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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.
15 Jul 2014, 06:41
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Hi,
Now that I've drawn your attention with that catchy topic name, I’d request you stick on for sometime and read this debrief. First things first, there is no short route to scoring 700+( or whatever score you're aspiring to get) in GMAT. I'm sorry to be bursting the bubble for those of you who're reading this and haven't given your GMAT yet.
So what's different in this debrief? Why should you be reading this debrief? I'd like to tell you an interesting and funny story that happened to me which might keep you readers interested. And oh, as for my GMAT, I got a 700 (Q51,V34, IR6, AWA5.5). All of you reading can get this score, or more, quite easily as long as you're systematic and meticulous with your approach towards the exam..yada yada.. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first the story.
So the D-Day for me is on 23rd may( A Friday). I've booked my dates about 3 months back and have given myself enough time to prepare to my complete potential and more importantly not give lack of time as a reason for whatever score I get ( or couldn't get
). The 3 month journey of preparation is quite the usual story. Filled with anxiety, trepidation , hi's and low's and some serious self introspection! Fast forward 3 months, I've reached the day before my D-Day. Of course, the last couple of days, you should not be studying at all, just relaxing and pretty much starting to plan the life after gmat. I started taking the latter part a little too seriously. I made travel plans for Friday night and booked some movie tickets for saturday night as well. All was well, I was keeping myself distracted from the exam, something which is an absolute must!
Cometh the hour! I'm from Bangalore, India and for those of you who know this city will synonymously associate traffic with this city. I was prepared for this and hence I reached my center almost 45 minutes before my slot time( afternoon slot). I was carrying all documents required( or so I thought! ). As I reached the center, the first question the person at the pearson center asked me was ' Can I see your passport please? '. ' Wow! First question and i'm already stumped and my exam hadn't even started' . I told the attendant there that I didn't have my passport( Yes, you can begin laughing right about now!) and had all the other proofs. I went as much as challenging the attendants that the GMAC website had no such information. Much to my shock, there was the usual small * and conditions apply catch to that thread. I rushed back to my house, searched for my passport, found it and tried rushing back to the center. All of this in the Bangalore traffic and to my surprise I reached at 1:20 back to the center with my passport for a 1:00 PM exam and turns out I was just 10 minutes late!
Here I was, thinking that according to my plan, at about 1:30, i'd have been almost done with a kickass essay and getting ready to face IR and then Verbal and Quants. But what did I know! I was standing in the middle of the road with my GMAC appointment letter not quite sure as to what to do next and by 2:00 PM I was home! My mother always told me: 'don't be in a hurry to finish the exam, take the full allotted time and check twice' . This was taking it to a whole new level. Also, this would not be counted as an attempt, but this would count as a ' No-Show'. Amidst the absolute gloom, the only silver lining for me was that someone who's had a no-show need not have to wait the one-month waiting period to re-take the exam!
So here I was at cross-roads! I could sulk and get into a mini depression for my act of absolute stupidity, or I could somehow put this past me and consider this as a blessing in disguise, prepare a little more and at the next chance, give the exam and absolutely kill it! Well, I kind of did both! Almost the entire Friday evening, I was cursing myself for something which I could have very well avoided. Like time travel, I would compare what I would have been doing now, had the exam gotten over to what I was actually doing! Friday night I realized that there was absolutely no point to all of this and I should move on. I was lucky enough to get a date on Monday morning for my exam. Within 3 days I could try and redeem myself and get a good score. So I toughened it out, for the next two days, went through all the basics again, primarily to distract myself from thinking about what transpired on Friday. I even went for the movie on Saturday night for which i'd booked tickets before my GMAT Monday morning, waking up with my passport glued to my hand, I went to the centre, finished off the essay in 20 minutes. Took a little time to kickstart with IR but that also went on and finished my gmat. Painstakingly filled the form after my exam had gotten over and I was waiting for my score. It read 700. I smiled to myself. Walked out of the room , took my bag and started to leave the building, with my passport safely inside my bag
Moral : In all your intense preparation, don't forget to check GMAC rules.. Actually scratch that.. Just take your passport. That's all there is to it!
As for the preparation, I had all of the MGMAT material with me and I had also purchased the OG13 ( Before you start preparing for GMAT, buy this!) Contrary to what the above story would tell about me, i'm generally quite systematic and planned. So much that, I loved to make timetables and schedules on pretty much a weekly basis. If you're someone who likes doing that, i'd say keep weekly milestones and keep checking them off your list. As your approach your exam, make sure your goals are getting tougher and if you're able to tick off your list with ease, you're not setting tougher goals for yourself!
Take practice tests! Keep taking them at regular intervals and more importantly, spend more time at reviewing your tests! Even while practicing problems, if you're trying to solve a problem for which an explanation is not there, DO NOT SOLVE IT! Its absolutely important for you to know an approach to a problem rather not just the answer! I took the MGMAT and Kaplan tests along with the two GMAC tests. My MGMAT tests score ranged from 590-710 and Kaplan tests 650-720. The two GMAC tests, which are quite an accurate reflection of how the actual test will be. I got 680 and 690 in both the tests! Ensure that all these tests are spaced out across your entire preparation time and most importantly, if you’re spending 3 hours writing the exams, it is imperative that you spend at least 4 hours trying to analyze the exam after you’ve gotten your scores. It is of no value if you do not go back to the solutions, chalk down your mistakes and draw a plan for yourself for the forthcoming tests!
As you’d have read by now in many posts, GMAT is not a difficult exam. If given the same questions and not having a time limit, I’m quite positive that all the questions can be easily cracked! So it comes down to time management and some smart studying. Keep practicing till you’re very sure with your basics and then, once that’s done, practice some more
Here, I’d like to bring to the attention of the few readers who’re still with me on this post, please use the GmatClub tests and the 'MY Workbook'( Present for
each of your profile). It will have Questions for the day. For each of 5 sections with different levels of toughness, there are enough and more questions that are present which must be used for practice. They come up with a score for you based on your performance. My score as of now is 530 in that. Do not get disheartened with that score as the point of those questions is practice. For quants, Bunel would have in all likeliness provided easy-to-comprehend solutions for most questions. You can count on that.
That brings a wrap on my GMAT story. At the end of the day, I can say with a lot of confidence that I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 months of preparation for GMAT and that was the key. The more you enjoy the process, the more fruitful your end result will be.
P.S.- Apologies for any grammatical errors on this post, if any. There is always a silver lining to everything. Use this for sentence correction practice
Comments, criticism and questions are always welcome!
Now that I've drawn your attention with that catchy topic name, I’d request you stick on for sometime and read this debrief. First things first, there is no short route to scoring 700+( or whatever score you're aspiring to get) in GMAT. I'm sorry to be bursting the bubble for those of you who're reading this and haven't given your GMAT yet.
So what's different in this debrief? Why should you be reading this debrief? I'd like to tell you an interesting and funny story that happened to me which might keep you readers interested. And oh, as for my GMAT, I got a 700 (Q51,V34, IR6, AWA5.5). All of you reading can get this score, or more, quite easily as long as you're systematic and meticulous with your approach towards the exam..yada yada.. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first the story.
So the D-Day for me is on 23rd may( A Friday). I've booked my dates about 3 months back and have given myself enough time to prepare to my complete potential and more importantly not give lack of time as a reason for whatever score I get ( or couldn't get
). The 3 month journey of preparation is quite the usual story. Filled with anxiety, trepidation , hi's and low's and some serious self introspection! Fast forward 3 months, I've reached the day before my D-Day. Of course, the last couple of days, you should not be studying at all, just relaxing and pretty much starting to plan the life after gmat. I started taking the latter part a little too seriously. I made travel plans for Friday night and booked some movie tickets for saturday night as well. All was well, I was keeping myself distracted from the exam, something which is an absolute must! Cometh the hour! I'm from Bangalore, India and for those of you who know this city will synonymously associate traffic with this city. I was prepared for this and hence I reached my center almost 45 minutes before my slot time( afternoon slot). I was carrying all documents required( or so I thought! ). As I reached the center, the first question the person at the pearson center asked me was ' Can I see your passport please? '. ' Wow! First question and i'm already stumped and my exam hadn't even started' . I told the attendant there that I didn't have my passport( Yes, you can begin laughing right about now!) and had all the other proofs. I went as much as challenging the attendants that the GMAC website had no such information. Much to my shock, there was the usual small * and conditions apply catch to that thread. I rushed back to my house, searched for my passport, found it and tried rushing back to the center. All of this in the Bangalore traffic and to my surprise I reached at 1:20 back to the center with my passport for a 1:00 PM exam and turns out I was just 10 minutes late!
Here I was, thinking that according to my plan, at about 1:30, i'd have been almost done with a kickass essay and getting ready to face IR and then Verbal and Quants. But what did I know! I was standing in the middle of the road with my GMAC appointment letter not quite sure as to what to do next and by 2:00 PM I was home! My mother always told me: 'don't be in a hurry to finish the exam, take the full allotted time and check twice' . This was taking it to a whole new level. Also, this would not be counted as an attempt, but this would count as a ' No-Show'. Amidst the absolute gloom, the only silver lining for me was that someone who's had a no-show need not have to wait the one-month waiting period to re-take the exam!
So here I was at cross-roads! I could sulk and get into a mini depression for my act of absolute stupidity, or I could somehow put this past me and consider this as a blessing in disguise, prepare a little more and at the next chance, give the exam and absolutely kill it! Well, I kind of did both! Almost the entire Friday evening, I was cursing myself for something which I could have very well avoided. Like time travel, I would compare what I would have been doing now, had the exam gotten over to what I was actually doing! Friday night I realized that there was absolutely no point to all of this and I should move on. I was lucky enough to get a date on Monday morning for my exam. Within 3 days I could try and redeem myself and get a good score. So I toughened it out, for the next two days, went through all the basics again, primarily to distract myself from thinking about what transpired on Friday. I even went for the movie on Saturday night for which i'd booked tickets before my GMAT
Monday morning, waking up with my passport glued to my hand, I went to the centre, finished off the essay in 20 minutes. Took a little time to kickstart with IR but that also went on and finished my gmat. Painstakingly filled the form after my exam had gotten over and I was waiting for my score. It read 700. I smiled to myself. Walked out of the room , took my bag and started to leave the building, with my passport safely inside my bag Moral : In all your intense preparation, don't forget to check GMAC rules.. Actually scratch that.. Just take your passport. That's all there is to it!
As for the preparation, I had all of the MGMAT material with me and I had also purchased the OG13 ( Before you start preparing for GMAT, buy this!) Contrary to what the above story would tell about me, i'm generally quite systematic and planned. So much that, I loved to make timetables and schedules on pretty much a weekly basis. If you're someone who likes doing that, i'd say keep weekly milestones and keep checking them off your list. As your approach your exam, make sure your goals are getting tougher and if you're able to tick off your list with ease, you're not setting tougher goals for yourself!
Take practice tests! Keep taking them at regular intervals and more importantly, spend more time at reviewing your tests! Even while practicing problems, if you're trying to solve a problem for which an explanation is not there, DO NOT SOLVE IT! Its absolutely important for you to know an approach to a problem rather not just the answer! I took the MGMAT and Kaplan tests along with the two GMAC tests. My MGMAT tests score ranged from 590-710 and Kaplan tests 650-720. The two GMAC tests, which are quite an accurate reflection of how the actual test will be. I got 680 and 690 in both the tests! Ensure that all these tests are spaced out across your entire preparation time and most importantly, if you’re spending 3 hours writing the exams, it is imperative that you spend at least 4 hours trying to analyze the exam after you’ve gotten your scores. It is of no value if you do not go back to the solutions, chalk down your mistakes and draw a plan for yourself for the forthcoming tests!
As you’d have read by now in many posts, GMAT is not a difficult exam. If given the same questions and not having a time limit, I’m quite positive that all the questions can be easily cracked! So it comes down to time management and some smart studying. Keep practicing till you’re very sure with your basics and then, once that’s done, practice some more
Here, I’d like to bring to the attention of the few readers who’re still with me on this post, please use the GmatClub tests and the 'MY Workbook'( Present for
each of your profile). It will have Questions for the day. For each of 5 sections with different levels of toughness, there are enough and more questions that are present which must be used for practice. They come up with a score for you based on your performance. My score as of now is 530 in that. Do not get disheartened with that score as the point of those questions is practice. For quants, Bunel would have in all likeliness provided easy-to-comprehend solutions for most questions. You can count on that.
That brings a wrap on my GMAT story. At the end of the day, I can say with a lot of confidence that I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 months of preparation for GMAT and that was the key. The more you enjoy the process, the more fruitful your end result will be.
P.S.- Apologies for any grammatical errors on this post, if any. There is always a silver lining to everything. Use this for sentence correction practice
Comments, criticism and questions are always welcome!
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