Hello everyone,
Although it has been more than a few months since I achieved my dream GMAT score of
735 (90Q, 85V, 84D), I feel honored and privileged to finally be able to post my debrief on GMATClub, more than 3 years after joining this community. My GMAT preparation journey began not long after joining and it feels great to finally put it to rest. My three official test scores transcend exam pattern changes and stages of my personal life. There were many low points and instances of self-doubt but a final score in the 99.5+ percentile bucket has certainly taught me one thing - hard work never goes unrewarded.
I am someone whom you would call an ORM candidate (Indian male). Coming from this over-represented pool of applicants, I knew that a solid GMAT score would be a sure-fire way to stand out. At the same time, I was aware that I would be competing with geniuses who are graduates from IITs and IIMs (the most prestigious universities in India). These people would have a track record of slaying competitive exam tests unlike me, who has never done well on one. This served as an additional motivation for me to outperform myself and show that I can belong on their level.
Before I dive deep into what worked for me, I would like to talk about my timeline. My study for the GMAT may have started over 3 years ago, but there was a period of 2.5 years wherein I was purely focused on work and other aspects of my life. So I’ll divide my journey into two phases. If you’re purely interested in my GMAT study materials and strategies, you may skip the below section.
Aug-2021 - 690 (48Q, 35V)Having decided to pursue an international MBA after getting some work experience under my belt, I researched the possible pathways. Thus, I was introduced to the GMAT in my undergrad days and knew a high score on this test would be required. Even though a score in this exam is valid for 5 years, I had no intention of taking this test any time soon. However, things changed when the joining date for my first job was postponed by 2 months. Instead of idling around at my house, I decided to try to conquer the GMAT with a goal of a 760+ score. I started self-studying and spent 8+ hours every single day using the OGs and study strategies from GMATClub. After a few mocks and self-assessments, I realized that Verbal was going to be a challenge. I kept using the free resources and OG questions leading up to the test day but ended up with a 690, an 85th percentile score. I was disappointed with the outcome but also satisfied with the effort I put in, knowing that this would not be my last dance with the GMAT.
Jul-2024 - 675 (86Q, 81V, 83D)Fast forward two and a half years later, I set up ‘GMAT’ as a primary goal at the beginning of 2024. Even though I had a very good SC score on my first attempt, I was quite content with the format changes introduced with the GMAT Focus. With the removal of SC and geometry and the integration of IR, I was optimistic about doing better in this new format. Knowing that 705 is the new 760, I set a revised target of 705+ and started to self-prepare using the same materials as earlier, ignoring any SC and geometry questions I encountered. In the beginning, I solidified my concepts by revisiting my older notes and only then opened the OGs. Although I had virtually exhausted all official questions earlier, the 2.5-year break worked towards helping me ‘forget’ all these questions, except for a few super hard RC and CR questions from which I was still able to recognize certain keywords! I took a lot of mocks and often spent an entire day just reflecting on them. There was a period of ~2 months where I found myself ‘plateaued’ around the 90th percentile mark, not being able to improve despite learning the difficult topics and solving hard questions. It was demotivating at times, but I assured myself that whatever I was doing was right and that I should continue to persist. I slowly started to see progression in my mocks, with incremental scores of 655, 675, 685, 695, and even a 735 in the middle somewhere. However, a mock score of 675 the day before I booked the test got me demotivated. I tried to not pay too much heed to this and told myself to relax and do everything apart from studying to make my mind fresh before the test day. However, the lack of good sleep leading up to the day of the test, coupled with my anxiety concluded with me scoring a
675, which although is a 96th percentile score, hugely disappointed me because it was my worst performance in Verbal (the section I used to consider my strongest) out of any mock that I had ever taken, right back to the first one.
Aug-2024 - 735 (90Q, 85V, 84D)Accepting a V81 score was very challenging because I knew I could do better. I scheduled a retest a month down the line. I gained inspiration from a friend who had recently scored a 715 after experiencing a similar disappointment. Observing how his ‘unserious’ approach helped him achieve the coveted 99th percentile made me reconsider my study strategy. Having already invested hundreds of hours into my preparation, I opted to change my approach. Instead of dedicating 15+ hours every weekend to studying, I focused on light-prep and mock tests only. During this time, I learned about the concept of ‘detached attachment’ and began believing more in my preparation rather than being result-oriented. In the lead-up to my retest, I gave just two mock tests, scoring 715 and 665. Although the second score wasn't ideal, the mock felt much more challenging. Instead of dwelling on the final result, I concentrated on reflecting on my mistakes and made a commitment not to repeat them. Additionally, I practiced yoga and meditation during this period to help calm my mind.
The change in my mindset and study approach led to an unexpected sense of calm as I prepared for the second test day. I slept well the night before and warmed up on the day of the test by solving a few quant questions. On the way to the test center, I took some deep breaths to center myself and began my exam. I decided to change my test order from V-Q-D to Q-V-D to start with the section I was most comfortable with. I also opted against taking the optional break, which proved to be a great decision, as it helped me maintain a heightened state of focus necessary to tackle the challenging DI questions.
The quant section felt great, and I ended up solving all the questions with about 10 mins remaining. I had plenty of time to thoroughly check each question and found that I had made a silly error in the very first question! The remaining 20 questions seemed correct to me, so I moved on to Verbal. From the very first question, the section felt challenging. I even encountered an RC passage that was probably of the same difficulty as
this. I marked whatever I believed was right and continued. The difficulty level of the DI was comparable to the mocks. With only a minute to go on the final question, I did what I could and clicked submit. When my score flashed on the screen, it felt surreal: I had conquered something I had been building up to for so long, and in that moment, I felt like a champion. I could finally tick off ‘GMAT’ from my yearly goals list, exactly three years after my first ever attempt
Study resources:During my GMAT preparation, I relied on a combination of books, video series, and study guides that I discovered through GMATClub, YouTube, and my own research. I chose not to pursue any GMAT course or tutoring, as I find that I work better independently and thus opted for the self-study route. I recognize that this approach may not suit everyone, so it’s important to determine what works best for you and tailor your preparation accordingly.
Here’s a glossary of the resources I used:
- Manhattan Guides: Foundations of Math, Foundations of Verbal, All the Quant, All the Verbal, Advanced Quant, and Integrated Reasoning guides
- GMAT Official Guides: Official Guide, Quantitative Review, Verbal Review, and DI Review
- GMATNinja RC series: The four-part series available on GMATClub’s YouTube channel
- Thursday with Ron RC videos: A true goldmine for RC!!
- GMATClub’s GMAT math book
- Countless detailed explanations on GMATClub provided by experts and other strangers—thank you all!
VerbalSolve timed, then untimed, only then verify your answers: Quite possibly the single most effective approach to mastering Verbal, even propagated by Verbal experts
AjiteshArun and
MartyMurray. GMAT Verbal is all about POE and requires a thorough analysis of each option. Timed practice often leads to rushed decisions but following it up with an untimed session allows for ample time to analyze the outcome of each option and discover mistakes in the same process. These untimed sessions, wherein I often spent 15-30 mins on one question, were instrumental in helping me identify trap answer patterns in CR and RC. As reinforced in the book
Make it Stick, learning is most effective when you identify and rectify your own mistakes rather than simply relying on answer keys and explanations.
There is no shortcut to RC: As a non-native speaker, I was consistently challenged by the difficulty of English in RC. I only managed a 25th percentile RC score on my first GMAT attempt. Determined to improve, I adopted a long-term approach by immersing myself in challenging English literature. I discovered a few books thanks to bb’s post
here and also subscribed to The Economist. I made it a point to read at least three articles there daily and I read these articles and books the same way I would read an RC passage – meaning I would mentally summarize each paragraph, and analyze the author’s tone, perspective, and viewpoint. Over time, I began to enjoy these readings, and the consistency helped me gradually become more comfortable with the advanced English used in RC passages. Some strategies that improved my RC performance:
- Read for purpose, at every point ask yourself – ‘why is this information given?’
- Watch out for transitional words that signal shifts in ideas such as ‘however’, ‘contrarily’, ‘although’, etc.
- Summarize each paragraph mentally after reading to retain the key points
- Pre-think the main idea after finishing the passage
- Read with curiosity! It will help in answering the questions effectively
- Engage with the passage, imagine explaining it to yourself. Use hand gestures if needed.
- If it helps, draw out the ideas or relationships from the passage
- A great tip I learned from EMPOWERgmatRichC course trial—read the passage as if you’re reading instructions on how to disarm a bomb. This forces you to read slowly and avoid rereads.
CR question types don’t matter: Regardless of whether it's a strengthen, weaken, paradox, or flaw question, I found that question types didn’t really matter as much as understanding the argument itself (except assumption questions, where negation works very well). Identification of the conclusion, connecting the premises to the conclusion, and connecting with the argument are techniques that work well in CR irrespective of the question type.
Official questions only: No test-prep company can match the quality of official verbal questions. Because of my ‘timed then untimed’ approach, I spent a considerable time on each official verbal question and thus I still had plenty of official questions left even at the end of my preparation.
Quant
The
Manhattan GMAT guides were instrumental in building the foundational blocks for my quant improvement. The 800-level questions in the
MGMAT Advanced Quant helped me take my game to the next level. I often found myself committing silly mistakes right up to the day of the test, minimizing them is key. The principle of ‘putting pen to paper’, no matter how simple the question seemed, helped me minimize these errors.
I also discovered that the most effective way to improve in quant was to go topic-by-topic, mastering one at a time. Here, the
MGMAT guides and the GMATClub Math book were quite helpful.
Data Insights
I didn’t dedicate too much time preparing specifically for DI as I felt that my Verbal & Quant prep, combined with the DI questions in mock tests, was sufficient. In fact, I found that the questions in the Official DI review guide were overtly difficult and probably not representative of the difficulty of questions in the actual test. I also make PowerPoint slides for a living, and I approached each DI question as if it were a client PPT slide. Although I didn’t take any GMAT course, the ‘Own the Dataset’ method advocated by e-GMAT, with its focus on first understanding the data and question thoroughly before diving into the solution, became a key principle in my approach to DI.
General tips
Test order matters: A question that is often asked is that does the test order matter? As someone who improved by 60 points after (among other things) switching from V-Q-D to Q-V-D, I can attest that it does. Starting with a section I was more comfortable with helped me ‘warmup’ mentally before the more demanding Verbal and DI sections. It allowed me to ease into the test and avoid encountering challenging questions right at the start.
Skip the optional break: I understand that this is a controversial take, but skipping the optional break worked well for me. During my mocks, I noticed that taking a break made me lose my heightened state of focus, and it took me a few questions to regain my momentum. After reading about the benefit of skipping the break on a debrief, I decided to give it a try in a mock and found that I could tackle DI much more smoothly. This became a key strategy leading to my test day.
Don’t rely on question review: Treat the question review feature as a luxury, not a guarantee. Since you may not always have time at the end of a section to revisit marked questions, focus on solving it right the first time itself.
Read The Economist to improve comprehension: I often came across articles there that absolutely didn’t interest me. Similarly, I read many books with complex English that didn’t always make sense to me at first. I used to put in extra effort to comprehend these challenging texts and such ‘sessions’ helped me improve my reading ability, which not only enhanced my verbal skills but also extended to better question understanding in quant and DI as well.
Discover what works for you!!: Throughout my GMAT preparation, I learned so many things about myself that, had I known earlier, would have saved me a lot of hassle. For instance, it was only after I felt not fully ‘awake’ during my 675 attempt that I realized I should schedule the test later in the day. That attempt was also on a Tuesday, which is the start of the week, whereas my final attempt was on a Friday, right before the weekend. This was a deliberate choice driven by my self-discovery of the fact that I perform better in the second half of the week (sounds odd, but I suspect I have the entire education and professional system to blame for this). Lastly, I consider myself to be disciplined and thus was able to carve my own self-study journey. Someone else may need a tutor to guide them at every point. Fortunately, there is more than one way to prepare for and take the GMAT. Use whatever works for you to give yourself the best possible chance of success.
Contribute to GMATClub: There is an old Hindi proverb which roughly translates to “knowledge is gained by sharing.” I learned a great deal by posting my answer explanations on this platform and reviewing solutions shared by others. These engagements helped me learn some of the best practices used by various individuals and solidified my own learnings.
You’re only limited by your imagination, set a high target: If someone who has flunked on every single competitive exam can manage a 100th percentile GMAT score, then what’s stopping you?
Before concluding, I wanted to say my thank you notes.
GMATNinja Charles, your RC and CR video series has helped thousands of GMAT test-takers and will undoubtedly continue to do so for years to come. The way you instruct, you should already be a billionaire just from teaching GMAT. I cannot thank you enough.
KarishmaB: I genuinely believe you are the true ‘all-rounder’ when it comes to GMAT questions. Your simplified explanations on GMATClub to complicated quant, verbal, and DI questions have been a tremendous resource for all of us.
That’s all from my side. I hope someone out there finds all of this helpful.