610-660-750- Third time's the charm

Question

Got done with the GMAT finally and happy that I won’t have to take it again. Mine is a long journey spreading over more than a year. 
 
March 2014:  Took the GMAT with only a month of preparation. I thought that I did decent on the exam but was shocked to see only a 610. I think I was not fully prepared for what the GMAT will throw at me. 
I was planning to take the GMAT in May then but I had an appraisal due in June and was expecting a hefty raise if I continued my good performance in office so postponed the exam

Feb 2015:  I took the exam again but didn’t score that well..While I got a good quant score, verbal sank me and I got a 660 only. I realized that doing only the Kaplan book and OG will not be sufficient if I wanted to cross the 40 mark on verbal.
 
April 2015:  Scored 750 this time. While taking the test, I could feel that I’m in command of the test and while earlier I would get stuck between the remaining two options in verbal, in this test I could logically eliminate most of the options. 
I used aristotle grail series this time alongwith manhattan tests. The grail series was excellent, much easier to understand and better than manhattangmat books. I loved their sc grail the most!

I also got hold of the gmac additional tests and questionbanks. I think these were crucial in helping me get a firm hold of the exam and helped me do well.

I still have a couple of months before I apply. Will be doing a few school visits and will be applying in R1. 
My final advice to everyone is that GMAT can’t be done with fluke. You really need to prepare well unless you are a genius. Put in the hardwork and you will definitely get results. 
Good luck everyone. These forums have been of great help. Let me know if I can be of any help.

adityadon · Answer

April 2015:  Scored 750 this time. While taking the test, I could feel that I’m in command of the test and while earlier I would get stuck between the remaining two options in verbal, in this test I could logically eliminate most of the options.

Congrats for ur score .. you said you were stuck between two close options in verbal , I am in similar phase , what helped you the most to eliminate one of them and choose the other correct answer ?

Panavee · Answer

WOW!! great progress man! Congratulations! This is really inspirational.Do you mind sharing your q and v scores on these tests?

I'm only asking because i have noticed(maybe it's just coincidence though) that most of the people that improve significantly mostly do so due to verbal improvements while their quant does not improve sooo much.

CarlosPenn · Answer

Thanks. I think that earlier I lacked conceptual clarity and that's why I would always get stuck between two options. Once I had the conceptual clarity in sentence correction which was largely due to the sc grail book, I was much more confident in eliminating options

abhinavarya · Answer

Can you talk more about your verbal prep ? How did you use the grail series book ? Did you do them after OG or alongwith OG ?

CarlosPenn · Answer

I firstly started with aristotle sc book. I kept on referring to the OG book whenever the book asked me to refer. After that, I did the 125 questions at the end of the book and then moved on to OG SC questions. I followed the same process for CR and RC through CR and RC Grail and then through OG. Basically, I followed the same process for all three areas

Jollys · Answer

From my experience, the questions on the GMAT are quite close to those in the GMATPREP so better take the GMATPREPs seriously. They are totally worth it

CarlosPenn · Answer

Totally agree with you. gmat prep tests are very good. The way the questions are worded are very good and you are most likely to shades of similar language and sentence structure on the actual gmat

GMATPILLBILL · Answer

Congratulations! Your success was paved with by hard work and dedication. I wish you all the best on your future endeavors.

mgoodwin1 · Answer

Congrats on the completion of your journey!

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610->660->750- Third time's the charm

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