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Apr 2212:30 AM EDT
-01:30 AM EDT
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.
Apr 1612:00 PM EDT
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Apr 2301:30 AM EDT
-02:30 AM EDT
Struggling with GMAT Verbal as a non-native speaker? Harsh improved his score from 595 to 695 in just 45 days—and scored a 99 %ile in Verbal (V88)! Learn how smart strategy, clarity, and guided prep helped him gain 100 points.
Apr 2308:00 PM PDT
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Video explanations + diagnosis of 10 weakest areas + 150+ short videos + study plan!
Apr 2610:00 AM EDT
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The Target Test Prep course represents a quantum leap forward in GMAT preparation, a radical reinterpretation of the way that students should study. Try before you buy with a 5-day, full-access trial of the course for FREE!
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
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Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
Hi,
Just to introduce myself, I live in Bangalore, India. I've done most of my schooling from here and have previously written my SATs 1320 (Q740, V580) and GRE 1320 (Q800, V520).
My first attempt at GMAT ended with a score of 640 (Q46, V33). While I was disappointed with this score, the shocking part to me was not that I did not perform in Verbal, but that my score on Quant seemed rather low as per my expectations. This did also bring to my attention how much of a difference doing well in verbal could have made to my score.
Total duration of Preparation for 1st attempt at GMAT:
Prior to the official GMAT test, the following were my scores:
1. MGMAT CAT1 : 640 (Q43, V34) This was the first test in GMAT i had taken in order to place myself and this was without any prior preperation.
2. MGMAT CAT2 : 660 (Q46, V34) I wrote this after working out a few problems from the PS section of the Official Guide 2015.
3. MGMAT CAT3 : 640 (Q46, V32) The I wrote again after continued practice of quant, I noticed I always fell short of time in the Quant section. I was still entirely unaware of the rules etc involved in the preparation for Verbal.
4. MGMAT CAT4 : 610 (Q44, V31) This was 3 days prior to my GMAT. Again, I did notice what I did wrong in the Quantitative section but I was not entirely sure as to how I should approach the verbal section.
5. MGMAT CAT5: 680 (Q44, V38) This was 2 days prior to my GMAT, at this point of time, judging by the variation in my Verbal Score I had gauged that I would need some luck in verbal if I was to do well at GMAT. I started watching some Youtube tutorials for Sentence correction, since this was the primary portion of Verbal questions I noticed I was doing wrong.
6. GMAT PREP1: 680 (Q49, V32) This was 1 day prior to my GMAT. I was somewhat encouraged by this since I took it under test taking conditions, except that my dog did distract me a couple of times in between.
At this point of time I figured I would be able to just about breach the 700 mark and get a score I would be happy with.
BIGGEST MISTAKE PRIOR TO THE EXAM: The biggest mistake I think I made prior to the exam is, I presumed it would be sensible to try and cram as much verbal as I could before the day of the exam. I sat up at night and studied as much as I could and woke up early, attempting to do the same. I woke up mentally exhausted, not feeling 100% and feeling a little unwell. This I think is something no test taker should ideally do.
I left for the exam, carried some Gatorade, Water and bananas. This was a life saver, however, I do believe I would have done better if I was well rested.
AWA: The exam was the first time I was writing an AWA essay, I had read a sample essay in the car prior to the exam. I think I managed my time fine and I got a 5.0 in this.
IR: The IR section was much easier than the MGMAT IR, which made it really easy to get through. I did end up with some timing issues here though and I had to guess the last 2 questions. I got a 7.
Quantitative Section: The quantitative section started off really well, I did not have any issues that I know of. I am aware that DS problems tend to throw me off quite often and even when I am confident of my answers, they turn out to be wrong at times. The main mistake I made however in this section was to spend a little too much time on the initial 18 questions. Some of the questions half way through the GMAT were extremely easy and threw me off, since that left me wondering if I was doing that badly. Towards the end of my Quantitative section I had approximately 8 questions over the last 10 minutes. I changed my strategy accordingly, I attempted the DS problems by estimation and solved for the PS problems. The PS problems among the last 10 were quite difficult and I was left with 1 question that I left unanswered.
SECOND MISTAKE: I was disappointed after I finished with the Quantitative section, due to which I decided to take the 8 minute break to refocus. I sat down for a bit and tried to get my mind off the quantitative section. I took my time with it, but couldn't help pondering over how I'd done on the quantitative section. I ended up taking 9 minutes for the break, instead of the permitted 8 minutes.
Verbal Section: The verbal section started off alright. I was relatively clueless on verbal as to whether the answers I was marking were incorrect, especially in SC questions. CR and RC were relatively easier for me and I generally knew what I was doing in these. I was also still thinking about the Quantitative section, which was not helping a whole lot. I ended up spending the first 55 minutes on the first 25 questions. That left me with 20 minutes for 16 questions which was not ideal. I rushed through the remaining questions and ended up leaving 1 question unanswered in the Verbal section as well.
Key Mistakes:
I'm no expert and my score certainly doesn't suggest I am, however, there were certain mistakes that I regret making.
1. Determine your date for the test and be reasonable with the amount of material you necessarily want to cover. Finish off all of this and then consider moving on to something more.
2. Write as many practice tests in a test environment as you can.
3. Time management is key, regardless of how differently your official GMAT exam is going compared to your practice tests, regain composure and focus as fast as you can. Manhattan rightly suggests that you should take a deep breath prior to every question and start the next fresh.
4. Use your breaks between sections wisely and ensure you forget everything about the previous sections prior to starting the next one.
5. Let go and move on. Each and every one of us would love to have a perfect score, however limit the maximum time you spend on one particular question.
6. Cross check you answers, even on easy questions. Its easy to miss small details sometimes.
7. At the end of the day, the Official Guide had the most accurate questions. So ensure you've practiced every question in this.
8. Rest the day before the exam, revise what you've learnt but try not to cram in new things.
9. Learn from your mistakes. I regret just looking over the solutions of the questions I got wrong and not working them out again.
All in all, I think Time management was crunch and I did underestimate verbal to a great degree. I decided to take some time off after the exam which I did. 2 days after the official GMAT, I attempted MGMAT CAT6 and got a 680 again.
MGMAT CAT6: 680 (Q47, V36)
I'd now decided to take my next GMAT on the 26th of August depending on the scores I get on my practice tests over the upcoming weekend.
I just thought it might be helpful to some of the people out there if I logged my activities for the next two weeks prior to retaking the GMAT which I have scheduled for 26th August.
My basic plan is to finish Verbal in the next 4 days and rewrite a practice test.
Additional tools: Apps on my mobile phone: GMAT ToolKit 2, GMAT Pill, Veritas GMAT Question Bank(Really love this for practice), Prep4GMAT.
Study Material: MGMAT SC Strategy Guide, Official Guide 2015, Kaplan GMAT 800, Whiplash's Guides to SC & CR, Bunuel Signature Collection, GMATClub tests.
I'll update this with my daily activity from now on.
Day 1: Finished the first 5 chapters of Manhattan SC book, reading through both chapters twice. Attended Jamboree advanced SC online session. Read through the Comprehensive Critical Reasoning Guide by Whiplash.
Day 2: Completed the first 9 chapters in MGMAT SC Strategy guide, having a few issues relating to the grammatical terms but trying to read through things over and over again to get more familiar with things. Did a few exercises on Prep4GMAT app, loved the app and the flashcards are a good revision of concepts. Plan for day 3 is to complete the MGMAT SC strategy guide and solve the 113 questions in the Verbal Review OG 2nd Edition.
Day 3: Took the day off surprisingly. I got caught up with some office work and I decided to take the few hours I had available off and relax during this time.
Day 4: Revised the first 9 chapters of MGMAT SC and started working out questions in groups of 15 to see how I was performing. There was a considerable improvement in my performance, even though the first read of MGMAT SC Strategy Guide left my thoughts a little clouded. The second read actually gave me a clear idea of how to go about approaching these sentence correction questions.
Day 5: I worked out questions from the Verbal Review OG in Sentence Correction. There are a total of 113 questions, I solved 50 in groups of 10 and cross checked the solutions after every 10. I got a total of 10 wrong out of these, which was not up to the mark. I decided to take a break from sentence correction for a bit and started work on Number properties instead.
Day 6: Solved the first 130 odd questions in the Quant PS section of the OG and worked on a few more Sentence Correction questions.
Day 7: Went through the critical reasoning notes and the Reading comprehension notes. I worked out 40 questions of each from the 2015 OG.
Days 8 & 9: Unfortunately I was travelling on work on these days and just managed to practice problems on the Veritas app and the Prep4GMAT app on my cell phone.
Day 10: Got back home today and decided to give the GMATPrep 2 a shot, just to see if I've improved at all. I scored a 710 (Q49, V37) on this attempt of the GMATPrep. I was happy to finally break the 700 barrier, but I'm guessing there is further improvement needed. I got 11 Incorrect on Quant and 11 incorrect on Verbal. Most of the mistakes in Quant were just silly mistakes E.g. Not reading the question properly, working out DS Problems mentally as opposed to writing them down. In Quant I had 4 PS wrong and 8 DS wrong. Obviously my plan ahead involved considerable amount of practice of DS and Bunuels Signature Collection. In Verbal, I got 6 SC's wrong, 3 CR wrong and 2 RC wrong. This again was disappointing since I had spent a reasonable time on SC's. I do plan on addressing this by working out the 100 collection of SC's which I'm hoping will help. With just a few days left, I'm looking to limit the amount of material I'm using and to be thorough with this limited material.
Day 11-14: Went through all the mistakes I made in all the mocks I had attempted until now, solved all of the problems all over again. I finished up with all the problems available on GMATPrep Practice, I got 68/75 questions correct. Also worked through some of Bunuels Signature Collection, and found these problems to be brilliant to say the least, in pointing out certain things one tends to overlook despite knowing the concepts. Worked out some of the MGMAT Question bank as well for general practice and continued solving questions from the OG. I also bought Exam Pack 1 and the Question Pack based on the advice of Engr2012. I plan of working out all of these by this weekend after which I will attempt the Exam Pack 1 on Sunday and Monday. I have finalized the date for my GMAT as 2nd of September which is 1 week after my desired date, however I think this time was necessary for preparing. Keeping my fingers crossed however and I'll do everything I can in the mean time to ensure I've given it my best shot.
Day 15: Worked on more Bunuel Signature Collection problems, these are incredible. Reviewed all my mistakes in GMATPrep tests and reset it. I've come down with a fever which isn't helping much but I'm trying to work my way through it.
Day 16: Worked out random problems and rewrote GMATPrep 1. Finally managed a score of 750 (Q50, V41), even though this was an inflated score. There were approximately 8-10 questions repeated totally. I think the important take away from this was that I was actually able to gauge what it takes to get a 750 which certainly isn't easy to do. I would certainly recommend that anyone preparing should do this. I have also noticed a lack of clarity in a few questions that are not Official GMAT questions that tend to throw me off. I've been trying to stick to Official GMAT questions to the greatest possible extent.
Day 17: Spent most of today working out random questions from the OG and questions that seemed difficult in general. Worked out a few quant questions as well. Finally attempted my GMATPrep 3. Decided I'd take a short break and catch up on some Dragonball Super
GMATPrep3: 700 (Q49, V37)
Note: I am not entirely certain if this is accurate, but I found the questions in the GMATPrep3 to be relatively tougher than the questions in the 2 free GMATPrep exams. This is despite a similar performance in quant across GMATPrep1 and GMATPrep2.
The breakup was 10 wrong in Quant which I still think is rather high and 14 in verbal. The astonishing thing is how miserably I did in the Sentence Correction bit of this exam. I was actually in the 12th Percentile as compared to 94th and 83rd in Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension respectively. This brought down my score a considerable amount and is something I have decided to work on all over again. Hopefully the 3 days I have left prior to the exam will suffice.
Day 18-19: I rested on Sunday, wanted the fever to wear off. Got on some medication and slept a reasonable bit. I worked on Sentence Correction on Monday and worked out questions from the Question Pack 1.
Day 20: Its 1 day to D Day and its nerve racking to be honest. Theres always an aspiration to do better than how much you expect you can get and there always seems to be scope for improvement. I'm not planning on doing too much today, I will be writing my GMATPrep 4 to see how it goes. Apart from that I'm completing all the questions in the Question Pack, I had saved them for the last day as I figured it would be a good overall revision.
GMATPrep 4: 740 (Q49, V41)
The problems on Quant were really easy compared to the previous GMATPrep. I got 4 mistakes in total out of the 37 resulting in a total score of 49.
The Verbal section was relatively surprising; I did not expect to score as much as I did and I had a total of 6 mistakes with only 2 mistakes in Sentence Correction, 3 in Critical Reasoning and 1 in Reading Comprehension.
While this score was encouraging, I still don't feel entirely confident about tomorrow, however, I am going to take the leap and write my GMAT tomorrow. I guess I'm going to hope for the best. I have a few more hours until I go to bed, I plan on going over all the mistakes I made so far in my practice tests and solving all the hard questions in the Question Pack to gauge where I actually stand when faced with the worst case scenario.
Fingers crossed, I'm going to hope for the best and I will update you on the results tomorrow. While there is no ideal score that is less than 800, I hope to get a 700 or above in this attempt which I strongly believe is far from easy regardless of the GMATPrep scores.
I plan on getting a good nights sleep after and I'll revise through some formula sheets and verbal notes tomorrow. Thanks to GMATClub and members like Whiplash, BB, Bunuel, Engr2012 and Gin for the amazing work they have done to help aspiring B-Schoolers attempt the GMAT. I hope I end up being another example among many, to prove that their effort was not in vain. Regardless of the result tomorrow, I could not be more thankful for the extent to which GMATClub has helped further my preparation.
D-Day: Well as it happens, I couldn't sleep much, not because I was studying but because of the nerves I suppose. Again, I guess to use this against whatever result I get today would be as simple as saying, I'll never do good unless everything goes exactly the way I want it to on test day. Moreover an MBA is going to be far more demanding than this. I've been trying to get some sleep but to no avail, its 9 am here now and my GMAT is scheduled for 3 pm. I guess I'm just going to work it out.
My unusual tip: I don't know if this is true or if it is even recommended but one of the odd things I started doing ever since my GMATPrep2 was to watch a few funny videos prior to the test. I could recommend a few if required
GMAT 2: 690 (Q50, V34) I do however plan on rewriting it one last time within the next 2 weeks, I lost out in verbal because I ran out of time and sentence correction primarily. My plan ahead is to do better in the sentence correction bit and rewrite since I'm losing around 30-40 points in SC's.
GMAT 3 Prep
I'm currently working on my application essays and I plan on submitting some of my applications prior to retaking the GMAT. I've already worked on these applications over a period of time and do not have much work pending. Alongside this I'd taken a break from the GMAT prep for the last 4 days. I haven't seen a single GMAT question in these last few days but I've decided I'm going to start preparing a little further in advance this time around. My target date for my 3rd attempt at the GMAT is the 23rd of September. I'm planning on trying out the 5 day trial of EmpowerGMAT, primarily to work on my Sentence Correction. Plan until I start full time Prep:
1. Work out 20 question of each kind everyday.
2. Revise through a chapter a day in the MGMAT SC guide and read through Whiplash's SC guide repeatedly everyday.
I will update this once I start preparing full time. Cheers!
PS: If any of you happen to have any comments or feedback regarding my approach, I'd love to hear from you. I'm not looking to enroll into any courses but am open to views on topics. I am not a GMAT Expert, I've just written this out hoping to help someone out, either with the methods I used or by preventing someone from repeating mistakes I might have made.
Good luck to all of you!!
Just to introduce myself, I live in Bangalore, India. I've done most of my schooling from here and have previously written my SATs 1320 (Q740, V580) and GRE 1320 (Q800, V520).
My first attempt at GMAT ended with a score of 640 (Q46, V33). While I was disappointed with this score, the shocking part to me was not that I did not perform in Verbal, but that my score on Quant seemed rather low as per my expectations. This did also bring to my attention how much of a difference doing well in verbal could have made to my score.
Total duration of Preparation for 1st attempt at GMAT:
Prior to the official GMAT test, the following were my scores:
1. MGMAT CAT1 : 640 (Q43, V34) This was the first test in GMAT i had taken in order to place myself and this was without any prior preperation.
2. MGMAT CAT2 : 660 (Q46, V34) I wrote this after working out a few problems from the PS section of the Official Guide 2015.
3. MGMAT CAT3 : 640 (Q46, V32) The I wrote again after continued practice of quant, I noticed I always fell short of time in the Quant section. I was still entirely unaware of the rules etc involved in the preparation for Verbal.
4. MGMAT CAT4 : 610 (Q44, V31) This was 3 days prior to my GMAT. Again, I did notice what I did wrong in the Quantitative section but I was not entirely sure as to how I should approach the verbal section.
5. MGMAT CAT5: 680 (Q44, V38) This was 2 days prior to my GMAT, at this point of time, judging by the variation in my Verbal Score I had gauged that I would need some luck in verbal if I was to do well at GMAT. I started watching some Youtube tutorials for Sentence correction, since this was the primary portion of Verbal questions I noticed I was doing wrong.
6. GMAT PREP1: 680 (Q49, V32) This was 1 day prior to my GMAT. I was somewhat encouraged by this since I took it under test taking conditions, except that my dog did distract me a couple of times in between.
At this point of time I figured I would be able to just about breach the 700 mark and get a score I would be happy with.
BIGGEST MISTAKE PRIOR TO THE EXAM: The biggest mistake I think I made prior to the exam is, I presumed it would be sensible to try and cram as much verbal as I could before the day of the exam. I sat up at night and studied as much as I could and woke up early, attempting to do the same. I woke up mentally exhausted, not feeling 100% and feeling a little unwell. This I think is something no test taker should ideally do.
I left for the exam, carried some Gatorade, Water and bananas. This was a life saver, however, I do believe I would have done better if I was well rested.
AWA: The exam was the first time I was writing an AWA essay, I had read a sample essay in the car prior to the exam. I think I managed my time fine and I got a 5.0 in this.
IR: The IR section was much easier than the MGMAT IR, which made it really easy to get through. I did end up with some timing issues here though and I had to guess the last 2 questions. I got a 7.
Quantitative Section: The quantitative section started off really well, I did not have any issues that I know of. I am aware that DS problems tend to throw me off quite often and even when I am confident of my answers, they turn out to be wrong at times. The main mistake I made however in this section was to spend a little too much time on the initial 18 questions. Some of the questions half way through the GMAT were extremely easy and threw me off, since that left me wondering if I was doing that badly. Towards the end of my Quantitative section I had approximately 8 questions over the last 10 minutes. I changed my strategy accordingly, I attempted the DS problems by estimation and solved for the PS problems. The PS problems among the last 10 were quite difficult and I was left with 1 question that I left unanswered.
SECOND MISTAKE: I was disappointed after I finished with the Quantitative section, due to which I decided to take the 8 minute break to refocus. I sat down for a bit and tried to get my mind off the quantitative section. I took my time with it, but couldn't help pondering over how I'd done on the quantitative section. I ended up taking 9 minutes for the break, instead of the permitted 8 minutes.
Verbal Section: The verbal section started off alright. I was relatively clueless on verbal as to whether the answers I was marking were incorrect, especially in SC questions. CR and RC were relatively easier for me and I generally knew what I was doing in these. I was also still thinking about the Quantitative section, which was not helping a whole lot. I ended up spending the first 55 minutes on the first 25 questions. That left me with 20 minutes for 16 questions which was not ideal. I rushed through the remaining questions and ended up leaving 1 question unanswered in the Verbal section as well.
Key Mistakes:
I'm no expert and my score certainly doesn't suggest I am, however, there were certain mistakes that I regret making.
1. Determine your date for the test and be reasonable with the amount of material you necessarily want to cover. Finish off all of this and then consider moving on to something more.
2. Write as many practice tests in a test environment as you can.
3. Time management is key, regardless of how differently your official GMAT exam is going compared to your practice tests, regain composure and focus as fast as you can. Manhattan rightly suggests that you should take a deep breath prior to every question and start the next fresh.
4. Use your breaks between sections wisely and ensure you forget everything about the previous sections prior to starting the next one.
5. Let go and move on. Each and every one of us would love to have a perfect score, however limit the maximum time you spend on one particular question.
6. Cross check you answers, even on easy questions. Its easy to miss small details sometimes.
7. At the end of the day, the Official Guide had the most accurate questions. So ensure you've practiced every question in this.
8. Rest the day before the exam, revise what you've learnt but try not to cram in new things.
9. Learn from your mistakes. I regret just looking over the solutions of the questions I got wrong and not working them out again.
All in all, I think Time management was crunch and I did underestimate verbal to a great degree. I decided to take some time off after the exam which I did. 2 days after the official GMAT, I attempted MGMAT CAT6 and got a 680 again.
MGMAT CAT6: 680 (Q47, V36)
I'd now decided to take my next GMAT on the 26th of August depending on the scores I get on my practice tests over the upcoming weekend.
I just thought it might be helpful to some of the people out there if I logged my activities for the next two weeks prior to retaking the GMAT which I have scheduled for 26th August.
My basic plan is to finish Verbal in the next 4 days and rewrite a practice test.
Additional tools: Apps on my mobile phone: GMAT ToolKit 2, GMAT Pill, Veritas GMAT Question Bank(Really love this for practice), Prep4GMAT.
Study Material: MGMAT SC Strategy Guide, Official Guide 2015, Kaplan GMAT 800, Whiplash's Guides to SC & CR, Bunuel Signature Collection, GMATClub tests.
I'll update this with my daily activity from now on.
Day 1: Finished the first 5 chapters of Manhattan SC book, reading through both chapters twice. Attended Jamboree advanced SC online session. Read through the Comprehensive Critical Reasoning Guide by Whiplash.
Day 2: Completed the first 9 chapters in MGMAT SC Strategy guide, having a few issues relating to the grammatical terms but trying to read through things over and over again to get more familiar with things. Did a few exercises on Prep4GMAT app, loved the app and the flashcards are a good revision of concepts. Plan for day 3 is to complete the MGMAT SC strategy guide and solve the 113 questions in the Verbal Review OG 2nd Edition.
Day 3: Took the day off surprisingly. I got caught up with some office work and I decided to take the few hours I had available off and relax during this time.
Day 4: Revised the first 9 chapters of MGMAT SC and started working out questions in groups of 15 to see how I was performing. There was a considerable improvement in my performance, even though the first read of MGMAT SC Strategy Guide left my thoughts a little clouded. The second read actually gave me a clear idea of how to go about approaching these sentence correction questions.
Day 5: I worked out questions from the Verbal Review OG in Sentence Correction. There are a total of 113 questions, I solved 50 in groups of 10 and cross checked the solutions after every 10. I got a total of 10 wrong out of these, which was not up to the mark. I decided to take a break from sentence correction for a bit and started work on Number properties instead.
Day 6: Solved the first 130 odd questions in the Quant PS section of the OG and worked on a few more Sentence Correction questions.
Day 7: Went through the critical reasoning notes and the Reading comprehension notes. I worked out 40 questions of each from the 2015 OG.
Days 8 & 9: Unfortunately I was travelling on work on these days and just managed to practice problems on the Veritas app and the Prep4GMAT app on my cell phone.
Day 10: Got back home today and decided to give the GMATPrep 2 a shot, just to see if I've improved at all. I scored a 710 (Q49, V37) on this attempt of the GMATPrep. I was happy to finally break the 700 barrier, but I'm guessing there is further improvement needed. I got 11 Incorrect on Quant and 11 incorrect on Verbal. Most of the mistakes in Quant were just silly mistakes E.g. Not reading the question properly, working out DS Problems mentally as opposed to writing them down. In Quant I had 4 PS wrong and 8 DS wrong. Obviously my plan ahead involved considerable amount of practice of DS and Bunuels Signature Collection. In Verbal, I got 6 SC's wrong, 3 CR wrong and 2 RC wrong. This again was disappointing since I had spent a reasonable time on SC's. I do plan on addressing this by working out the 100 collection of SC's which I'm hoping will help. With just a few days left, I'm looking to limit the amount of material I'm using and to be thorough with this limited material.
Day 11-14: Went through all the mistakes I made in all the mocks I had attempted until now, solved all of the problems all over again. I finished up with all the problems available on GMATPrep Practice, I got 68/75 questions correct. Also worked through some of Bunuels Signature Collection, and found these problems to be brilliant to say the least, in pointing out certain things one tends to overlook despite knowing the concepts. Worked out some of the MGMAT Question bank as well for general practice and continued solving questions from the OG. I also bought Exam Pack 1 and the Question Pack based on the advice of Engr2012. I plan of working out all of these by this weekend after which I will attempt the Exam Pack 1 on Sunday and Monday. I have finalized the date for my GMAT as 2nd of September which is 1 week after my desired date, however I think this time was necessary for preparing. Keeping my fingers crossed however and I'll do everything I can in the mean time to ensure I've given it my best shot.
Day 15: Worked on more Bunuel Signature Collection problems, these are incredible. Reviewed all my mistakes in GMATPrep tests and reset it. I've come down with a fever which isn't helping much but I'm trying to work my way through it.
Day 16: Worked out random problems and rewrote GMATPrep 1. Finally managed a score of 750 (Q50, V41), even though this was an inflated score. There were approximately 8-10 questions repeated totally. I think the important take away from this was that I was actually able to gauge what it takes to get a 750 which certainly isn't easy to do. I would certainly recommend that anyone preparing should do this. I have also noticed a lack of clarity in a few questions that are not Official GMAT questions that tend to throw me off. I've been trying to stick to Official GMAT questions to the greatest possible extent.
Day 17: Spent most of today working out random questions from the OG and questions that seemed difficult in general. Worked out a few quant questions as well. Finally attempted my GMATPrep 3. Decided I'd take a short break and catch up on some Dragonball Super
GMATPrep3: 700 (Q49, V37)
Note: I am not entirely certain if this is accurate, but I found the questions in the GMATPrep3 to be relatively tougher than the questions in the 2 free GMATPrep exams. This is despite a similar performance in quant across GMATPrep1 and GMATPrep2.
The breakup was 10 wrong in Quant which I still think is rather high and 14 in verbal. The astonishing thing is how miserably I did in the Sentence Correction bit of this exam. I was actually in the 12th Percentile as compared to 94th and 83rd in Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension respectively. This brought down my score a considerable amount and is something I have decided to work on all over again. Hopefully the 3 days I have left prior to the exam will suffice.
Day 18-19: I rested on Sunday, wanted the fever to wear off. Got on some medication and slept a reasonable bit. I worked on Sentence Correction on Monday and worked out questions from the Question Pack 1.
Day 20: Its 1 day to D Day and its nerve racking to be honest. Theres always an aspiration to do better than how much you expect you can get and there always seems to be scope for improvement. I'm not planning on doing too much today, I will be writing my GMATPrep 4 to see how it goes. Apart from that I'm completing all the questions in the Question Pack, I had saved them for the last day as I figured it would be a good overall revision.
GMATPrep 4: 740 (Q49, V41)
The problems on Quant were really easy compared to the previous GMATPrep. I got 4 mistakes in total out of the 37 resulting in a total score of 49.
The Verbal section was relatively surprising; I did not expect to score as much as I did and I had a total of 6 mistakes with only 2 mistakes in Sentence Correction, 3 in Critical Reasoning and 1 in Reading Comprehension.
While this score was encouraging, I still don't feel entirely confident about tomorrow, however, I am going to take the leap and write my GMAT tomorrow. I guess I'm going to hope for the best. I have a few more hours until I go to bed, I plan on going over all the mistakes I made so far in my practice tests and solving all the hard questions in the Question Pack to gauge where I actually stand when faced with the worst case scenario.
Fingers crossed, I'm going to hope for the best and I will update you on the results tomorrow. While there is no ideal score that is less than 800, I hope to get a 700 or above in this attempt which I strongly believe is far from easy regardless of the GMATPrep scores.
I plan on getting a good nights sleep after and I'll revise through some formula sheets and verbal notes tomorrow. Thanks to GMATClub and members like Whiplash, BB, Bunuel, Engr2012 and Gin for the amazing work they have done to help aspiring B-Schoolers attempt the GMAT. I hope I end up being another example among many, to prove that their effort was not in vain. Regardless of the result tomorrow, I could not be more thankful for the extent to which GMATClub has helped further my preparation.
D-Day: Well as it happens, I couldn't sleep much, not because I was studying but because of the nerves I suppose. Again, I guess to use this against whatever result I get today would be as simple as saying, I'll never do good unless everything goes exactly the way I want it to on test day. Moreover an MBA is going to be far more demanding than this. I've been trying to get some sleep but to no avail, its 9 am here now and my GMAT is scheduled for 3 pm. I guess I'm just going to work it out.
My unusual tip: I don't know if this is true or if it is even recommended but one of the odd things I started doing ever since my GMATPrep2 was to watch a few funny videos prior to the test. I could recommend a few if required
GMAT 2: 690 (Q50, V34) I do however plan on rewriting it one last time within the next 2 weeks, I lost out in verbal because I ran out of time and sentence correction primarily. My plan ahead is to do better in the sentence correction bit and rewrite since I'm losing around 30-40 points in SC's.
GMAT 3 Prep
I'm currently working on my application essays and I plan on submitting some of my applications prior to retaking the GMAT. I've already worked on these applications over a period of time and do not have much work pending. Alongside this I'd taken a break from the GMAT prep for the last 4 days. I haven't seen a single GMAT question in these last few days but I've decided I'm going to start preparing a little further in advance this time around. My target date for my 3rd attempt at the GMAT is the 23rd of September. I'm planning on trying out the 5 day trial of EmpowerGMAT, primarily to work on my Sentence Correction. Plan until I start full time Prep:
1. Work out 20 question of each kind everyday.
2. Revise through a chapter a day in the MGMAT SC guide and read through Whiplash's SC guide repeatedly everyday.
I will update this once I start preparing full time. Cheers!
PS: If any of you happen to have any comments or feedback regarding my approach, I'd love to hear from you. I'm not looking to enroll into any courses but am open to views on topics. I am not a GMAT Expert, I've just written this out hoping to help someone out, either with the methods I used or by preventing someone from repeating mistakes I might have made.
Good luck to all of you!!
14 Aug 2015, 08:01
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Hi guys,
In most SC questions, I'm still solving them intuitively rather than by using the rules. I've improved but I'm not doing well consistently. If there is any other source you think might be helpful for me to strengthen my concepts, please do let me know.
Thanks
In most SC questions, I'm still solving them intuitively rather than by using the rules. I've improved but I'm not doing well consistently. If there is any other source you think might be helpful for me to strengthen my concepts, please do let me know.
Thanks
ENGRTOMBA2018
Joined: 20 Mar 2014
Last visit: 01 Dec 2021
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Concentration: Finance, Strategy
Schools: Kellogg '18 (M)
GMAT 1: 750 Q49 V44
GPA: 3.7
WE:Engineering (Aerospace and Defense)
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14 Aug 2015, 08:15
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ranjeet87
Check out EmpowerGMAT or eGMAT's SC courses. SC should not be solved intuitively by non native speakers. Consistency and hence confidence will only come once you are sure of your method. "intuition' is not a method, it should be the last resort.
Also, solve OG and verbal review at a minimum. When you are advanced enough in your preparation, buy exam pack 1 and question bank 1 for GMATPREP.
