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At one point, she believed GMAT wasn’t for her. After scoring 595, self-doubt crept in and she questioned her potential. But instead of quitting, she made the right strategic changes. The result? A remarkable comeback to 695. Check out how Saakshi did it.
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SilverBull
Joined: 04 Dec 2014
Last visit: 09 Jun 2016
Posts: 201
Given Kudos: 48
Location: United States
Concentration: Finance, Economics
Schools: Booth '18 (M$) Tuck '18 (WL) Wharton '18 (D) HBS '18 (D) McCombs '18 (A$) Johnson '18 (A$) Goizueta '18 (A)
GMAT 1: 680 Q43 V41
GMAT 2: 760 Q49 V45
GPA: 3.18
WE:Analyst (Mutual Funds and Brokerage)
Products:
Schools: Booth '18 (M$) Tuck '18 (WL) Wharton '18 (D) HBS '18 (D) McCombs '18 (A$) Johnson '18 (A$) Goizueta '18 (A)
GMAT 2: 760 Q49 V45
Posts: 201
17 Feb 2015, 16:21
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi all!
I thought that considering the amount of value that I have received from other posts and debriefs on this forum that it was my duty to continue the tradition. First of all, for those of you who are pursuing business school or maybe just taking the GMAT for now, if it isn't completely obvious to you by now, the GMATClub forums are a God-send. This community is incredibly open, friendly, helpful, and motivating. I have been on many different forums throughout my life and I must say that in many respects this is the cream of the crop. So, if you are still going through the motions of business school, use this forum as a way to get to your destination. You will not regret it!
Now for the debrief. I will keep this realtively short and sweet. I am not the kind of person who is going to breakdown everything I did and explain why I did it. What I will tell you is what I think worked, what didn't work, and whose products/services I found most helpful on my journey to a 760.
2) DO reach out to service providers and buy quality products. I found that the best product I purchased was the GMAT Pill complete course set. Zeke Lee and everyone over at GMAT Pill is absolutely excellent and helpful. You can ask them anything and they always have an appropriate response to your situation. The videos, the exercises, and the study plans were all top notch. Prior to GMAT Pill I was using Kaplan live classes and the course book associated with the classes but found that Kaplan was only good enough to get you into the mid-600s. In order to break out of the mid-600s I had to look elsewhere and I choose GMAT Pill. Thankfully, I made the right choice. Also, I found the VeritasPrep CATs to be absolutely excellent while I felt that the Kaplan CATs lacked the rigor of the actual exam. I tried Manhattan GMAT question banks and CATs but found them to be overly difficult and a waste of time. The quant and verbal sections of Manhattan GMAT are difficult and a lot of individuals claim this to be a good trait but, honestly, there is a certain level of difficulty that just creates more issues than it solves. I found this to be the case for me. But, many people have used Manhattan GMAT and have scored incredibly well so this may just be a "me" thing.
3) DO make sure to look through all the debriefs on the forum and find out what study patterns mesh well with your personality type and incorporate them into your study plan. That said, don't pretend that just because Joe Smith got a 750 doing X, Y, and Z that you will get there too if you follow the same motions. Everyone is different and you are no exception. Find what works best for you and the keyword here is "find!"
4) DO complete every GMAT problem you can get your hands on and that includes all the GMATPrep material such as the question pack and the exam pack. It costs a few Federal Reserve Notes but I found them to be incredibly valuable if albeit only psychologically because you are practicing with problems straight from the source of the exam. Which leads me to my next point...
5) DO as many practice exams as you can get your hands on. Even if you can't do every AWA and IR, that's fine but you should be doing at least one full practice exam with AWA and IR every week. What I did was I bought as many practice exams as I could get my hands on and any exams that were left over I would skip the AWA and IR and just do the quant and verbal sections by themselves, sometimes days apart. The reason is because you need to be practicing not only with harder questions but also in the same format that you will encounter on the exam. The exam is computer adaptive and you should be studying, at least some of the time, in such a manner.
6) DO let your family, friends, loved ones, etc. know that what you are doing is incredibly important and will lead to a better life for you and possibly them. My wife was incredibly understanding throughout the four months leading up to my second exam. She was an absolute trooper considering we had our first child in late November (in the middle of my studying) and she had to spend the weekends taking care of the newborn while I was at the library doing practice exams. Was she frustrated or tired sometimes? Yes. But guess who is ecstatic that her husband is going to go to a top business school and that her and her child are likely to live a life neither of us have ever had the privilege of living? She is! So, make sure you communicate that you are going to be MIA for a while and that this is necessary and not optional.
2) DO NOT waste time when you are studying. Focus on the task at hand and, ideally, start off by mastering either quant or verbal and their respective subtopics. If you are going to take 3 hours to study, make sure that studying is all you do. Take a short break but don't distract yourself. Focus is key!
3) DO NOT worry if your practice exams are off by 100 points or more from exam to exam. It happens. It happened to me more than once. Practice exams are like the real thing but they are not the real thing. The 5 or so CATs leading up to my 760 were all under 700...so go figure! Just focus on doing the CATs under test-like conditions and make sure to review what you got wrong and what you got right. That is literally the only thing practice CATs are good for.
4) DO NOT freak out on exam day. In fact, this is the reason why I think I got a 680 on my first try. I was literally sweating by the time I hit the last question. I made the exam into this big deal and the new experience was very intimidating. Don't get intimidated, put the exam in it's rightful place (that is to say, it is only part of the application), keep a level head, and understand that any freaking out will cause your score to go lower and possibly much lower. Also, remember that many, many top business school students take the GMAT multiple times. I have heard that the Harvard average is somewhere around 2-3 attempts. So, take your chances and understand that you are likely to sit for the exam more than twice!
5) DO NOT eat garbage food and do not go out drinking with your friends or whatnot the night before. Relax, do no studying, watch a movie, and eat healthy food. The night before my exam, my mother-in-law took the kid, my wife and I had some asparagus and pork chops, some light lemonade, watched some Planet Earth and then went to sleep early. I guarantee you that I wouldn't have had the energy to get the score I did if it weren't for a good night and a good night's rest the day before.
6) DO NOT be even remotely late but also DO NOT be too early. Arrive a half-an-hour early but don't arrive two hours early. Arriving too early may jolt your nerves into anticipation mode and cause unnecessary stress. Make sure that you know where you are going and what the quickest, easiest way there is.
You may be saying "so much of this debrief seems to do with psychological or exam prep...what gives?" What gives is that even if you have done 10,000 problems, watched 500 hours of video, read 1000 pages of GMAT prep material, you will still be taken to the woodshed if you do not prep your mind and study habits properly. Understand that the GMAT isn't just about angles, exponents, sentence structure, and DNA molecules (looking at your RC; BORING!!!!!) but that it is an exam of mental stamina and problem solving. And last but not least, never, ever, ever give up. There is nothing stopping you from getting a top score but you. Keep fighting and you will get there.
I thought that considering the amount of value that I have received from other posts and debriefs on this forum that it was my duty to continue the tradition. First of all, for those of you who are pursuing business school or maybe just taking the GMAT for now, if it isn't completely obvious to you by now, the GMATClub forums are a God-send. This community is incredibly open, friendly, helpful, and motivating. I have been on many different forums throughout my life and I must say that in many respects this is the cream of the crop. So, if you are still going through the motions of business school, use this forum as a way to get to your destination. You will not regret it!
Now for the debrief. I will keep this realtively short and sweet. I am not the kind of person who is going to breakdown everything I did and explain why I did it. What I will tell you is what I think worked, what didn't work, and whose products/services I found most helpful on my journey to a 760.
What you should do:
1) DO study every day. Even if its just 15 problems or an hour video on a subtopic, make sure that you are working your brain everyday. You need to be thinking like a GMAT killer all the time. You need to incorporate the GMAT into your life 100%.2) DO reach out to service providers and buy quality products. I found that the best product I purchased was the GMAT Pill complete course set. Zeke Lee and everyone over at GMAT Pill is absolutely excellent and helpful. You can ask them anything and they always have an appropriate response to your situation. The videos, the exercises, and the study plans were all top notch. Prior to GMAT Pill I was using Kaplan live classes and the course book associated with the classes but found that Kaplan was only good enough to get you into the mid-600s. In order to break out of the mid-600s I had to look elsewhere and I choose GMAT Pill. Thankfully, I made the right choice. Also, I found the VeritasPrep CATs to be absolutely excellent while I felt that the Kaplan CATs lacked the rigor of the actual exam. I tried Manhattan GMAT question banks and CATs but found them to be overly difficult and a waste of time. The quant and verbal sections of Manhattan GMAT are difficult and a lot of individuals claim this to be a good trait but, honestly, there is a certain level of difficulty that just creates more issues than it solves. I found this to be the case for me. But, many people have used Manhattan GMAT and have scored incredibly well so this may just be a "me" thing.
3) DO make sure to look through all the debriefs on the forum and find out what study patterns mesh well with your personality type and incorporate them into your study plan. That said, don't pretend that just because Joe Smith got a 750 doing X, Y, and Z that you will get there too if you follow the same motions. Everyone is different and you are no exception. Find what works best for you and the keyword here is "find!"
4) DO complete every GMAT problem you can get your hands on and that includes all the GMATPrep material such as the question pack and the exam pack. It costs a few Federal Reserve Notes but I found them to be incredibly valuable if albeit only psychologically because you are practicing with problems straight from the source of the exam. Which leads me to my next point...
5) DO as many practice exams as you can get your hands on. Even if you can't do every AWA and IR, that's fine but you should be doing at least one full practice exam with AWA and IR every week. What I did was I bought as many practice exams as I could get my hands on and any exams that were left over I would skip the AWA and IR and just do the quant and verbal sections by themselves, sometimes days apart. The reason is because you need to be practicing not only with harder questions but also in the same format that you will encounter on the exam. The exam is computer adaptive and you should be studying, at least some of the time, in such a manner.
6) DO let your family, friends, loved ones, etc. know that what you are doing is incredibly important and will lead to a better life for you and possibly them. My wife was incredibly understanding throughout the four months leading up to my second exam. She was an absolute trooper considering we had our first child in late November (in the middle of my studying) and she had to spend the weekends taking care of the newborn while I was at the library doing practice exams. Was she frustrated or tired sometimes? Yes. But guess who is ecstatic that her husband is going to go to a top business school and that her and her child are likely to live a life neither of us have ever had the privilege of living? She is! So, make sure you communicate that you are going to be MIA for a while and that this is necessary and not optional.
What not to do:
1) DO NOT take long breaks from studying. I recommend that everyone take a day off or semi-day off every week but do not take entire weeks off from studying. You WILL regret it. Discipline is the keyword here. Even if you have to stay long nights after work in the office, do what you need to do to get to your goal!2) DO NOT waste time when you are studying. Focus on the task at hand and, ideally, start off by mastering either quant or verbal and their respective subtopics. If you are going to take 3 hours to study, make sure that studying is all you do. Take a short break but don't distract yourself. Focus is key!
3) DO NOT worry if your practice exams are off by 100 points or more from exam to exam. It happens. It happened to me more than once. Practice exams are like the real thing but they are not the real thing. The 5 or so CATs leading up to my 760 were all under 700...so go figure! Just focus on doing the CATs under test-like conditions and make sure to review what you got wrong and what you got right. That is literally the only thing practice CATs are good for.
4) DO NOT freak out on exam day. In fact, this is the reason why I think I got a 680 on my first try. I was literally sweating by the time I hit the last question. I made the exam into this big deal and the new experience was very intimidating. Don't get intimidated, put the exam in it's rightful place (that is to say, it is only part of the application), keep a level head, and understand that any freaking out will cause your score to go lower and possibly much lower. Also, remember that many, many top business school students take the GMAT multiple times. I have heard that the Harvard average is somewhere around 2-3 attempts. So, take your chances and understand that you are likely to sit for the exam more than twice!
5) DO NOT eat garbage food and do not go out drinking with your friends or whatnot the night before. Relax, do no studying, watch a movie, and eat healthy food. The night before my exam, my mother-in-law took the kid, my wife and I had some asparagus and pork chops, some light lemonade, watched some Planet Earth and then went to sleep early. I guarantee you that I wouldn't have had the energy to get the score I did if it weren't for a good night and a good night's rest the day before.
6) DO NOT be even remotely late but also DO NOT be too early. Arrive a half-an-hour early but don't arrive two hours early. Arriving too early may jolt your nerves into anticipation mode and cause unnecessary stress. Make sure that you know where you are going and what the quickest, easiest way there is.
You may be saying "so much of this debrief seems to do with psychological or exam prep...what gives?" What gives is that even if you have done 10,000 problems, watched 500 hours of video, read 1000 pages of GMAT prep material, you will still be taken to the woodshed if you do not prep your mind and study habits properly. Understand that the GMAT isn't just about angles, exponents, sentence structure, and DNA molecules (looking at your RC; BORING!!!!!) but that it is an exam of mental stamina and problem solving. And last but not least, never, ever, ever give up. There is nothing stopping you from getting a top score but you. Keep fighting and you will get there.
19 Feb 2015, 17:50
Kudos
Bookmarks
Yours is a sensible, mature, and truthful article that I"ve read in a long time. Most briefs are of the opposite kind (opposite to the attributes I've mentioned for your quote) in which the author merely focusses on proving how intelligent he/she is in getting a top GMAT score in a few days or weeks. Most test takers don't realize that the reason for a top score with just a few days or weeks of preparation is the past of that candidate - a lifetime of academic riguor and quality.
lukeofalltrades
Joined: 11 Mar 2014
Last visit: 28 Jun 2015
Posts: 13
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 4
Location: India
Concentration: Technology, Strategy
Schools: ISB '16 (D) Insead Sept '16 (D) NTU '17 (II)
GMAT Date: 02-03-2014
GPA: 3
WE:Information Technology (Computer Software)
19 Feb 2015, 20:58
Kudos
Bookmarks
I completely agree. One of the more sensiblr and practical advise for aspirants !
Posted from my mobile device
Posted from my mobile device
