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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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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.
Louis14
Joined: 01 Nov 2019
Last visit: 04 Nov 2023
Posts: 249
Given Kudos: 472
Schools: NUS MiF "22 (A) LSE MFin "22 (S) HEC MFin "22
GMAT 1: 680 Q48 V34
GPA: 3.56
I never thought that a day would actually come when I would write my own debrief. I just never did, perhaps because success and I have, for the most part of my life, evaded each other. The pattern of my life has been that I would put absolutely everything into an endeavor, only to see myself missing my goal by a very narrow margin.
My GMAT journey itself actually started in the wake of such a failure - a failure that had shattered my self-belief into smithereens. The endeavor I failed at was the one for which I had put uncountable sleepless nights, missed many important life events, and perhaps most importantly, given a large chunk of myself to it. When the question of standardized test for pursuing a master's program came up, I had two options: I could either go for GRE or GMAT, and since I was planning to pursue a Master in Finance (rather than an MBA), ultimately GRE and GMAT were equally good in my case. It might sound silly, but I was so frustrated with my then recent failure, and so keen on proving myself to myself, that I stubbornly chose GMAT, which I was told was much harder than the GRE. Assuming that I wasn't that brilliant, my friends warned me that GMAT is essentially for the super-intelligent engineers and math majors. But I just wouldn't listen. The more they tried to convince me to let go the GMAT option, the more adamant I got. I needed a big challenge, and ultimately through it, a chance to taste a hard-earned success. Put simply, I was fed-up of failing.
Beginnings of my GMAT journey:
I joined a local academy in July 2019, and for two months, I just tried to clumsily grasp the very fundamentals of the very basic Quant concepts (combinatorics and probability were a far cry!). Two months passed away in a jiffy, and my mentor finally asked me to take my first GMAT official mock (one of the two free ones). Brimming with the hope to crush the GMAT once and for all, I took the test, only to score a meagre 530 with, if I correctly remember, an abysmal Q29 (and perhaps V32. I never really studied for Verbal as such). I was dumbfounded! "What did I even do in the last 60-70 days?!" A 530! Really?! I couldn't make sense of anything!
I sat down, and I realized that not only was I absolutely wanting in my mastery of Quant basics, but also, I was doing terribly with time management. After reviewing my mock, talking to my local tutor, and doing tons of practice for one month, I took the second free official GMAT mock, and guess what?! I scored a whooping 540! No major shift in my Quant and Verbal split! One whole month of studying every day, and putting at least four hours on average per day brought me an increase of just 10 points! "Where do I go?" Even the tutor began to shirk away from attending this apparently dumb man he found in me. I realized that I would have to do it on my own. I can't blame the tutor. In fact, on the contrary, I have deep respect for him because he was an incredibly intelligent man. It was just that I wasn't that intelligent, and well I paid him for just two months, and here I was in the fifth of my preparation begging him for guidance. It was too much to ask for, honestly.
So, now it was me, GMAT, and the brutal world of mathematical prodigies out there claiming to crush the GMAT in a matter of days and weeks, rubbing salt into my perennially fresh wounds every day. I had no clue whatsoever, and it was then that I started to spend more time on this incredible forum: GMATCLUB. I don't know how an adopted child feels when he finds new parents, but I most certainly felt something of a similar sort. It was my place to find answers to my legions of questions, fight my unabating anxiety stemming from uncertainty, and derive inspiration to keep pushing every day.
It was almost January 2020, and I was nowhere to get done with the GMAT, let alone submitting my applications for the fall intake 2020. It was a mess, an absolute chaos. When I started out, I thought I'll be done with the GMAT in two months, and here I was in my sixth month of preparation, standing nowhere close to writing the real GMAT for the scores I wanted. However, I must mention here that six months of preparation (almost entirely focused on Quant) had really improved my quantitative prowess, and I was now scoring in the range of Q39-Q41. I felt much more comfortable with Quant by this time than how I did initially. But still, Q39-Q41 wasn't going to get me to my preferred schools. I needed much more. I always dreamed of studying finance at London School of Economics, and I knew that to even stand a chance at such a competitive program, I needed an overall score in proximity of 700, and a much higher Quant score than I was scoring at.
Strategy that got me from Q39-41 to Q42-45:
It was a very tough time. Deadlines were passing by, and I was stagnant. I've always been a dreamer, and I knew that I would never compromise on my dream whatsoever. I kept at it! I started revising my Quant basics because I realized that I was making mistakes in questions that tested the fundamentals. I read somewhere that missing out on an easier question is ten times worse than missing out on a harder question. This advice was something like a reality check: I was trying to master harder questions, when my basics were not in place. I decided to not just revise my Quant stuff, but also make notes. It would have been very inefficient to revise the whole quant books every two weeks. I needed brief notes to keep my grasp on the fundamentals fresh, and also to keep hold of the evasive subtleties that Quant rules often have. This strategy of note making, and revising every two weeks or so, did actually prove very well. I began to score in the range of Q42-45. It was finally working! I remember it was around mid-February 2020, and I was full of hope to finally do great on the GMAT. To further strengthen my grasp on Quant, I kept working.
Corona interlude:
By mid-March, I realized that it was about time to finally sit for the real GMAT. I felt ready (although, in the hindsight, I doubt I was). By this time, Corona had swept across my country, and lockdowns were nigh. I sat down to register for the real GMAT, and I found out that test centers had been locked down. IT WAS FRUSTRATING(!), least because I was afraid that I would lose all the momentum I had gained in the last couple of months, and I would end up going back to the depressing-Q30s. I didn't want to let go my gains, but I couldn't do anything. So, what did I do? I gradually stopped studying, ultimately resigning to the fact that flying abroad in about six odd months was not an option anyway. As if this wasn't depressing enough, I lost my dear, beloved grandmother, who meant the world and everything in it to me. I think I don't want to speak about that but, simply put, it was devastating.
Resuming after almost four months of hiatus:
From March 2020 to July 2020, I didn't study at all. At all! I started again in July. I was rusty, but to my utter surprise, I wasn't totally blank. I still retained a lot of stuff I had read over the months, and I could do decently difficult questions in decent amount of time. In essence, it wasn't all lost. I right away revised my Quant notes, did some verbal, and felt comfortable to take GMAT official mock 3. I scored a 410! A 410! Are you kidding me, GMAT Prep?! I must be better than a 410! Two weeks down the lane (during which I did haphazard practice), I again scored a humbling 560. It was August 2020! My 13th month into preparing for the GMAT, and here I was at square one: 560!
Give up?! After a seemingly lifetime of preparation?! Nope! That wasn't an option, and even if it had been, I would never have given up. "You only lose when you give up," said a great world leader. If I don't give up, I would never lose!
The most important strategy that helped me get to my goal score:
At this lowest ebb in my journey, perhaps it was God's sympathy toward me that he showed me a way out of nowhere. I concocted a strategy, which ultimately proved to be the single most important strategy in my whole GMAT preparation: I started to meticulously focus on the areas I was making mistakes at. I didn't just focus on the larger topic that I felt weak at, as I did earlier. Earlier, I would say, "Oh, I'm weak at Geometry," and then I would start reading my Geometry notes, practice some randomly chosen Geometry questions, and that was it. This time, I could see why that strategy was ineffective: it was not focused. Pursuing the new strategy, I would go deeper into say, Geometry, and identify the subtopics that were being difficult. For example, the first subtopic I implemented this new strategy on was Remainders. I realized that although I was generally good at Number Properties, I was really struggling with Remainders.
Identifying the subtopic was the first step of this new strategy. The next step was to do focused and calibrated practice. By calibrated, I mean, doing practice sets at three levels of difficulty: Sub-600 level, 600-700 level, and 700+ level. The source for these practice sets was the incredible GMATCLUB, where there is an option to create sets of questions at your preferred difficulty level and also to restrict your question sets to sources you trust. If you don't know how to avail this option, leave a comment, and I'll share the link.
When practicing questions, you must set a rule for when to jump from one difficulty level to the next. I decided that I would keep doing sets of ten questions each until I hit a streak (getting all ten questions right). Then, when I would hit a streak, I would move onto the next difficulty level. I usually kept this strategy to Sub-600 and 600-700 level questions, primarily because questions in these ranges make or break your GMAT score. The harder ones aren't as important as the medium and easy ones, remember. Anyway, this rule was a very interesting way to keep myself focused, and it "forced" me to see the different patterns of questions in a certain subtopic because I didn't want to get a similar question wrong twice, least because it was frustrating. Who doesn't want to hit a streak and move on?!
Ladies and gentlemen, this strategy did WONDERS! I worked on various subtopics in Quant - subtopics that would earlier go almost untouched under the cover of the larger topic. I, for the first time on an official GMAT prep mock (Mock 5 on mba.com, to be precise) scored a 670 with a Q49!! A Q49! MY GOD! I was ecstatic!!! All those moments of disillusionment, pain, burnouts, frustrations, and despondency at last seemed to pay off. I felt victorious, but perhaps a bit too early. In my next (and last official GMAT mock, Mock 6), I scored a 640 with a Q44. It wasn't back at square one, but I felt quite uneasy about the dive from Q49 to Q44. I think, part of the reason for this abrupt slump was extreme burnout: after I scored a Q49, I pushed myself harder than ever to cement my gains so that I don't lose my newly gained potential. Burnouts can be absolutely fatal. More on burnouts later.
Developing a passion for mathematics (read only if you want to):
One thing was sure: my conceptual grasp on GMAT Quant had improved dramatically. When I started out, I was meant to be a hopeless failure because I had completely lost my connection with mathematics. I was good at math during my school days, but it's been ages since I had done proper math. I didn't even know what on Earth combinatorics was. I had even forgotten what integers meant! On my first day at the local academy, I thought everyone around me (most of them engineers) were descendants of Elon Musk, and I of Donald Trump.
Yet, months after months, I started developing an increasing passion (read, addiction) for mathematics, and I truly thank GMAT for that.
GMAT did another very important thing. It made me realize that all my math education at school was useless because it was largely based on rot learning, with no concern with giving me a shred of an idea as to what mathematical concepts actually meant and where they could actually be applied, it at all. I remember I got so involved with mathematics per se that I started watching documentaries on history of math, "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Man Who Knew Infinity" became two of my most favorite movies, and I came across my new heroes - Jim Simmons and Richard Feynman. I even printed out Richard Feynman's two autobiographies, which I sadly wouldn't find in nearby bookstores. If I look back now, I can tell why was I doing all those things: I wanted answers. "Why were only very few people better at mathematics?" "Why can't I be one of them?" "Is there a pattern in the thinking processes of mathematical giants and prodigies?" "Is being extremely good at math a God's special gift that I lacked?" "Have I got it?" I only had questions. No answers. And, thus, my quest to find them in documentaries, books, movies, talks and what not.
The MGMAT fiasco:
Anyway, so I scored a 670 (Q49) and a 640 (Q44) in my last two mba.com mocks. I knew I was very near to my goal, my confidence was much better, and I felt comfortable about every concept on the GMAT Quant. Yet, somehow, I wasn't there and also, I wasn't consistent in my scores. I needed more mocks because I had exhausted all the official ones, and after researching a lot, I figured out that MGMAT mocks were the next best thing. So, I bought six MGMAT mocks (when I only needed one or two, but they come in a set of six). I read that MGMAT mocks were supposedly harder than the official ones. Two weeks after I wrote my last official mock (640), I sat down to write my first MGMAT mock, and again scored a shocking 560 with a devastating Q31. I remember that I was so devastated that my self-confidence (already hurt because of an abrupt dive from Q49 to Q44 in my last two official mocks) was shattered into pieces. What ensued was a period of utter lack of self-belief. A strange thing happened. I started struggling with even Sub-600 questions. That is the power of mind! The MGMAT's CAT had implanted in my head that my Q49 was a bluff, that I wasn't even close to the mastery I needed for a great GMAT score, that I just didn't have it. I let that ill-crafted, unnecessarily hard, and absolutely absurd CAT define myself and my abilities. I let it take over my thought process, and in no time, my mind was a dark, haunted place where even I feared to go.
Don't rely on MGMAT mocks for accurate score prediction!
Over the next TWO months, I kept taking MGMAT mocks at intervals, and I NEVER SCORED A 600!! No doubt MGMAT mocks were good at doing one thing: making me better understand when to attempt a question and when to let it go. But I must say that MGMAT mocks were trashy as far as their content and scoring algorithm are concerned. They are useless to the core, if you are looking for an accurate assessment of your potential. Their algorithm would keep bombarding you with convoluted, dense, needlessly hard, lengthy quant questions without adapting at all! They are just good to make you experience beforehand a test day that turned into a nightmare, and if you want to experience that, do take an MGMAT CAT. Otherwise, don't.
Appreciation post for a few particular GMATCLUB experts:
Before I finish with describing my long GMAT journey, I must mention some of the most incredibly gifted human beings we know as experts on GMATCLUB. It would sit heavy on conscience if I didn't particularly mention the invaluable guidance from Scott (Target Test Prep), Bunuel, Ian Stewart, Karishma (Veritas Prep), and Rich (Empower GMAT). There is no doubt that there were many other incredibly kind and intellectually brilliant experts on this forum, whose solutions and advices were equally beneficial to me and many other aspirants, but I mentioned the aforementioned names in particular because either some of them were personally there when I wanted them the most in my initial days of preparation, or were so handy during my GMAT preparation with their infinite solutions to virtually every question on GMATCLUB that I doubt it would've been possible to score a fraction of what I ultimately did without their genius.
So, thank you ScottTargetTestPrep for being the kindest expert I've known here, and perhaps anywhere else. You answered my stupid queries with utter seriousness. You never asked me to stop ranting about my struggles with the GMAT. You stayed there, always. From day one. And, I truly want to thank you for your time and patience. I want to thank Bunuel for his genius. If it were not for his quirky solutions, GMAT would have been an unconquerable monster, at least for folks like me. Bunuel, you have a very big hand in making my success possible. I genuinely extend my deep respects to you. I want to thank IanStewart for saving me tons of time with his artistic, articulate solutions to the ugliest of questions. I want to thank VeritasKarishma for always taking the time out to reply to my queries whenever I mentioned her on the forum. I also want to extend my great appreciation for her flair for mathematics in general. You did play a role in making me love mathematics. I want to thank EMPOWERgmatRichC for always being there in my initial days of preparation, and for always trying to answer my drab queries. His genuine interest in my queries often surprised me, and I thank him for this sincerity as well.
The advice that made me feel no anxiety on the real GMAT: "Stop studying!"
It was 16th November 2020, that I came across this GMAT tutor, AviGutman - one of the authors of Manhattan guides. I had come to know through one of his videos on YouTube that he was the author of the highly useful Manhattan guides. So, in search for an answer as to why there was such a huge discrepancy between my official mock scores and MGMAT mock scores, I wrote to him in the comments section of one his videos with a plea for clarity and guidance. To my surprise, he was extremely involved in answering my questions, queries, whining, and what not. The culmination of our conversation was an advice that he shared with me two weeks before I had planned to take the GMAT, and I truly believe that that advice is the reason I'm writing this debrief today. He said, "I really do suggest that you stop studying. Did you know that body builders stop lifting heavy weights two weeks before a competition? You’re tempted to continue studying because that’s worked well for you on other tests - but the GMAT is not like other tests. It tests reasoning rather than content knowledge. To maximize your score, you should spend the next two weeks getting lots of exercise, clean food, fresh air, and good sleep. No more practice tests!"
I initially thought that he was kidding me. How can I stop studying two weeks before the real GMAT?! I was one of those kids who would keep revising their 400-page book till the point they had one foot into the exam hall and the other outside. Ultimately, however, Avi convinced me that not studying was the only way to go, and I, itching to feel courageous, decided to follow his advice religiously.
I decided to write the GMAT on December 3rd 2020, and got registered for it on around 20th November. From that day till the D-day, I didn't touch a GMAT book, didn't search anything related to GMAT on the internet, stopped logging into GMATCLUB, and just relaxed! Simple. It was as if GMAT didn't even exist for me. My siblings and parents, seeing my year-and-a-half long struggle with GMAT thought I was taking too big a risk, perhaps because they considered GMAT as one of the infinite traditional exams that I've had taken throughout my life. GMAT is not that! It's a test of reasoning, not content. Uncharted terrains require unusual measures.
The D-DAY:
The day had finally arrived. The day that kept running away from me for almost a year. There came a point in my preparation journey when I though this day would never come. I would never be able to write the GMAT because I would never feel ready to write it. Feeling powerless to control what appeared to be an intractable titanic (GMAT), I thought I would eventually resign to writing a less hard GRE. But the D-day did finally come. I also used to envision that on my D-day I would be trembling with fear, anxiety, and uncontrollable nerves. In fact, what happened was much to the contrary. I had scheduled my exam to start at 1.30 pm. I got up at 7.53 am, half an hour before my usual pattern. Didn't have much to do. So, after using my phone for half an hour, I eventually decided to take another short nap (to get fresher ha-ha). Then, I woke up at around 9.30 am. I freshened up, and went downstairs to take my breakfast, which was pretty heavy, including three fried eggs with a heavy paratha (a South Asian version of wheat bread), tea, and more tea. Then I spent some time with my mother, telling her how I wasn't feeling anxious, and seeking her blessings. Around 11.45 am, I packed my bag that had all the stuff I wanted to take with me to the test center: three sweet chocolates, a Pepsi, two water bottles, and a pack of wipes to clean my hands after eating those chocolates in the test center.
I left my home for the test center at 12pm, and reached there by 12.40pm. I showed my passport at the desk, did some signatures as required, and was right away ushered into the test center. It was so clean and silent. I loved it! I felt no nerves. Nothing. I strongly believe it was so because of all the relaxing I had done in the previous two weeks without touching anything GMAT (Thanks, Avi!). There was another guy who had also come to write the GMAT, and we talked briefly. He told me it was his third GMAT attempt. For a moment, those stories of never getting the GMAT right in the first attempt, and of people giving in after multiple attempts came haunting at me. But I simply rejected them before they could even head-up. I was absolutely focused. After some long palm scanning, I was directed across the mirrored wall where my neat desk was waiting for me. I sat down, and the test began. *just felt a chill*
I opted for the following order: Quant, Verbal, IR, AWA. Quant started out with a fairly easy question that made me feel more comfortable. As I kept attempting questions, they kept getting harder. In the midway, I felt that the questions were pretty hard! But they weren't dense, or unnecessarily convoluted as MGMAT mocks were. That's the beauty of GMAC. They really test you for the GMAT, not for a PhD in Applied Mathematics, as MGMAT seems to do.
I finished my Quant section almost in time, calculatedly guessing on the last three or four questions. Then, I took an 8 minutes break. Then, Verbal section started. Verbal was not VERY hard, but I realized that their RC passages were pretty lengthy - sometimes spanning over four to five long paragraphs. I faced timing issues with Verbal, and had to make random guess on the last five to six questions! During the break that followed the Verbal section, I remember going to the restroom, feeling all too depressed and down because of the guesses I had to make on both the sections and also because the test appeared to be usually hard on me. The other GMAT test-taker met me in the waiting area, and he was kind enough to say that I should cheer up because if it felt harder, I must be doing it right. I did feel a bit good to hear that but my twenty odd mocks had made me see all shades of unpredictability in scores. You just never know! And my instinct was as confused as my brain was.
I did the IR section as if it didn't even belong to the GMAT. Mind you, I did give it more respect than I would give it in my mocks: I didn't just pick alternate answers in opposite columns. Although, after the first eight questions, I was forced to do that too. AWA was fun. I like writing anyway, so it was a nice detour from all the negative, horrendous thoughts I was having about my Quant and Verbal performance.
The final moments:
As I was about to click NEXT on AWA, for a fraction of a minute, I happened to get flashes of so many highs and lows during my seventeen long months of being involved with the GMAT. I clicked NEXT, the screen turned white for five seconds, and then the score appeared: 680 (Q48;V34)!!! I closed my eyes, my head curved down, and just breathed. It felt, it was over. I wasn't just meant to fail, always. It was the moment I realized that God hadn't forgotten me. He didn't let me down. I thanked God, and stepped out of the testing room to collect my unofficial result. The test administrator kindly confessed that it wasn't so common in that test center to see someone scoring a 680 in his/her first attempt. I had decided beforehand that I would gift a chocolate bar to the test administrator, if I scored anywhere near 700. He graciously accepted, and I stepped out of the center triumphantly.
Relatively speaking, I know 680 with a Q48 is not a stellar score on this forum. I've seen geniuses here, and I always have been full of praise for them. They were the people who defined possibilities for me - possibilities that I kept chasing. But I am no genius. In the first ever mock that I took, I scored a Q29, and it was only my insatiable thirst for success and unrelenting belief in my dream to conquer the GMAT that got me to Q48 (and a 680) in the real test, in which stakes are much higher and calm much lower.
The most important lesson I want to share with you:
If I could give you just one thing from my story, I would give you this: there will be moments during this GMAT preparation when you would doubt yourself, your intelligence, your abilities, and perhaps at times, even your existence. But, standing here on the other side, I swear that all those doubts are mere illusions. You know what's the best thing about GMAT? It's reliable. You work hard on the right areas, you see improvements. There's no chance for human error or prejudice. Machines don't choose favorites.
Don't pay attention to people if you're taking longer to prepare than they expected you to:
Part of the reason it took me so long to write the GMAT was simply that I didn't have an extra $250 to spend on it twice. I had to get it right in the first shot, or things would be very different and difficult. I kept delaying it over and over again. Everybody, even my very close friends, started to ask me why was I not appearing for the GMAT. I was sick and tired of answering in one same way, "next week, God willing." So, apart from financial pressure, there was a very potent peer pressure on me to get it right. I don't know how I withstood it all, and still didn't fall apart in the test center. Don't heed to their questions and frowns. They'll not even remember how long it took you once you produce your desired results. I only have immense gratitude first toward God, and then toward those folks, especially the ones on this great forum, who rather than questioning my abilities and timing, assisted me in laying one brick at a time irrespective of how long it took.
Key takeaways from my LONG journey:
This long journey has taught me some very important lessons that I want to share with those who shall walk this path in future. I wish someone had shared these lessons with me when I was setting out, or even when I was across the midway of my preparation. So many mistakes could have been avoided!
⦁ Be it Quant or Verbal, learn the basics first, and learn them so well that you almost never get them wrong! Don't rush into getting to harder level questions. In fact, practicing harder level questions would not be the ideal use of your time, especially if your accuracy on easy and medium level questions is not consistently north of 85%. Get the basics in place first!
⦁ Have a plan! I can't overemphasize the importance of this point. A large chunk of my long GMAT journey is characterized by haphazardness. For example, I spent almost one whole month doing random sets of questions from Veritas Prep. What for?! I still have no idea! I was just doing questions upon questions with no effing end. I was heading nowhere! And, this isn't about just one month. I kept making similar undirected efforts till the very last three or four months of my preparation. The key to success in GMAT is focused practice. I have already expounded upon this point above. In essence, you have to go deeper into the core of big topics, and see which subtopic is making things difficult for you. You do fifty, eighty, or even hundred questions of the same subtopic at one difficulty level, and then you repeat this process for the next advanced difficulty level. You'll see miracles happening!
⦁ Make notes. Summarize and write the things you learn while reading conceptual theory or practicing questions. People often avoid this seemingly demanding exercise of taking notes. But notes are very important. Why? Because revising is the sole of your grasp on the plethora of rules and subtleties that GMAT throws at you, especially in Quant. And, revising whole books isn't an efficient way to go about it. It will burn you out. Notes will save the day. Yes, the GMAT is not a test of content knowledge, but there is a body of rules that you must master simply to apply them in your logical processes. If I didn't know that a right triangle inscribed in a circle must have one of its sides as the diameter of the circle, I'm sure it would have taken me ages to even realize that there was a need for such a rule. Yet, after a certain familiarity with such rules, GMAT essentially is about applying them in logical ways that often require out of the box thinking. Hence, don't just "learn" the rules, understand them. I have this written on the first page of my notebook: Knowing a formula is not equal to understanding math.
⦁ Don't rush into your preparation. Don't rush into sitting for the real GMAT. To get to your goal score, first make sure you have developed the right level of mastery to achieve that score. GMAT is a crucial part of a business school application, and it is an incredible piece of craftsmanship. It may take longer than you expected to give it, but don't panic and rush into it. It'll punish you for rushing, but will triply reward you for being patient.
⦁ Make an error log, but don't make it complex. I've read folks making full fledge excel based error logs. I think that's an overkill. Simply keep a small copy in which you write solutions that you feel are subtle and so genius that you wouldn't want to forget them. Such solutions are pieces of artisanship, and the greatest artist of such solutions on this forum is Bunuel, the great. I also must extend my heartfelt appreciation to IanStewart because in the later part of my preparation, I really adored his no BS solutions.
⦁ Enjoy the process of studying for the GMAT. I literally fell in love with it. It is an exceptionally beautiful work of art. True, it may make you feel intimidated, sometimes destroyed. But, if you give it some time, and don't dump it, it would embrace you. It's like that girl who appears to be all too rude and cranky, but inside she's caring, a gem. GMAT, like her, might simply test you for a while for how serious you are about it. Don't fool around with the GMAT. All it wants from you is absolute loyalty, much like that cranky girl.
⦁ Don't rely on the mocks of test prep companies, ever! They are not a true predictor of your scoring potential. The highest I scored on MGMAT mocks was 580! If I wasn't lucky to get the right advice at the right time, or if I was thin-skinned and had let MGMAT destroy my willpower to succeed, I would have been nowhere to be seen. Only rely on the official mba.com mocks. Period.
⦁ Lastly, give yourself time to relax before your D-day! This is as important as it gets. Stop studying two weeks before your real GMAT! Absolutely no studying, no surfing the internet for anything related to GMAT, no taking of practice tests, no revising anything whatsoever. Pretend that you don't even know what GMAT stands for. Just cut yourself off it. COMPLETELY! I'm talking from experience. This strategy is magic! AviGutman shared this incredible piece of advice with me, and I can't thank him enough for that. He's an exceptional mentor.
Materials I used:
⦁ Manhattan Guides for concepts. Sadly, I began to use them much later than I should have. These guides are extremely useful for getting your basics in place. Revisit them again and again if you don't feel comfortable with a certain area.
⦁ Veritas Prep questions for practicing in the initial days of my preparation. They weren't that useful at that time as I was punching above my weight.
⦁ Official Guide 2020, and GMAT Quant Review 2020 - the best questions you can get your hands on. Use them wisely. Don't waste them in your initial days of preparation, especially the questions in the Quant Review.
⦁ In the ending and most crucial phase of my preparation, I used GMATCLUB for making my desired sets of questions, and practiced insanely. I also used Quant Review 2020 in this phase.
⦁ For CATs, I primarily relied on mba.com official mocks, all six of them. I also wrote six Princeton Review mocks in the early and middle phases of my preparation. I don't rate them very highly. At the very end of my preparation, I bought MGMAT mocks, which are terribly designed. They won't give you anywhere close an assessment of your true potential. Only attempt them to experience how a bad GMAT test day would look like. However, they might teach you when to let go off questions, and manage time in a better way.
⦁ I learned most of the important patterns and rules tested on the GMAT by practicing questions, and making notes of the things I thought were important. Initially, the rules may make no sense as to how one rule is related to the other in the larger scheme of things, but with patient practicing and notetaking, you'll begin to see how concepts and rules are so intricately interrelated.
⦁ For inequalities and mixture problems, which I found very annoying, I watched a couple of lengthy videos by Crack Verbal's Aditya Kumar on GMATCLUB's YouTube channel. He really did a great job at making me fall in love with inequalities. For mixture problems, he shared a method called allegation that made things very much easier.
Last word:
My friends, pardon me for writing this lengthy, boring monologue, but it is solely written with an intent to help some of you who might be facing similar problems and anxieties as I once did. If I may mention here, this debrief is written purely for those who are not naturally brilliant at standardized tests, haven't studied at the best schools in the country, have an insatiable thirst for success at the GMAT, and feel self-doubts and numbing uncertainties in life. Perspectives define realty. From one perspective, my score of 680/Q48 is wanting. As I have already mentioned, there are folks here who are GMAT prodigies, who have scored 740+ in two weeks or two months. I extend my heartiest respects to them, but they were never my heroes. My heroes here were those who started with a meagre score, and then worked their a** off to get to where they wanted to, even to a 600. Their stories motivated me to keep putting one step ahead of another. From where I started, very humbly, I can't thank God enough for this 680 with a Q48. It's all about perspective. I wish that my story could be a story of inspiration for those who shall ever tread my footsteps.
I truly wish you very best of luck in your GMAT preparation. May God bless you!
Thank you very much.
P.S. Given the extensive and profound experiences I have had during my preparing for the GMAT, I am sure I can help you steer through the uncharted waters of the GMAT exam. Should you feel a need to get some guidance or discuss the problems you might be facing during your GMAT prep, feel free to write me at [email protected]. I would love to help you!
My GMAT journey itself actually started in the wake of such a failure - a failure that had shattered my self-belief into smithereens. The endeavor I failed at was the one for which I had put uncountable sleepless nights, missed many important life events, and perhaps most importantly, given a large chunk of myself to it. When the question of standardized test for pursuing a master's program came up, I had two options: I could either go for GRE or GMAT, and since I was planning to pursue a Master in Finance (rather than an MBA), ultimately GRE and GMAT were equally good in my case. It might sound silly, but I was so frustrated with my then recent failure, and so keen on proving myself to myself, that I stubbornly chose GMAT, which I was told was much harder than the GRE. Assuming that I wasn't that brilliant, my friends warned me that GMAT is essentially for the super-intelligent engineers and math majors. But I just wouldn't listen. The more they tried to convince me to let go the GMAT option, the more adamant I got. I needed a big challenge, and ultimately through it, a chance to taste a hard-earned success. Put simply, I was fed-up of failing.
Beginnings of my GMAT journey:
I joined a local academy in July 2019, and for two months, I just tried to clumsily grasp the very fundamentals of the very basic Quant concepts (combinatorics and probability were a far cry!). Two months passed away in a jiffy, and my mentor finally asked me to take my first GMAT official mock (one of the two free ones). Brimming with the hope to crush the GMAT once and for all, I took the test, only to score a meagre 530 with, if I correctly remember, an abysmal Q29 (and perhaps V32. I never really studied for Verbal as such). I was dumbfounded! "What did I even do in the last 60-70 days?!" A 530! Really?! I couldn't make sense of anything!
I sat down, and I realized that not only was I absolutely wanting in my mastery of Quant basics, but also, I was doing terribly with time management. After reviewing my mock, talking to my local tutor, and doing tons of practice for one month, I took the second free official GMAT mock, and guess what?! I scored a whooping 540! No major shift in my Quant and Verbal split! One whole month of studying every day, and putting at least four hours on average per day brought me an increase of just 10 points! "Where do I go?" Even the tutor began to shirk away from attending this apparently dumb man he found in me. I realized that I would have to do it on my own. I can't blame the tutor. In fact, on the contrary, I have deep respect for him because he was an incredibly intelligent man. It was just that I wasn't that intelligent, and well I paid him for just two months, and here I was in the fifth of my preparation begging him for guidance. It was too much to ask for, honestly.
So, now it was me, GMAT, and the brutal world of mathematical prodigies out there claiming to crush the GMAT in a matter of days and weeks, rubbing salt into my perennially fresh wounds every day. I had no clue whatsoever, and it was then that I started to spend more time on this incredible forum: GMATCLUB. I don't know how an adopted child feels when he finds new parents, but I most certainly felt something of a similar sort. It was my place to find answers to my legions of questions, fight my unabating anxiety stemming from uncertainty, and derive inspiration to keep pushing every day.
It was almost January 2020, and I was nowhere to get done with the GMAT, let alone submitting my applications for the fall intake 2020. It was a mess, an absolute chaos. When I started out, I thought I'll be done with the GMAT in two months, and here I was in my sixth month of preparation, standing nowhere close to writing the real GMAT for the scores I wanted. However, I must mention here that six months of preparation (almost entirely focused on Quant) had really improved my quantitative prowess, and I was now scoring in the range of Q39-Q41. I felt much more comfortable with Quant by this time than how I did initially. But still, Q39-Q41 wasn't going to get me to my preferred schools. I needed much more. I always dreamed of studying finance at London School of Economics, and I knew that to even stand a chance at such a competitive program, I needed an overall score in proximity of 700, and a much higher Quant score than I was scoring at.
Strategy that got me from Q39-41 to Q42-45:
It was a very tough time. Deadlines were passing by, and I was stagnant. I've always been a dreamer, and I knew that I would never compromise on my dream whatsoever. I kept at it! I started revising my Quant basics because I realized that I was making mistakes in questions that tested the fundamentals. I read somewhere that missing out on an easier question is ten times worse than missing out on a harder question. This advice was something like a reality check: I was trying to master harder questions, when my basics were not in place. I decided to not just revise my Quant stuff, but also make notes. It would have been very inefficient to revise the whole quant books every two weeks. I needed brief notes to keep my grasp on the fundamentals fresh, and also to keep hold of the evasive subtleties that Quant rules often have. This strategy of note making, and revising every two weeks or so, did actually prove very well. I began to score in the range of Q42-45. It was finally working! I remember it was around mid-February 2020, and I was full of hope to finally do great on the GMAT. To further strengthen my grasp on Quant, I kept working.
Corona interlude:
By mid-March, I realized that it was about time to finally sit for the real GMAT. I felt ready (although, in the hindsight, I doubt I was). By this time, Corona had swept across my country, and lockdowns were nigh. I sat down to register for the real GMAT, and I found out that test centers had been locked down. IT WAS FRUSTRATING(!), least because I was afraid that I would lose all the momentum I had gained in the last couple of months, and I would end up going back to the depressing-Q30s. I didn't want to let go my gains, but I couldn't do anything. So, what did I do? I gradually stopped studying, ultimately resigning to the fact that flying abroad in about six odd months was not an option anyway. As if this wasn't depressing enough, I lost my dear, beloved grandmother, who meant the world and everything in it to me. I think I don't want to speak about that but, simply put, it was devastating.
Resuming after almost four months of hiatus:
From March 2020 to July 2020, I didn't study at all. At all! I started again in July. I was rusty, but to my utter surprise, I wasn't totally blank. I still retained a lot of stuff I had read over the months, and I could do decently difficult questions in decent amount of time. In essence, it wasn't all lost. I right away revised my Quant notes, did some verbal, and felt comfortable to take GMAT official mock 3. I scored a 410! A 410! Are you kidding me, GMAT Prep?! I must be better than a 410! Two weeks down the lane (during which I did haphazard practice), I again scored a humbling 560. It was August 2020! My 13th month into preparing for the GMAT, and here I was at square one: 560!
Give up?! After a seemingly lifetime of preparation?! Nope! That wasn't an option, and even if it had been, I would never have given up. "You only lose when you give up," said a great world leader. If I don't give up, I would never lose!
The most important strategy that helped me get to my goal score:
At this lowest ebb in my journey, perhaps it was God's sympathy toward me that he showed me a way out of nowhere. I concocted a strategy, which ultimately proved to be the single most important strategy in my whole GMAT preparation: I started to meticulously focus on the areas I was making mistakes at. I didn't just focus on the larger topic that I felt weak at, as I did earlier. Earlier, I would say, "Oh, I'm weak at Geometry," and then I would start reading my Geometry notes, practice some randomly chosen Geometry questions, and that was it. This time, I could see why that strategy was ineffective: it was not focused. Pursuing the new strategy, I would go deeper into say, Geometry, and identify the subtopics that were being difficult. For example, the first subtopic I implemented this new strategy on was Remainders. I realized that although I was generally good at Number Properties, I was really struggling with Remainders.
Identifying the subtopic was the first step of this new strategy. The next step was to do focused and calibrated practice. By calibrated, I mean, doing practice sets at three levels of difficulty: Sub-600 level, 600-700 level, and 700+ level. The source for these practice sets was the incredible GMATCLUB, where there is an option to create sets of questions at your preferred difficulty level and also to restrict your question sets to sources you trust. If you don't know how to avail this option, leave a comment, and I'll share the link.
When practicing questions, you must set a rule for when to jump from one difficulty level to the next. I decided that I would keep doing sets of ten questions each until I hit a streak (getting all ten questions right). Then, when I would hit a streak, I would move onto the next difficulty level. I usually kept this strategy to Sub-600 and 600-700 level questions, primarily because questions in these ranges make or break your GMAT score. The harder ones aren't as important as the medium and easy ones, remember. Anyway, this rule was a very interesting way to keep myself focused, and it "forced" me to see the different patterns of questions in a certain subtopic because I didn't want to get a similar question wrong twice, least because it was frustrating. Who doesn't want to hit a streak and move on?!
Ladies and gentlemen, this strategy did WONDERS! I worked on various subtopics in Quant - subtopics that would earlier go almost untouched under the cover of the larger topic. I, for the first time on an official GMAT prep mock (Mock 5 on mba.com, to be precise) scored a 670 with a Q49!! A Q49! MY GOD! I was ecstatic!!! All those moments of disillusionment, pain, burnouts, frustrations, and despondency at last seemed to pay off. I felt victorious, but perhaps a bit too early. In my next (and last official GMAT mock, Mock 6), I scored a 640 with a Q44. It wasn't back at square one, but I felt quite uneasy about the dive from Q49 to Q44. I think, part of the reason for this abrupt slump was extreme burnout: after I scored a Q49, I pushed myself harder than ever to cement my gains so that I don't lose my newly gained potential. Burnouts can be absolutely fatal. More on burnouts later.
Developing a passion for mathematics (read only if you want to):
One thing was sure: my conceptual grasp on GMAT Quant had improved dramatically. When I started out, I was meant to be a hopeless failure because I had completely lost my connection with mathematics. I was good at math during my school days, but it's been ages since I had done proper math. I didn't even know what on Earth combinatorics was. I had even forgotten what integers meant! On my first day at the local academy, I thought everyone around me (most of them engineers) were descendants of Elon Musk, and I of Donald Trump.
Yet, months after months, I started developing an increasing passion (read, addiction) for mathematics, and I truly thank GMAT for that. GMAT did another very important thing. It made me realize that all my math education at school was useless because it was largely based on rot learning, with no concern with giving me a shred of an idea as to what mathematical concepts actually meant and where they could actually be applied, it at all. I remember I got so involved with mathematics per se that I started watching documentaries on history of math, "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Man Who Knew Infinity" became two of my most favorite movies, and I came across my new heroes - Jim Simmons and Richard Feynman. I even printed out Richard Feynman's two autobiographies, which I sadly wouldn't find in nearby bookstores. If I look back now, I can tell why was I doing all those things: I wanted answers. "Why were only very few people better at mathematics?" "Why can't I be one of them?" "Is there a pattern in the thinking processes of mathematical giants and prodigies?" "Is being extremely good at math a God's special gift that I lacked?" "Have I got it?" I only had questions. No answers. And, thus, my quest to find them in documentaries, books, movies, talks and what not.
The MGMAT fiasco:
Anyway, so I scored a 670 (Q49) and a 640 (Q44) in my last two mba.com mocks. I knew I was very near to my goal, my confidence was much better, and I felt comfortable about every concept on the GMAT Quant. Yet, somehow, I wasn't there and also, I wasn't consistent in my scores. I needed more mocks because I had exhausted all the official ones, and after researching a lot, I figured out that MGMAT mocks were the next best thing. So, I bought six MGMAT mocks (when I only needed one or two, but they come in a set of six). I read that MGMAT mocks were supposedly harder than the official ones. Two weeks after I wrote my last official mock (640), I sat down to write my first MGMAT mock, and again scored a shocking 560 with a devastating Q31. I remember that I was so devastated that my self-confidence (already hurt because of an abrupt dive from Q49 to Q44 in my last two official mocks) was shattered into pieces. What ensued was a period of utter lack of self-belief. A strange thing happened. I started struggling with even Sub-600 questions. That is the power of mind! The MGMAT's CAT had implanted in my head that my Q49 was a bluff, that I wasn't even close to the mastery I needed for a great GMAT score, that I just didn't have it. I let that ill-crafted, unnecessarily hard, and absolutely absurd CAT define myself and my abilities. I let it take over my thought process, and in no time, my mind was a dark, haunted place where even I feared to go.
Don't rely on MGMAT mocks for accurate score prediction!
Over the next TWO months, I kept taking MGMAT mocks at intervals, and I NEVER SCORED A 600!! No doubt MGMAT mocks were good at doing one thing: making me better understand when to attempt a question and when to let it go. But I must say that MGMAT mocks were trashy as far as their content and scoring algorithm are concerned. They are useless to the core, if you are looking for an accurate assessment of your potential. Their algorithm would keep bombarding you with convoluted, dense, needlessly hard, lengthy quant questions without adapting at all! They are just good to make you experience beforehand a test day that turned into a nightmare, and if you want to experience that, do take an MGMAT CAT. Otherwise, don't.
Appreciation post for a few particular GMATCLUB experts:
Before I finish with describing my long GMAT journey, I must mention some of the most incredibly gifted human beings we know as experts on GMATCLUB. It would sit heavy on conscience if I didn't particularly mention the invaluable guidance from Scott (Target Test Prep), Bunuel, Ian Stewart, Karishma (Veritas Prep), and Rich (Empower GMAT). There is no doubt that there were many other incredibly kind and intellectually brilliant experts on this forum, whose solutions and advices were equally beneficial to me and many other aspirants, but I mentioned the aforementioned names in particular because either some of them were personally there when I wanted them the most in my initial days of preparation, or were so handy during my GMAT preparation with their infinite solutions to virtually every question on GMATCLUB that I doubt it would've been possible to score a fraction of what I ultimately did without their genius.
So, thank you ScottTargetTestPrep for being the kindest expert I've known here, and perhaps anywhere else. You answered my stupid queries with utter seriousness. You never asked me to stop ranting about my struggles with the GMAT. You stayed there, always. From day one. And, I truly want to thank you for your time and patience. I want to thank Bunuel for his genius. If it were not for his quirky solutions, GMAT would have been an unconquerable monster, at least for folks like me. Bunuel, you have a very big hand in making my success possible. I genuinely extend my deep respects to you. I want to thank IanStewart for saving me tons of time with his artistic, articulate solutions to the ugliest of questions. I want to thank VeritasKarishma for always taking the time out to reply to my queries whenever I mentioned her on the forum. I also want to extend my great appreciation for her flair for mathematics in general. You did play a role in making me love mathematics. I want to thank EMPOWERgmatRichC for always being there in my initial days of preparation, and for always trying to answer my drab queries. His genuine interest in my queries often surprised me, and I thank him for this sincerity as well.
The advice that made me feel no anxiety on the real GMAT: "Stop studying!"
It was 16th November 2020, that I came across this GMAT tutor, AviGutman - one of the authors of Manhattan guides. I had come to know through one of his videos on YouTube that he was the author of the highly useful Manhattan guides. So, in search for an answer as to why there was such a huge discrepancy between my official mock scores and MGMAT mock scores, I wrote to him in the comments section of one his videos with a plea for clarity and guidance. To my surprise, he was extremely involved in answering my questions, queries, whining, and what not. The culmination of our conversation was an advice that he shared with me two weeks before I had planned to take the GMAT, and I truly believe that that advice is the reason I'm writing this debrief today. He said, "I really do suggest that you stop studying. Did you know that body builders stop lifting heavy weights two weeks before a competition? You’re tempted to continue studying because that’s worked well for you on other tests - but the GMAT is not like other tests. It tests reasoning rather than content knowledge. To maximize your score, you should spend the next two weeks getting lots of exercise, clean food, fresh air, and good sleep. No more practice tests!"
I initially thought that he was kidding me. How can I stop studying two weeks before the real GMAT?! I was one of those kids who would keep revising their 400-page book till the point they had one foot into the exam hall and the other outside. Ultimately, however, Avi convinced me that not studying was the only way to go, and I, itching to feel courageous, decided to follow his advice religiously.
I decided to write the GMAT on December 3rd 2020, and got registered for it on around 20th November. From that day till the D-day, I didn't touch a GMAT book, didn't search anything related to GMAT on the internet, stopped logging into GMATCLUB, and just relaxed! Simple. It was as if GMAT didn't even exist for me. My siblings and parents, seeing my year-and-a-half long struggle with GMAT thought I was taking too big a risk, perhaps because they considered GMAT as one of the infinite traditional exams that I've had taken throughout my life. GMAT is not that! It's a test of reasoning, not content. Uncharted terrains require unusual measures.
The D-DAY:
The day had finally arrived. The day that kept running away from me for almost a year. There came a point in my preparation journey when I though this day would never come. I would never be able to write the GMAT because I would never feel ready to write it. Feeling powerless to control what appeared to be an intractable titanic (GMAT), I thought I would eventually resign to writing a less hard GRE. But the D-day did finally come. I also used to envision that on my D-day I would be trembling with fear, anxiety, and uncontrollable nerves. In fact, what happened was much to the contrary. I had scheduled my exam to start at 1.30 pm. I got up at 7.53 am, half an hour before my usual pattern. Didn't have much to do. So, after using my phone for half an hour, I eventually decided to take another short nap (to get fresher ha-ha). Then, I woke up at around 9.30 am. I freshened up, and went downstairs to take my breakfast, which was pretty heavy, including three fried eggs with a heavy paratha (a South Asian version of wheat bread), tea, and more tea. Then I spent some time with my mother, telling her how I wasn't feeling anxious, and seeking her blessings. Around 11.45 am, I packed my bag that had all the stuff I wanted to take with me to the test center: three sweet chocolates, a Pepsi, two water bottles, and a pack of wipes to clean my hands after eating those chocolates in the test center.
I left my home for the test center at 12pm, and reached there by 12.40pm. I showed my passport at the desk, did some signatures as required, and was right away ushered into the test center. It was so clean and silent. I loved it! I felt no nerves. Nothing. I strongly believe it was so because of all the relaxing I had done in the previous two weeks without touching anything GMAT (Thanks, Avi!). There was another guy who had also come to write the GMAT, and we talked briefly. He told me it was his third GMAT attempt. For a moment, those stories of never getting the GMAT right in the first attempt, and of people giving in after multiple attempts came haunting at me. But I simply rejected them before they could even head-up. I was absolutely focused. After some long palm scanning, I was directed across the mirrored wall where my neat desk was waiting for me. I sat down, and the test began. *just felt a chill*
I opted for the following order: Quant, Verbal, IR, AWA. Quant started out with a fairly easy question that made me feel more comfortable. As I kept attempting questions, they kept getting harder. In the midway, I felt that the questions were pretty hard! But they weren't dense, or unnecessarily convoluted as MGMAT mocks were. That's the beauty of GMAC. They really test you for the GMAT, not for a PhD in Applied Mathematics, as MGMAT seems to do.
I finished my Quant section almost in time, calculatedly guessing on the last three or four questions. Then, I took an 8 minutes break. Then, Verbal section started. Verbal was not VERY hard, but I realized that their RC passages were pretty lengthy - sometimes spanning over four to five long paragraphs. I faced timing issues with Verbal, and had to make random guess on the last five to six questions! During the break that followed the Verbal section, I remember going to the restroom, feeling all too depressed and down because of the guesses I had to make on both the sections and also because the test appeared to be usually hard on me. The other GMAT test-taker met me in the waiting area, and he was kind enough to say that I should cheer up because if it felt harder, I must be doing it right. I did feel a bit good to hear that but my twenty odd mocks had made me see all shades of unpredictability in scores. You just never know! And my instinct was as confused as my brain was.
I did the IR section as if it didn't even belong to the GMAT. Mind you, I did give it more respect than I would give it in my mocks: I didn't just pick alternate answers in opposite columns. Although, after the first eight questions, I was forced to do that too. AWA was fun. I like writing anyway, so it was a nice detour from all the negative, horrendous thoughts I was having about my Quant and Verbal performance.
The final moments:
As I was about to click NEXT on AWA, for a fraction of a minute, I happened to get flashes of so many highs and lows during my seventeen long months of being involved with the GMAT. I clicked NEXT, the screen turned white for five seconds, and then the score appeared: 680 (Q48;V34)!!! I closed my eyes, my head curved down, and just breathed. It felt, it was over. I wasn't just meant to fail, always. It was the moment I realized that God hadn't forgotten me. He didn't let me down. I thanked God, and stepped out of the testing room to collect my unofficial result. The test administrator kindly confessed that it wasn't so common in that test center to see someone scoring a 680 in his/her first attempt. I had decided beforehand that I would gift a chocolate bar to the test administrator, if I scored anywhere near 700. He graciously accepted, and I stepped out of the center triumphantly.
Relatively speaking, I know 680 with a Q48 is not a stellar score on this forum. I've seen geniuses here, and I always have been full of praise for them. They were the people who defined possibilities for me - possibilities that I kept chasing. But I am no genius. In the first ever mock that I took, I scored a Q29, and it was only my insatiable thirst for success and unrelenting belief in my dream to conquer the GMAT that got me to Q48 (and a 680) in the real test, in which stakes are much higher and calm much lower.
The most important lesson I want to share with you:
If I could give you just one thing from my story, I would give you this: there will be moments during this GMAT preparation when you would doubt yourself, your intelligence, your abilities, and perhaps at times, even your existence. But, standing here on the other side, I swear that all those doubts are mere illusions. You know what's the best thing about GMAT? It's reliable. You work hard on the right areas, you see improvements. There's no chance for human error or prejudice. Machines don't choose favorites.
Don't pay attention to people if you're taking longer to prepare than they expected you to:
Part of the reason it took me so long to write the GMAT was simply that I didn't have an extra $250 to spend on it twice. I had to get it right in the first shot, or things would be very different and difficult. I kept delaying it over and over again. Everybody, even my very close friends, started to ask me why was I not appearing for the GMAT. I was sick and tired of answering in one same way, "next week, God willing." So, apart from financial pressure, there was a very potent peer pressure on me to get it right. I don't know how I withstood it all, and still didn't fall apart in the test center. Don't heed to their questions and frowns. They'll not even remember how long it took you once you produce your desired results. I only have immense gratitude first toward God, and then toward those folks, especially the ones on this great forum, who rather than questioning my abilities and timing, assisted me in laying one brick at a time irrespective of how long it took.
Key takeaways from my LONG journey:
This long journey has taught me some very important lessons that I want to share with those who shall walk this path in future. I wish someone had shared these lessons with me when I was setting out, or even when I was across the midway of my preparation. So many mistakes could have been avoided!
⦁ Be it Quant or Verbal, learn the basics first, and learn them so well that you almost never get them wrong! Don't rush into getting to harder level questions. In fact, practicing harder level questions would not be the ideal use of your time, especially if your accuracy on easy and medium level questions is not consistently north of 85%. Get the basics in place first!
⦁ Have a plan! I can't overemphasize the importance of this point. A large chunk of my long GMAT journey is characterized by haphazardness. For example, I spent almost one whole month doing random sets of questions from Veritas Prep. What for?! I still have no idea! I was just doing questions upon questions with no effing end. I was heading nowhere! And, this isn't about just one month. I kept making similar undirected efforts till the very last three or four months of my preparation. The key to success in GMAT is focused practice. I have already expounded upon this point above. In essence, you have to go deeper into the core of big topics, and see which subtopic is making things difficult for you. You do fifty, eighty, or even hundred questions of the same subtopic at one difficulty level, and then you repeat this process for the next advanced difficulty level. You'll see miracles happening!
⦁ Make notes. Summarize and write the things you learn while reading conceptual theory or practicing questions. People often avoid this seemingly demanding exercise of taking notes. But notes are very important. Why? Because revising is the sole of your grasp on the plethora of rules and subtleties that GMAT throws at you, especially in Quant. And, revising whole books isn't an efficient way to go about it. It will burn you out. Notes will save the day. Yes, the GMAT is not a test of content knowledge, but there is a body of rules that you must master simply to apply them in your logical processes. If I didn't know that a right triangle inscribed in a circle must have one of its sides as the diameter of the circle, I'm sure it would have taken me ages to even realize that there was a need for such a rule. Yet, after a certain familiarity with such rules, GMAT essentially is about applying them in logical ways that often require out of the box thinking. Hence, don't just "learn" the rules, understand them. I have this written on the first page of my notebook: Knowing a formula is not equal to understanding math.
⦁ Don't rush into your preparation. Don't rush into sitting for the real GMAT. To get to your goal score, first make sure you have developed the right level of mastery to achieve that score. GMAT is a crucial part of a business school application, and it is an incredible piece of craftsmanship. It may take longer than you expected to give it, but don't panic and rush into it. It'll punish you for rushing, but will triply reward you for being patient.
⦁ Make an error log, but don't make it complex. I've read folks making full fledge excel based error logs. I think that's an overkill. Simply keep a small copy in which you write solutions that you feel are subtle and so genius that you wouldn't want to forget them. Such solutions are pieces of artisanship, and the greatest artist of such solutions on this forum is Bunuel, the great. I also must extend my heartfelt appreciation to IanStewart because in the later part of my preparation, I really adored his no BS solutions.
⦁ Enjoy the process of studying for the GMAT. I literally fell in love with it. It is an exceptionally beautiful work of art. True, it may make you feel intimidated, sometimes destroyed. But, if you give it some time, and don't dump it, it would embrace you. It's like that girl who appears to be all too rude and cranky, but inside she's caring, a gem. GMAT, like her, might simply test you for a while for how serious you are about it. Don't fool around with the GMAT. All it wants from you is absolute loyalty, much like that cranky girl.
⦁ Don't rely on the mocks of test prep companies, ever! They are not a true predictor of your scoring potential. The highest I scored on MGMAT mocks was 580! If I wasn't lucky to get the right advice at the right time, or if I was thin-skinned and had let MGMAT destroy my willpower to succeed, I would have been nowhere to be seen. Only rely on the official mba.com mocks. Period.
⦁ Lastly, give yourself time to relax before your D-day! This is as important as it gets. Stop studying two weeks before your real GMAT! Absolutely no studying, no surfing the internet for anything related to GMAT, no taking of practice tests, no revising anything whatsoever. Pretend that you don't even know what GMAT stands for. Just cut yourself off it. COMPLETELY! I'm talking from experience. This strategy is magic! AviGutman shared this incredible piece of advice with me, and I can't thank him enough for that. He's an exceptional mentor.
Materials I used:
⦁ Manhattan Guides for concepts. Sadly, I began to use them much later than I should have. These guides are extremely useful for getting your basics in place. Revisit them again and again if you don't feel comfortable with a certain area.
⦁ Veritas Prep questions for practicing in the initial days of my preparation. They weren't that useful at that time as I was punching above my weight.
⦁ Official Guide 2020, and GMAT Quant Review 2020 - the best questions you can get your hands on. Use them wisely. Don't waste them in your initial days of preparation, especially the questions in the Quant Review.
⦁ In the ending and most crucial phase of my preparation, I used GMATCLUB for making my desired sets of questions, and practiced insanely. I also used Quant Review 2020 in this phase.
⦁ For CATs, I primarily relied on mba.com official mocks, all six of them. I also wrote six Princeton Review mocks in the early and middle phases of my preparation. I don't rate them very highly. At the very end of my preparation, I bought MGMAT mocks, which are terribly designed. They won't give you anywhere close an assessment of your true potential. Only attempt them to experience how a bad GMAT test day would look like. However, they might teach you when to let go off questions, and manage time in a better way.
⦁ I learned most of the important patterns and rules tested on the GMAT by practicing questions, and making notes of the things I thought were important. Initially, the rules may make no sense as to how one rule is related to the other in the larger scheme of things, but with patient practicing and notetaking, you'll begin to see how concepts and rules are so intricately interrelated.
⦁ For inequalities and mixture problems, which I found very annoying, I watched a couple of lengthy videos by Crack Verbal's Aditya Kumar on GMATCLUB's YouTube channel. He really did a great job at making me fall in love with inequalities. For mixture problems, he shared a method called allegation that made things very much easier.
Last word:
My friends, pardon me for writing this lengthy, boring monologue, but it is solely written with an intent to help some of you who might be facing similar problems and anxieties as I once did. If I may mention here, this debrief is written purely for those who are not naturally brilliant at standardized tests, haven't studied at the best schools in the country, have an insatiable thirst for success at the GMAT, and feel self-doubts and numbing uncertainties in life. Perspectives define realty. From one perspective, my score of 680/Q48 is wanting. As I have already mentioned, there are folks here who are GMAT prodigies, who have scored 740+ in two weeks or two months. I extend my heartiest respects to them, but they were never my heroes. My heroes here were those who started with a meagre score, and then worked their a** off to get to where they wanted to, even to a 600. Their stories motivated me to keep putting one step ahead of another. From where I started, very humbly, I can't thank God enough for this 680 with a Q48. It's all about perspective. I wish that my story could be a story of inspiration for those who shall ever tread my footsteps.
I truly wish you very best of luck in your GMAT preparation. May God bless you!
Thank you very much.
P.S. Given the extensive and profound experiences I have had during my preparing for the GMAT, I am sure I can help you steer through the uncharted waters of the GMAT exam. Should you feel a need to get some guidance or discuss the problems you might be facing during your GMAT prep, feel free to write me at [email protected]. I would love to help you!
![My 17-Months Long GMAT Journey: 680 (Q48;V34)! [Debrief]](/forum/styles/gmatclub_light/imageset/icon_post_target_unread.svg "My 17-Months Long GMAT Journey: 680 (Q48;V34)! [Debrief]"){kind=icon}
05 Dec 2020, 09:32
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Hey man,
Congratulations on your great first attempt. Trust me its a bliss to see that you are actually satisfied witht this close to 85th percentile scorw, which ofcourse is a good one. I have read lines which say, 750, should I retake? Which makes me feel that those guys have no confidence on their rest of the application. Although I was pretty surpused that not studying for 2 week would work out in favor, especially because each day till d day is too precious. But if its worked for you, its something new for me.
Congratulations again. Which schools are you planning to apply to?
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Congratulations on your great first attempt. Trust me its a bliss to see that you are actually satisfied witht this close to 85th percentile scorw, which ofcourse is a good one. I have read lines which say, 750, should I retake? Which makes me feel that those guys have no confidence on their rest of the application. Although I was pretty surpused that not studying for 2 week would work out in favor, especially because each day till d day is too precious. But if its worked for you, its something new for me.
Congratulations again. Which schools are you planning to apply to?
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Louis14
Joined: 01 Nov 2019
Last visit: 04 Nov 2023
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Schools: NUS MiF "22 (A) LSE MFin "22 (S) HEC MFin "22
GMAT 1: 680 Q48 V34
GPA: 3.56
05 Dec 2020, 09:50
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GMATaxe001
Hey! Thanks so much for taking the time to read. The strategy of not studying the last two weeks proved to be absolutely brilliant. Plus, I think contentment is the key to happiness in life. As far as the schools are concerned, I plan to apply to LSE, NUS, Imperial, USC, and Edinburgh (safer option, I guess). I haven't yet reached my final list of schools that I'll be applying to, but I'll post here whenever I do.
you wrote your heart out here! It was a good read. I am someone who has been studying for the GMAT for about 13 months now but have not gotten to the point of giving the real exam. Hopefully your encouragement will work and help me. Congrats to you and thanks! Btw chai and paratha <3
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