From 680 to 720 in just 1 month.

Question

Hi all, First of all, just wanted to state clearly that this is not an April's fool, given the date

! Then, I am happy to say that I reached the 700+ mark, even though I need a second attempt to do so (Q49, V40 -> 720). On my first try , I scored a reasonnable 680 (Q50, V31) and was really disappointed with this <700 score. I scored twice above 700 on my GMATPrep sessions and was running around V35+ on several other sources. Needless to say I opted for a retake. Roughly one month later, I could greatly improve my Verbal score and finally reach the 700+ mark. As you can see, I reduced my Quant score in this second attempt; I strongly believe this is due to my intense 5h/day pure verbal practice for the past month. I took the e-GMAT courses and followed them from scratch - I honestly think I lost some precious time doing so, but I liked the online display and wanted to review everything thoroughly. With an engineer background, I trusted my knowledge in maths and didn't spend any minute on it... I almost feel ashamed I decreased my Quant' score

! I spent A LOT of time reviewing the Official Guide '12 and the explanations made on e-GMAT then made much more sense when analyzing the Verbal explanations of the OG. I also spent quite some time on Grockit, which I think is a very convenient way to view your strengths and weaknesses and focus on improving the latter. With just one month between my two attempts (application deadlines constraint, haha~ !) I am happy to have climbed almost by 10% on the percentile ladder. As for the exam in itself, it feels of course much less stressful the second time, although I took the second exam at the other side of the planet. The facilities are more or less the same and I already knew what to expect and all these little things that may accumulate and make you feel uncomfortable. There is still as much palpitation when clicking for the last time before reaching the score screen, but this time is was with a great smile that I left the room :-D

greatps24 · Answer

Congrats.

My exam is on friday. I scored 670 (Q50, V30) in my GP1. Any tips / suggestions.
My verbal score range : 34-36 in MGMAT CAT.

My target score : 690-700.

pancakeFR · Answer

Hi ! Thanks a lot for this debrief. It gives me hope.

I am in the same situation as you. I've just scored 680 and I may retake next month, aiming for 720. Good luck with your applications !

nt2010 · Answer

Congrat! That is a very big lift of 9 pints in Verbal.

What course did you take on e-gmat? I'm currently enrolled in e-gmat SC and wondering whether to take any other package.

BammaBullet · Answer

Dear greatps24 : I am unfortunately not very familiar with MGMAT CAT, so I prefer not to say anything rather than giving you a wrong advise. It would be interesting to know how you scored on GMAT Prep for your first attempt and what would be your score now. But for sure, if you keep your Quant that high and improve on Verbal, you'll reach your target

! I actually scored Q50,V31 for a 680 on my first try, so if your target is 690-700, you should be able to do it, simply given the randomness of the test (there's quite some deviation in the GMAT). Moreover, I felt really calm and relax during my second attempt, I knew what was ahead of me and I felt really comfortable. You should really try to get into this mood for your second attempt: I figure out now that I completely freaked out in the Verbal part during my first attempt and I was clicking nervously on the last 4 questions because time was running out. Also, I felt like I had a much better "high level" view on this second attempt than on the first one: as soon as I read a Verbal question, I could much more quickly dismiss the questions out of scope and discern whether it was a supporting evidence or a weakening one. It felt just right

! I hope you'll be able to have such a different perspective on questions and receive a nice reward for your hard work. As far as tips, besides getting a lot of rest for your brain, some sugar and a lot of confidence/motivation, I don't really know what to advise you

Good luck and keep us posted ! Dear pancakeFR : Thanks for the good words

! I hope you'll be able to reach even higher summits than me. And as already stated above, just relax and enjoy this challenge for another time

Dear nt2010 : I bought the Verbal Online package of e-GMAT primarily because I don't have time to attend online classes and I usually fall asleep or multitask with something else at the same time and feel like a lose my time, but also because I wanted to have a tool to practice a lot and Grockit, included in the package, offers this

I averaged 100 questions / day on Grockit for the last 10 days before the exam. I also tried to place a few CAT (still from Grockit) inbetween. And I didn't use GMAT Prep again, because I have read so many GMAT Prep questions that I would probably get a biased score by knowing the correct answere beforehand. I learned a lot with the SC course, mainly because I didn't read anything for the first attempt and I strongly believe it is the best of e-GMAT courses. I personally didn't like the RC one, but maybe because I don't like RC at first, haha~ I usually fall asleep when I read some texts, so this is probably not due to e-GMAT at all

I like the CR courses too, but again this is my point of view and I don't assume everyone to agree with me. Good luck for the preparation !

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