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Associated debrief interview on the GMATClub YT Channel:
My Background
Kia Ora! I am an Indian-origin kiwi (New Zealander) engineer with (~1.5 years work experience) aspiring to pivot into business (finance/consulting) and relocate to the UK. Came across Master’s in Management (MIM) programs which seemed fit for this purpose. Discovered GMAT was a necessary step and thus my journey began in 2022.
I had 2 months to sit the exam, such that I can write my essays and meet the R1 deadlines. I was hoping to only apply for 1 MIM program (my dream school) in 2022, such that I can go through the motions of writing the essays, preparing for GMAT, etc - knowing that I had another year (2023) as backup when I can go harder in my applications.
1st Attempt: Inception
Having discovered MIM as a potential pathway, I started seriously preparing for GMAT around May. Prior to sitting my first mock to establish my baseline score, I went through the Official Guide (2022) math review section (notes on topics), familiarized with the basic question types and revised on the concepts. Baseline mock score was 600 (Q45V28).
It was clear that I needed to focus a lot more on Verbal since I was more natural and comfortable with Quant. Within Verbal, SC was my nemesis. Throughout my prep, SC remained my biggest weakness, since I would tend to spend a lot of time on it and remain 50-50 between 2 answer choices. Hence, I proceeded to purchase Magoosh and prepared seriously for 2 months in the lead up to the exam. I feel Magoosh was good in terms of setting a foundation for Verbal but wasn’t “enough” to breach the 700 barrier. While I became a bit better in dealing with SC questions, mastery remained elusive.
During this period of prep, I started to go through debriefs of other 700+ candidates on YouTube for some inspiration and came across the GMATClub YT channel. I was particularly drawn by this excellent debrief shared by KP. His insights resonated with me so much that I later reached out to him on LinkedIN. To my surprise, he accepted my connection request and was one of the most helpful, humble, and genuine person I met. When we connected over call, he explained to me the importance of maintaining an error log and gave me several tips like employing the streak method (practicing to get 7-10 questions correct in a row). The most valuable takeaways for me from him were (a) GMAT is good at crafting questions that obfuscate details (b) looking at mock scores diagnostically / not get attached emotionally to the scores – more on this later.
Despite having scored a 700 & 710 in my final 2 mocks during my last week of prep, I ended up getting a 650 (Q46 V34) on the exam. This was a major disappointment since I was targeting a minimum 680-690 score (average of the MIM programs). Given I was targeting to apply R1, I did not have much time left for a resit, so submitted my application – and unsurprisingly had gotten rejected.
While I had originally intended to resit the gmat around mid-2023, when the news regarding GMAT FE came and the details followed (No SC), I was delighted. For me it was a no brainer to wait till November, for the revised GMAT exam
2nd Attempt. Shifting Focus.
I was aiming to sit within the week the exam was released, such that would have some leeway just in case I had to resit again prior to submitting my applications for R2 deadline. Unfortunately couldn’t prepare for the entire year since (a) I was preparing for my CFA L1 exam (b) prep content was not released (c) overseas travel commitments. Hence, ended up having only 2 months (mid Sep – Nov) to prepare.
I purchased the Official GMAT FE bundle (was on sale luckily!) which contained:
Armed with knowledge of GMATClub forum’s existence, my strategy was to learn/consolidate the concepts (through the sources I cover below) & practice using questions from OG & Forum Quiz, using official questions only. I saved the Review Guides for the last few weeks of my prep.
Note to new users of Forum Quiz: Don’t use questions labelled “GMAT PREP” or “GMAT FOCUS PREP” since those questions are sourced from the official mocks which you absolutely don’t want to use. Ideally you should save them for the mocks to get a realistic score estimate.
Since I was naturally strong with Quant, I wanted to maximize my score in this section thus doubled down by going through the following:
Given SC was no longer part of Verbal, Verbal became my strong suit! My preparation involved:
DI was my weakest section. Not in terms of difficulty of content, but in terms of time management. Aside from following GMAT NINJA’s DI Series the only way to improve in this section I think is practice and maintaining error log. Throughout my prep, I was more focused on maximising my score for Quant & Verbal first (since they are the foundation for DI). Hence, if I do end up giving another resit (applying for MBAs instead of MIMs in the future) then will look to double down on DI.
In terms of tips for this section and Focus Edition in general, I would point towards in my opinion one of the best Focus Edition debriefs to date – Naveen’s 695 Debrief.
Since I bought Practice Tests 3-6 (they can be done 2 times each), Cumulatively I had ~12-14 mocks available with reasonable confidence that there wouldn’t be any duplicate of questions. During the 2-month period, I gave ~1 mock each week.
Seismic Shock
So, what happened here? 2 months of prep, evidenced by a consistent increase in Quant & Verbal performance all shattered on D-day. For reference in Mock 7, I had only 1 incorrect each in Quant & Verbal (got an “easy” question incorrect in Quant & couldn’t submit last question in time for Verbal so incurred penalty).
It was nerves. Anxiety. A word that was foreign to me until then and my cloak of seeming invincibility had fallen laying bare the naked truth within. Throughout my undergrad / high school I had been involved in several “high stakes” situations (international competitions / admission tests, etc). While there used to be butterflies in the stomach, it was always in a spirit of nervous excitement.
This time it was different. Since my family relocated to the UK, GMAT was my ticket to reunite with them – having already “flunked” the previous year stakes were “high”. Since I have been good at standardized exams in the past, thought of not achieving 90th percentile on a repeat attempt was distressing. It was no longer an exam which I was sitting as an enabler for further studies rather it morphed into a yardstick for measuring self-worth.
The day before the test, after giving Mock 8, I proceeded to do all medium – hard questions for PS & DS from Quant/DI Review fuelled by anxiety in the lead up to the test thinking “I don’t want to leave anything to chance.” Big Mistake.
In the evening, (night before test day), to calm my nerves, decided to give some verbal quizzes on Forum Quiz. Quiz 1 5/8 incorrect. Quiz 2 7/10 Incorrect. I stopped and decided for now it is best to get some rest and have good night’s sleep prior to exam at 11am next day. Thoughts of messing up verbal kept plaguing me throughout the night and excessive problem solving caused my mind to be on overdrive. With about ~4.5 hours of sleep unsurprisingly during the test I was stressed and not as focussed. I kept doubting my answer for verbal and quant, yielding eventually a score of 595 – featuring worst verbal performance by far to date.
I wanted to provide a detailed write up for this portion of my journey because as cliched as it sounds mindset and well-being matter most. They are the foundation upon which everything else rest and we must actively nurture them, taking on important challenges in a spirit of playful seriousness. All those months ago, more than a shift to GMAT focus, a shift in mindset was required. Okay that’s all-in terms of preaching I promise. Back to prep strategy.
Mindset Shift
I knew, I could achieve a 645+ (90th Percentile) score with my current level of prep but needed to be in the right mindset on D-Day. I accepted that ultimately, I was giving the GMAT, because I wanted to. The “stakes” were nothing but self-imposed earlier. My existing score of 650 was strong for many schools and not making it to my “dream school” wouldn’t limit me to achieve my professional goals. Hence, just being grateful for all the support I received thus far, I decided to charge ahead.
Invoking KP’s wise words “looking at scores diagnostically / not get attached emotionally” I restarted my prep but at significantly reduced intensity – not aiming to learn any new concepts, rather consolidating existing ones. I know everyone is unique, hence I stress that this approach is what worked for me. Over the course of next 4 weeks, gave 2 mock tests & aimed to do a set number of questions from OG & Official Review Guides per day (tracked – snip from my tracking sheet below).
Day before exam, just did a few assorted questions (<20 in total), went for a walk around the park, played some pool & arcade with a friend and rewatched Kung Fu Panda. (I admit during the exam at points Oogway Ascends did play in my mind, but heck that calmed me down if anything so no regrets).
Future Focus
While I am very happy to have finally breached “700 or 645” (89-90th Percentile) I feel I could have performed better. Especially in Quant and Verbal I made some silly mistakes which I figured out after the section finished – despite having ample time to review since I finished Quant & Verbal 10 & 3 minutes early respectively :/ But this I suppose is always the case. For now, am thinking to charge ahead with my MIM applications and if I decide to pursue MBA, can always come back to try, and push the score to 675+
Tips for preparation (based on what worked for me)
Concluding Thoughts
If you have managed to read my debrief this far, which at this point is no longer an essay but a novel – I apologize for making you suffer to read this long (treat it as an exercise for comprehension)
I hope you were able to take away something from my experience and I was of some help.
Tapping into the collective wisdom of this community, as illustrated by the myriad of links sprinkled across this post, enabled me to get invaluable insights into the Exam, devise a preparation strategy and clear my concepts in such a zero-cost environment of GMATClub & YouTube. I am truly indebted to the community and thus hoped to give back what I could from my end.
Good luck to all future candidates, peace, and love!
ESR DI
ESR QUANT
ESR VERBAL
Massive shoutout to bb for creating this wonderful community and editing this piece, can imagine editing must have been pain!
Also thank you in particular to GMATNinja, Bunuel, KarishmaB, chetan2u, gmatophobia Your answers & posts literred across the forum on 1000s of questions is what made learning a lot more feasible instead of spending $$$. Within the community, you were my gaurdian angels
My Background
Kia Ora! I am an Indian-origin kiwi (New Zealander) engineer with (~1.5 years work experience) aspiring to pivot into business (finance/consulting) and relocate to the UK. Came across Master’s in Management (MIM) programs which seemed fit for this purpose. Discovered GMAT was a necessary step and thus my journey began in 2022.
I had 2 months to sit the exam, such that I can write my essays and meet the R1 deadlines. I was hoping to only apply for 1 MIM program (my dream school) in 2022, such that I can go through the motions of writing the essays, preparing for GMAT, etc - knowing that I had another year (2023) as backup when I can go harder in my applications.
1st Attempt: Inception
Having discovered MIM as a potential pathway, I started seriously preparing for GMAT around May. Prior to sitting my first mock to establish my baseline score, I went through the Official Guide (2022) math review section (notes on topics), familiarized with the basic question types and revised on the concepts. Baseline mock score was 600 (Q45V28).
It was clear that I needed to focus a lot more on Verbal since I was more natural and comfortable with Quant. Within Verbal, SC was my nemesis. Throughout my prep, SC remained my biggest weakness, since I would tend to spend a lot of time on it and remain 50-50 between 2 answer choices. Hence, I proceeded to purchase Magoosh and prepared seriously for 2 months in the lead up to the exam. I feel Magoosh was good in terms of setting a foundation for Verbal but wasn’t “enough” to breach the 700 barrier. While I became a bit better in dealing with SC questions, mastery remained elusive.
During this period of prep, I started to go through debriefs of other 700+ candidates on YouTube for some inspiration and came across the GMATClub YT channel. I was particularly drawn by this excellent debrief shared by KP. His insights resonated with me so much that I later reached out to him on LinkedIN. To my surprise, he accepted my connection request and was one of the most helpful, humble, and genuine person I met. When we connected over call, he explained to me the importance of maintaining an error log and gave me several tips like employing the streak method (practicing to get 7-10 questions correct in a row). The most valuable takeaways for me from him were (a) GMAT is good at crafting questions that obfuscate details (b) looking at mock scores diagnostically / not get attached emotionally to the scores – more on this later.
Despite having scored a 700 & 710 in my final 2 mocks during my last week of prep, I ended up getting a 650 (Q46 V34) on the exam. This was a major disappointment since I was targeting a minimum 680-690 score (average of the MIM programs). Given I was targeting to apply R1, I did not have much time left for a resit, so submitted my application – and unsurprisingly had gotten rejected.
While I had originally intended to resit the gmat around mid-2023, when the news regarding GMAT FE came and the details followed (No SC), I was delighted. For me it was a no brainer to wait till November, for the revised GMAT exam
2nd Attempt. Shifting Focus.
I was aiming to sit within the week the exam was released, such that would have some leeway just in case I had to resit again prior to submitting my applications for R2 deadline. Unfortunately couldn’t prepare for the entire year since (a) I was preparing for my CFA L1 exam (b) prep content was not released (c) overseas travel commitments. Hence, ended up having only 2 months (mid Sep – Nov) to prepare.
I purchased the Official GMAT FE bundle (was on sale luckily!) which contained:
- 1. FE Official Guide
2. FE Quant Review
3. FE Verbal Review
4. FE DI Review
5. Practice Exam 3-6
6. GMAT Official Advanced Questions (not part of the bundle, but I had it sourced from a senior). This is based on the old GMAT, but largely still good practice for CR/RC/PS. DS from this book I feel is overkill, especially since in GMAT FE, DS, is more logic based and less “quant heavy”.
Armed with knowledge of GMATClub forum’s existence, my strategy was to learn/consolidate the concepts (through the sources I cover below) & practice using questions from OG & Forum Quiz, using official questions only. I saved the Review Guides for the last few weeks of my prep.
Note to new users of Forum Quiz: Don’t use questions labelled “GMAT PREP” or “GMAT FOCUS PREP” since those questions are sourced from the official mocks which you absolutely don’t want to use. Ideally you should save them for the mocks to get a realistic score estimate.
Since I was naturally strong with Quant, I wanted to maximize my score in this section thus doubled down by going through the following:
- 1. Learning Concepts
- a. GMATClub Quant book – bb, walker, Bunuel, sriharimurthy, shrouded1 are absolute Godsent. Contains efficient ways of solving quant problems in addition to making concepts crystal clear.
b. Aditya Kumar’s Quant Seminars on
- i. Absolute Values & Inequalities;
ii. Remainders; Highly recommend, it sped up almost every type of remainder questions that I encountered for the GMAT
iii. Mixtures; Highly recommended, as it covered the “method of alligation” which simplify complex ratio and mixture problems
iv. Statistics
v. Perms & Combs
vi. Miscellaneous tips & strategies (advanced)
c. Crackverbal Complete Guide to Inequalities; All you need for GMAT inequalities.
d. Bunuel / Karishma’s guide to Overlapping Sets; High recommend, since overlapping set questions can be time consuming, but upon learning and understanding the concept and applying the shortcut formulae successfully, it greatly sped up the calculations. I encountered 1 overlapping set question on both my FE exams and had them solved in under a minute!
e. GMAT NINJA Full Quant Playlist; Would recommend giving a run through, (if running short on time, then only on topics that are weak) since the questions they have picked are very high quality which demonstrate key thinking / frameworks required to approach questions for the given topic
2. Question Practice
- a. GMAT FE OG
b. Forum Quiz (excl GMAT PREP)
c. GMAT Official Advanced Guide
d. Quant Review (last 2 weeks)
Given SC was no longer part of Verbal, Verbal became my strong suit! My preparation involved:
- 1. CR
- a. GMAT NINJA CR; Complete walkthrough of CR
b. Advanced tips by Marty
c. PowerScore GMAT CR Bible; I didn’t use the book personally but heard great things about it.
2. RC
- a. GMAT NINJA RC; Complete RC walkthrough
b. Reading in general (for me it was daily reading of Bloomberg for ~20 mins)
- i. I am not a natural reader. One tip that worked well for me was to start by reading what I like and then gradually transition to reading what I “should” read.
3. Practicing Official Questions only
- a. FE OG, Forum Quiz, Adv Guide followed by Verbal Review for last 2 weeks.
b. Key for practicing questions in verbal for me was quality over quantity inspired by Colton’s amazing debrief: 650 – 780 in 2 months for free.
i. Understand not only why the correct answer is correct but also why an incorrect answer is incorrect. This REALLY helped me learn fast and employ process of elimination more effectively.
DI was my weakest section. Not in terms of difficulty of content, but in terms of time management. Aside from following GMAT NINJA’s DI Series the only way to improve in this section I think is practice and maintaining error log. Throughout my prep, I was more focused on maximising my score for Quant & Verbal first (since they are the foundation for DI). Hence, if I do end up giving another resit (applying for MBAs instead of MIMs in the future) then will look to double down on DI.
In terms of tips for this section and Focus Edition in general, I would point towards in my opinion one of the best Focus Edition debriefs to date – Naveen’s 695 Debrief.
Since I bought Practice Tests 3-6 (they can be done 2 times each), Cumulatively I had ~12-14 mocks available with reasonable confidence that there wouldn’t be any duplicate of questions. During the 2-month period, I gave ~1 mock each week.
Seismic Shock
So, what happened here? 2 months of prep, evidenced by a consistent increase in Quant & Verbal performance all shattered on D-day. For reference in Mock 7, I had only 1 incorrect each in Quant & Verbal (got an “easy” question incorrect in Quant & couldn’t submit last question in time for Verbal so incurred penalty).
It was nerves. Anxiety. A word that was foreign to me until then and my cloak of seeming invincibility had fallen laying bare the naked truth within. Throughout my undergrad / high school I had been involved in several “high stakes” situations (international competitions / admission tests, etc). While there used to be butterflies in the stomach, it was always in a spirit of nervous excitement.
This time it was different. Since my family relocated to the UK, GMAT was my ticket to reunite with them – having already “flunked” the previous year stakes were “high”. Since I have been good at standardized exams in the past, thought of not achieving 90th percentile on a repeat attempt was distressing. It was no longer an exam which I was sitting as an enabler for further studies rather it morphed into a yardstick for measuring self-worth.
The day before the test, after giving Mock 8, I proceeded to do all medium – hard questions for PS & DS from Quant/DI Review fuelled by anxiety in the lead up to the test thinking “I don’t want to leave anything to chance.” Big Mistake.
In the evening, (night before test day), to calm my nerves, decided to give some verbal quizzes on Forum Quiz. Quiz 1 5/8 incorrect. Quiz 2 7/10 Incorrect. I stopped and decided for now it is best to get some rest and have good night’s sleep prior to exam at 11am next day. Thoughts of messing up verbal kept plaguing me throughout the night and excessive problem solving caused my mind to be on overdrive. With about ~4.5 hours of sleep unsurprisingly during the test I was stressed and not as focussed. I kept doubting my answer for verbal and quant, yielding eventually a score of 595 – featuring worst verbal performance by far to date.
I wanted to provide a detailed write up for this portion of my journey because as cliched as it sounds mindset and well-being matter most. They are the foundation upon which everything else rest and we must actively nurture them, taking on important challenges in a spirit of playful seriousness. All those months ago, more than a shift to GMAT focus, a shift in mindset was required. Okay that’s all-in terms of preaching I promise. Back to prep strategy.
Mindset Shift
I knew, I could achieve a 645+ (90th Percentile) score with my current level of prep but needed to be in the right mindset on D-Day. I accepted that ultimately, I was giving the GMAT, because I wanted to. The “stakes” were nothing but self-imposed earlier. My existing score of 650 was strong for many schools and not making it to my “dream school” wouldn’t limit me to achieve my professional goals. Hence, just being grateful for all the support I received thus far, I decided to charge ahead.
Invoking KP’s wise words “looking at scores diagnostically / not get attached emotionally” I restarted my prep but at significantly reduced intensity – not aiming to learn any new concepts, rather consolidating existing ones. I know everyone is unique, hence I stress that this approach is what worked for me. Over the course of next 4 weeks, gave 2 mock tests & aimed to do a set number of questions from OG & Official Review Guides per day (tracked – snip from my tracking sheet below).
Day before exam, just did a few assorted questions (<20 in total), went for a walk around the park, played some pool & arcade with a friend and rewatched Kung Fu Panda. (I admit during the exam at points Oogway Ascends did play in my mind, but heck that calmed me down if anything so no regrets).
Future Focus
While I am very happy to have finally breached “700 or 645” (89-90th Percentile) I feel I could have performed better. Especially in Quant and Verbal I made some silly mistakes which I figured out after the section finished – despite having ample time to review since I finished Quant & Verbal 10 & 3 minutes early respectively :/ But this I suppose is always the case. For now, am thinking to charge ahead with my MIM applications and if I decide to pursue MBA, can always come back to try, and push the score to 675+
Tips for preparation (based on what worked for me)
- Study regularly. Consistency is key. Quant is a perishable skill. Don’t get complacent.
- Comprehension skill is critical. Cant put it better than PyjamaScientist’s debrief Quote:
- Building stamina (remaining focused and maintaining accuracy) by studying in 2 or 3 hour study blocks. Ideally no music / stimulation.
- Can start with 30 or 45 minutes. Building up slowly to 3 hours helped me to remain alert and focused. Went from being sloppy and making careless errors when studying past 30 minutes to doing 2 sections without any break back to back.
- Use GMATClub Forum. If I got stuck on a question and was not happy with the official answer explanation since they are too long winded (which was majority of the time) I came to the forum, where already >90% of all official questions are discussed. Each question solved in various ways, and especially for quant, understanding those methods enrich learning. The community is extremely responsive.
- GMAT FE is a hackable exam. While I haven’t quite earned the right to say this since I don’t have a stellar 99th percentile score, but reflecting on my journey it’s definitely very doable!!
- No shortcuts to a high score. Following on from previous, you just have to put in the work to get the result - watch the lessons, do the official practice questions, for verbal understand why incorrect answer choices are incorrect, etc. (all links and resources I shared aside from Official materials are free on YouTube / GMATClub forum so there really is no excuse!!).
- Wellbeing. Above all else, focus on your wellbeing. At the end of the day, this is just an exam enroute to further studies. Approach it with playful seriousness, dont inflate it more than what it is, look after yourself and in time the score is bound to come!
Concluding Thoughts
If you have managed to read my debrief this far, which at this point is no longer an essay but a novel – I apologize for making you suffer to read this long (treat it as an exercise for comprehension)
I hope you were able to take away something from my experience and I was of some help.Tapping into the collective wisdom of this community, as illustrated by the myriad of links sprinkled across this post, enabled me to get invaluable insights into the Exam, devise a preparation strategy and clear my concepts in such a zero-cost environment of GMATClub & YouTube. I am truly indebted to the community and thus hoped to give back what I could from my end.
Good luck to all future candidates, peace, and love!
ESR DI
ESR QUANT
ESR VERBAL
Massive shoutout to bb for creating this wonderful community and editing this piece, can imagine editing must have been pain!
Also thank you in particular to GMATNinja, Bunuel, KarishmaB, chetan2u, gmatophobia Your answers & posts literred across the forum on 1000s of questions is what made learning a lot more feasible instead of spending $$$. Within the community, you were my gaurdian angels
13 Dec 2023, 12:46
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thank you MrWhite for an awesome debrief! I have converted the PDF into the Forum format. Please tweak if you see anything missing or off
Thank you again - awesome job on the GMAT and what a wonderful debrief!
-BB
Thank you again - awesome job on the GMAT and what a wonderful debrief!
-BB
poojaarora1818
Joined: 30 Jul 2019
Last visit: 22 Apr 2026
Posts: 1,623
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Given Kudos: 3,815
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Economics
Schools: Duke '27 Haas '27 Kelley '27 Kellogg '27 McDonough '27
GPA: 3
WE:Human Resources (Real Estate)
Products:
13 Dec 2023, 13:42
Kudos
Bookmarks
Congratulations! on a great GMAT score. Thank you so much for posting a detailed debrief. I wish you all the best in the application process.
Good luck!
Good luck!
