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21 Jul 2021, 01:40
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Today was my third attempt and I finally scored 750 (Q50, V42). Took me almost a year to get through, but I'm glad I can finally write this post! Will detail my journey below for anyone interested.
September 2020: First Attempt 730 (Q49, V40). Decent score, but I was disappointed because I was scoring 750-770 on the official mocks at the time. I had studied from the OG and solved misc questions from GMATClub, and had given the official mocks and the Manhattan and Veritas free mocks. At that point, I had not realized that the Quant in the actual exam is harder than the official mocks, and was thrown off by the level of quant I saw in the exam. Messed up my timing, missed the last question, and was very demotivated for Verbal. Surprisingly, scored a V40, despite not having invested much time in Verbal.
Now being a candidate from an overrepresented pool, I knew I wanted to aim higher. So I decided to take another attempt in November 2020. I was reasonably sure I could pull my Q from 49 to 51, and score 740+.
November 2020:Surprisingly though, I scored lower in my second attempt (710, Q50, V36). Turns out I had pulled my Q up by one point but dropped V by 4 points. A lot of factors contributed to this, one being that I invested 90% of my time to Quant, and didn't spend enough time brushing up on Verbal. My exam was in the afternoon and I was severely exhausted because of the heat and work. Quant was still harder than I expected, and even though I got the timing right, I was absolutely sure I had messed it up, so I was very dejected, and attempted Verbal in a very negative mindset. My heart dropped when I saw the 710.
At this point, I had given up. I was done with GMAT, and I never wanted to think about it again, and I took an 8 month break. Got Covid, recovered from Covid, moved cities, and just did not think about this. June 2021 - I'm starting the process of applying to schools, and all the schools I like are stretch schools with my score and my background. So back to square one. Third attempt.
The first thing I did was, I got my ESRs. I analyzed where I went wrong in Verbal and found out that CR was the culprit. Now, I knew that a big reason why I did so badly on CR was my mindset during the second attempt, but I didn't want to be complacent so I went back to the Verbal Holy Grail: MGMAT books. Did my due diligence, read the SC and CR books cover to cover, got the concepts down again. The aim was to re-solve the OG question banks using the MGMAT methods, and solving 50+ Verbal questions everyday. Error Log was crucial, I maintained a comprehensive spread sheet to identify where I was going wrong. Even then, only in my last Veritas mock, I scored V42. Before then I was hovering around the V36-38 mark.
For Quant, I was solving one/two GMATClub CATs everyday, and it's exhausting. But I was averaging Q49-51 on most of them, so I was fairly confident on Quant. IR, the questions I was solving on the mocks were enough. For AWA, chineseburned's post is gold standard.
The last two days, I didn't solve any mocks/CATs, just went through my error logs and brushed up on Slingfox's notes. I would highly recommend at least glancing at those notes, they're pretty useful. I incorporated bananas and gatorade in my exam day ritual, and I'm not sure how much they helped, but they didn't hurt!
July 2021: I had booked an 8 AM slot because I didn't want to deal with traffic or heat. I took the previous day off to ensure I wouldn't be stressed from work, and spent the day with a close friend. I also did a visualization technique the previous night and on my way to the exam center. I closed my eyes, and mentally walked through the entire process, from walking in, doing the palm verification, Quant, 1st break, Verbal, 2nd break, IR and then AWA. This helped bring my nervousness down so I wouldn't let the perception of a bad section affect the rest of the exam.
The exam starts, and the first question is PS question. I think, cool. Solved it, my answer doesn't match any of the ACs. My first thought: Well, I'm screwed. But with a few deep breaths, got back to solving, didn't get that question despite spending a good 4 minutes on it, so I guessed and moved on. Still thinking Quant is done for, but focusing on getting the next question right. The rest of the section was pretty smooth, I guessed a few questions here and there to get my pacing back on track. Got to the last question with 3 minutes, and it was a DS with a few traps so I knew it wasn't all lost but still had no idea what I would score.
Washed my face, did a few minutes of deep breathing, drank some Gatorade, and went back to Verbal. I took my time in the first nine questions, wanting to get them right. I had one short RC, 2 CRs and 4 SC questions, and I'm fairly certain I got those right. Post those, the exam started to pick up. I noticed that I was getting way more SC questions than CR, but the CR was very tricky. RC passages were much easier than the ones I had solved in the Veritas mocks, so I was able to breeze through those. Still messed up timing, and really rushed through the last section. This is where the slash and burn technique really helped, because I was able to narrow down my choices to two, and now it's a 50% probability of getting the answer right as compared to a 20% probability. Got to the final question in the nick of time, and was done.
Took my second break and IR starts. Funnily enough, I couldn't get the first question right AGAIN. Spent 4 minutes on this, then chose randomly and moved on. Timing was horrible, but the rest of the questions were straightforward so I made it through, only had to guess on the last question. AWA was what it was. Submitted exam, saw 750 Q50 V42 IR6, cried internally, clicked on submit scores as if someone was on my heels and got the hell out of here!
Now on to applications, finally!
September 2020: First Attempt 730 (Q49, V40). Decent score, but I was disappointed because I was scoring 750-770 on the official mocks at the time. I had studied from the OG and solved misc questions from GMATClub, and had given the official mocks and the Manhattan and Veritas free mocks. At that point, I had not realized that the Quant in the actual exam is harder than the official mocks, and was thrown off by the level of quant I saw in the exam. Messed up my timing, missed the last question, and was very demotivated for Verbal. Surprisingly, scored a V40, despite not having invested much time in Verbal.
Now being a candidate from an overrepresented pool, I knew I wanted to aim higher. So I decided to take another attempt in November 2020. I was reasonably sure I could pull my Q from 49 to 51, and score 740+.
November 2020:Surprisingly though, I scored lower in my second attempt (710, Q50, V36). Turns out I had pulled my Q up by one point but dropped V by 4 points. A lot of factors contributed to this, one being that I invested 90% of my time to Quant, and didn't spend enough time brushing up on Verbal. My exam was in the afternoon and I was severely exhausted because of the heat and work. Quant was still harder than I expected, and even though I got the timing right, I was absolutely sure I had messed it up, so I was very dejected, and attempted Verbal in a very negative mindset. My heart dropped when I saw the 710.
At this point, I had given up. I was done with GMAT, and I never wanted to think about it again, and I took an 8 month break. Got Covid, recovered from Covid, moved cities, and just did not think about this. June 2021 - I'm starting the process of applying to schools, and all the schools I like are stretch schools with my score and my background. So back to square one. Third attempt.
The first thing I did was, I got my ESRs. I analyzed where I went wrong in Verbal and found out that CR was the culprit. Now, I knew that a big reason why I did so badly on CR was my mindset during the second attempt, but I didn't want to be complacent so I went back to the Verbal Holy Grail: MGMAT books. Did my due diligence, read the SC and CR books cover to cover, got the concepts down again. The aim was to re-solve the OG question banks using the MGMAT methods, and solving 50+ Verbal questions everyday. Error Log was crucial, I maintained a comprehensive spread sheet to identify where I was going wrong. Even then, only in my last Veritas mock, I scored V42. Before then I was hovering around the V36-38 mark.
For Quant, I was solving one/two GMATClub CATs everyday, and it's exhausting. But I was averaging Q49-51 on most of them, so I was fairly confident on Quant. IR, the questions I was solving on the mocks were enough. For AWA, chineseburned's post is gold standard.
The last two days, I didn't solve any mocks/CATs, just went through my error logs and brushed up on Slingfox's notes. I would highly recommend at least glancing at those notes, they're pretty useful. I incorporated bananas and gatorade in my exam day ritual, and I'm not sure how much they helped, but they didn't hurt!
July 2021: I had booked an 8 AM slot because I didn't want to deal with traffic or heat. I took the previous day off to ensure I wouldn't be stressed from work, and spent the day with a close friend. I also did a visualization technique the previous night and on my way to the exam center. I closed my eyes, and mentally walked through the entire process, from walking in, doing the palm verification, Quant, 1st break, Verbal, 2nd break, IR and then AWA. This helped bring my nervousness down so I wouldn't let the perception of a bad section affect the rest of the exam.
The exam starts, and the first question is PS question. I think, cool. Solved it, my answer doesn't match any of the ACs. My first thought: Well, I'm screwed. But with a few deep breaths, got back to solving, didn't get that question despite spending a good 4 minutes on it, so I guessed and moved on. Still thinking Quant is done for, but focusing on getting the next question right. The rest of the section was pretty smooth, I guessed a few questions here and there to get my pacing back on track. Got to the last question with 3 minutes, and it was a DS with a few traps so I knew it wasn't all lost but still had no idea what I would score.
Washed my face, did a few minutes of deep breathing, drank some Gatorade, and went back to Verbal. I took my time in the first nine questions, wanting to get them right. I had one short RC, 2 CRs and 4 SC questions, and I'm fairly certain I got those right. Post those, the exam started to pick up. I noticed that I was getting way more SC questions than CR, but the CR was very tricky. RC passages were much easier than the ones I had solved in the Veritas mocks, so I was able to breeze through those. Still messed up timing, and really rushed through the last section. This is where the slash and burn technique really helped, because I was able to narrow down my choices to two, and now it's a 50% probability of getting the answer right as compared to a 20% probability. Got to the final question in the nick of time, and was done.
Took my second break and IR starts. Funnily enough, I couldn't get the first question right AGAIN. Spent 4 minutes on this, then chose randomly and moved on. Timing was horrible, but the rest of the questions were straightforward so I made it through, only had to guess on the last question. AWA was what it was. Submitted exam, saw 750 Q50 V42 IR6, cried internally, clicked on submit scores as if someone was on my heels and got the hell out of here!
Now on to applications, finally!
Anuragsharma93
Joined: 07 Apr 2020
Last visit: 05 Apr 2022
Posts: 100
Given Kudos: 313
Location: India
Schools: ISB'22 IESE '24 Kenan-Flagler '24 LBS '24 NTU NUS Rotman '24 Tepper '24
GMAT 1: 680 Q48 V35
GPA: 3.6
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Schools: ISB'22 IESE '24 Kenan-Flagler '24 LBS '24 NTU NUS Rotman '24 Tepper '24
GMAT 1: 680 Q48 V35
Posts: 100
21 Jul 2021, 10:28
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Hey Falguni Congratulations Awesome Score and great determination...
Just a small doubt - Can you please elaborate on this "Slash and Burn" technique...
Just a small doubt - Can you please elaborate on this "Slash and Burn" technique...
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