Turning 31 exposed me to the scary “why” I wanted to do an MBA, kind of gave me the motivation. I think this was very important for my success as at that point, I was ready to do whatever was necessary to get to my dream school.
So I started studying with Quant, spending 24 hours per week. I completed most of quant in 3 weeks. After three weeks I took a mock test and scored 640. I was happy to see a 50 on quant but was upset to see a 30 on Verbal. I spent the next 1 month (~100+ hours) on Verbal but I was only able to score 660 with a V32. I was completely disheartened.
Lessons from swimming (May 2014)I am super competitive and good in sports. I have been able to do well in badminton, squash, racquet ball, cricket, soccer, and can run up to 10 miles. One thing that I was never able to do was to swim 20 rounds (40 lengths) in a pool. I would get tired after 2 laps. So in early, while I was in the GYM, I decided to swim 10 laps. I realized that I had to do something different to be able to achieve my goal. One thing that I learned from running is that to run long distances it is vital to maintain your heart rate. Secondly, it is also important to maintain your technique to prevent your muscles from tiring too soon. Since I wanted to do 10 rounds and heart rate was key, I decided to take a 5 second break after every length, take a gulp of water and then go back. I bought an addition bottle of water so that I had a bottle at each end. I did the first three rounds just fine, but the fourth round was a challenge. I decided to not give up and somehow completed the fourth round, and then the fifth. To my surprise, the 6th round got easier. In the seventh, I did not feel like drinking water, yet I did not deviate from the script. The 8th and 9th round were a piece of cake. I felt a bit tired during the 10th but I was able to push myself to complete 11 rounds (remember my goal was just 10).
This success taught me a three lessons, which I believe helped me ace the GMAT:
1.
Acknowledge your weakness: For me, the biggest break was the realization that I need to control my heart rate. Trust me, I had to swallow my ego when I decided to take breaks but my ultimate goal was to complete 10 rounds no matter what. Half the battle was won as soon as I realized what I needed to do.
2.
Have a plan to address your weakness: Definition on insanity – Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result (Shark Tank). I realized that to complete 10 rounds, I need to stay hydrated to keep my heart rate from going up. Addressing this issue by keeping those water bottles at the end of each lap was really important.
3.
Be stubborn: Even when you do #1 and #2, things will not be easy. You will need to stay stubborn. Had I not been stubborn, I would have given up by the fourth round (which would still have been 33% better than my previous best). However, when you are stubborn, your body adapts to the conditions and what seemed difficult once eventually becomes easy.
Moving from 1011 rounds to 20Once I completed 11 rounds, I worked on streamlining my efforts to move to 20. I purchased eye wear, low drag costume, and started working on my legs. To sustain 20 rounds, I also worked on perfecting my kick to complement my leg exercises. As I did this, I was able to go from 11 to 20 rounds in just 10 days – a huge morale boost considering I was battling this for the last 8 years.
Improving Verbal to 42Success in the pool made me all the more confident in my ability to ace the GMAT. In the past, I was tempted to join the
e-GMAT but their methods seemed so long that I was concerned that I would not be able to complete the exam. However, their explanations were consistent and methodical. Since the course was quite cheap and money was not an issue, I decided to take a plunge.
To be very frank I struggled initially. Their SC method – breaking a sentence into clauses seemed too much work to be done in 75 seconds. However, there was a certain elegance to their method. They showed that their method worked on every Sentence Correction official question. Once I solved 40 questions using this method, the method became more of less intuitive. The first 40 questions were like the first 4 rounds during swimming, once you get through them life becomes easy. After the first 40 questions, I was able to solve 95% of the questions with very high accuracy in less than 75 second. My Verbal score shot to 37 and I touched 700 for the first time in a mock.
The same story repeated with Critical Reasoning. I struggled with Prethinking, however when I tried to Prethink for 30 questions, I realized the value of the same. With Prethinking, I was able to better understand the logic of the argument. This helped me in two ways – it helped me save time for the kind of questions that I was able to do earlier. Secondly, it helped me increase my hit rate on more difficult questions. Overall, with SC and CR, I was hitting 40-41 on the GMAT mocks. I own my V43 to
eGMAT.
Getting to 51 on quant
Once my Verbal was set, I had to focus to go beyond 49 on quant. Here I looked at all the questions that I got wrong. Like for most people, 60% of these questions were DS. However, as I analyzed these questions carefully, I realized that the problem was not DS; i.e. the question type - it was approach. There were certain basics in divisibility, inequalities, Geometry, and Primes that I did not comprehend fully. However, I was very good with numbers, I never faced this issue in PS as I would be able to get to the answer by hook or by crook. However, DS did expose this vulnerability. To fix these basics, I read Jeff Sackmans Total GMAT Math. Once I strengthened the fundamentals, I never scored below 50 in any of my mocks.
Take away: Dig deeper to understand the actual cause. Just don’t take the mistakes you make to be your weakness. Understand what has caused the mistakes and fix that cause. Once you fix the cause, the overall score will improve
Awesome resources from GMAT Club
The work done by this community has been immensely helpful in my cause. Bunnel – your analysis of GMAT Prep patterns is priceless. Using that analysis, I spent extra time on the first 10 questions on quant and that was responsible for helping me score 51 on quant. Similarly, your classification of
OG questions (the excel workbook) helped me practice these questions in a much more methodical manner. Lastly, the collection of questions from GMAT Prep is a huge help. I got a hold of these documents and just solved the left over questions in the short 15 minute breaks that I got. Bottom line – I could banking of GMAT Club if I needed any help.
Relisting the take awaysAt the risk of being repetitive, I am listing the take away once again.
1.
Complete Commitment: Start studying for the GMAT only when you are ready to fully commit to the same.
2.
Acknowledge your weakness: For me, the biggest break was the realization that I need to control my heart rate. Trust me, I had to swallow my ego when I decided to take breaks but my ultimate goal was to complete 10 rounds no matter what. Half the battle was won as soon as I realized what I needed to do.
3.
Have a plan to address your weakness: Definition on insanity – Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result (Shark Tank). I realized that to complete 10 rounds, I need to stay hydrated to keep my heart rate from going up. Addressing this issue by keeping those water bottles at the end of each lap was really important.
4.
Be stubborn: Even when you do #1 and #2, things will not be easy. You will need to stay stubborn. Had I not been stubborn, I would have given up by the fourth round (which would still have been 33% better than my previous best). However, when you are stubborn, your body adapts to the conditions and what seemed difficult once eventually becomes easy.
5.
Know the cause: Dig deeper to understand the actual cause. Just don’t take the mistakes you make to be your weakness. Understand what has caused the mistakes and fix that cause. Once you fix the cause, the overall score will improve
This debrief, like my preparation has become longer than I planned. However, I hope that my learning help you with your GMAT Preparation. I had planned to write more but have no stamina left. I will certain be happy to answer any questions that you guys have.
Good luck!!
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24 Jul 2014, 01:25
