The 700 Pledge

The 700 Pledge of a GMAT Test Taker

I have been asked many times by members who scored 600 after 3-4 attempts (often after years of preparation), two main questions: what should I do and why can’t I improve my score.

So here is my answer to all of those questions, PM’s and posts – if you are finding yourself not being able to improve, stuck, or lost, join me in taking this 700-pledge. I have to warn you, however, it involves a lot of hard work, it does not have shortcuts, and the consequence of breaking it are depression, inferiority, and apathy. Proceed only if you think you can handle it and only if your MBA dream is something you are very serious about.

I pledge to:

1. Align my priorities with goals and if I may have to make hard decision such as shift my study schedule to be before I go to work or before I go to work out, or instead of a Friday night poker game, I will do it.
2. Keep track of my mistakes. I will maintain an error log for at least the questions I got wrong.
3. Use the timer with every question and exercise
4. Commit to building a study schedule.
5. Ask myself every day if there is anything else that I can do to study/improve/answer/not make mistakes? Is there ANYTHING in this world that can help me? Is it memorizing all formulas? Is it memorizing the question? Is it learning some concepts that are not covered on the GMAT but are important for understanding (verbal or quant), is it stopping before every question and pausing for 5-10 seconds? is it studying at 5 AM? If any of these is yes, no matter how challenging or how painful, I commit to them because I wan to achieve my dream and
6. Set my preparation at the highest priority (right with my health and family)
7. Squash every doubt in my mind
8. Create/write my own notes. I will never write in books - that's worthless. I will take any notes in a separate notebook so that I can remember better.
9. Do what it takes. If I need to remember the whole book, I will write out the whole freaking book into notes and organize it so that I can memorize it and if it does not work the first time, I am ready to do it again.
10. Not let GMAT rest. I will be obsessed with the GMAT, with critical reasoning, with identifying assumptions, with calculating speeds, etc.
11. Get a 700+ score. I may get it easy or I may have to work hard for it. I realize that if I do not get the score I want, it does not mean I am stupid or hopeless or poor. It just means that I am lazy and GMAT was not my priority.
12. Not take shortcuts in my prep and if I took shortcuts in my past in Quant or Verbal, I commit to undoing them
13. Not leave a chapter/area/book/test until I can score above 90% of the questions within the time frame.
14. Stand proud because I have and will do everything in my power to achieve my goal. Should I fall short of that score, I will still stand proud of my score because I have done everything in my power and I have not a single doubt in my mind that not a stone was left unturned and I have done my absolute best. I will have no regrets and no retakes.

If you agree to follow this pledge, please SIGN it publically so that there is no going back

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Thank you but you should toast to those who have completed this pledge and held steady. This pledge and testament is to hard work!

ankurgupta03 - 760
GandalfGrey - 700
knowh0w - student at LBS (GMAT unknown but who cares?)
nalin1 - 710
vaishnogmat - student at AGSM
vishnuns39620 - 750
berkeleygirl - 720
ashkul123 - 690 but got into HEC
anujkhatiwada - student at McDonough
akshaychaturvedi007 - 710 and admitted to ISB and Oxford
xhimi - 690 and Insead
jaspar - 730
usmabama - 700


Congrats and kudos for your hard work!