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Dhananjai1990
GMAT 2: 710 Q48 V39
Posts: 30
04 Dec 2015, 13:30
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Having received my Awa score today of my 4th and final attempt of the GMAT i decided today is a good time to post my debrief of my GMAT experience (something i visualized for motivation to achieving a high score,more on this later) . Deriving so much inspiration from so many of the other posters this is the least i can do considering im more of a lurker on the forum than a poster. Also special mention to moderators of the verbal forums, the gmat clubs test makers and the tons of useful posts in the forum . GMAT club is the best resource of the lot.
My 2 year GMAT journey!!
23.08.2013 GMAT attempt 1 - 610 (43 Q 31 V AWA 4.5 IR 5)
08.08.2014 GMAT attempt 2 - 640 (47 Q 31 V AWA 5.0 IR 6)
18.12.2014 GMAT attempt 3 - 650 (43 Q 36 V AWA 5.0 IR 5)(a disaster exam ,where my computer crashed. Unfortunately this happened prior to the rule change, so i kept the score foolishly and GMAC did not let me cancel it post the exam)
27.11.2015 GMAT attempt 4 - 710 (48 Q 39 V AWA 6.0 IR 5)
So ill quickly get the first 2 attempts of the GMAT out of the way.. i thought i was ready to write the GMAT on both the attempts but in hindsight i was brutally under prepared and my real learning came after this. But i do have things that i would avoid doing -just for some context, Im an Indian,based out of Chennai and the kaplan course is absolutely terrible dont do it. In fact i think all the class courses are just swindles and not worth wasting your time and money on, especially considering the quality of courses available online ,these offer loads more flexibility and access to content.
GMAT ATTEMPT 3
So finally after 2 heart crushing failures that caused me to question my own capability and intelligence i decided things needed to change and i decided this for 2 reasons.
1) i was determined to get a decent score and prove that i can
2) needed to save money in what was becoming an expensive process cause of the crazy exchange rates
After going through each and every review on this forum i decided to purchase the E-GMAT online course , and this course is absolutely fantastic. I was always pretty good at CR and RC but e-gmat took it to the next level, importantly this course really helped me understand how the SC works and how its all about a few key rules. Immediately after the course i experienced a huge leap in SC.
Let me put this in context, I've always been pretty decent at English in general and thought SC could be solved by ear and based on what i already knew and read so in all my prep tests i was scoring a 27-33 - Pretty much indicating i was guessing on SC (i didn't know this at the time). however after the E-gmat course i was consistently getting a 35-37 and this reflected on my actual test 3!
unfortunately during the test my computer crashed while i was doing the IR section and then the test center people tried to add that 1 min on to my Quant section but all they did was disturb my flow and i got flustered and completely screwed up the quant section. The real screw up was that i should've cancelled my score but rules hadn't changed yet so i kept the score (maybe a bit foolishly in the hope i could still apply to schools that year). The GMAC Is probably one of the least customer friendly in these sort of situations..so if you find a some sort of error like this for you ,remember everything is recorded so make signals, ensure you show your frustration, better to cancel your exam and retake it later make sure you mail,complain and record everything. (the GMAC allowed me to write the next exam for free to be fair,but it wasn't exactly pleasant dealing with them)
After this i really had given up and forgot about the GMAT for a couple of months before deciding to give my 4th attempt. The thing with the GMAT is each time i put in the hours gave up a lot of weekends and outings and even at times let work suffer(but never too badly) . So with each failed attempt was more doubt and basically questioning if you really want this and luckily for me my answer each time was "yes". I was also confident that my previous attempt was an anomaly from my practice tests and add to that a technical failure during the test day that threw me off completely i decided to give the gmat another go
GMAT ATTEMPT 4 and the 710!!
After clearing my head ,getting work back on track i decided to give the test one last attempt so i first wanted to review my previous test so purchased the ESR GMAT report of my score and it showed my timing break down and accuracy break down and basically confirmed what i already knew but insightful.
1. I was weak at PS in quant
2. I was taking way too much time for SC and once i spent too much time on SC my accuracy suffered.
Decided that i already knew enough about the GMAT at this point and just needed to work on my weak areas so targeted giving the exam within a month
I subscribed the EmpowerGMAT course and followed the verbal score booster plan (again in the hope of learning something new, and again done after scouring through reviews). This really propelled my score. Their SC course is incredibly short and effective. With incredible tips and tricks for effectively slashing answers . For me it worked out perfectly and EMPOWERGMAT proved to be a great finishing school . well at the end i was hoping to get a 40+ score on verbal but ill settle for a 39!! After seeing the 710 on the screen i was overcome with relief and after some ridiculous amount fist pumping it sunk in and a sense of achievement came over me.
My GMAT TIPS & Advice
1. The verbal section is the key for a high score. Almost everybody knows this now. I didn't know when i started out, if you happen to start out now on your journey pay heed to this . You are forced to score a high score in quant and there is no escaping this, but if you want a significant score on the GMAT verbal is the key area and its where you can make significant gains. And in order to do this you need to nail SC
2. RC read everything . i mean it! Take really good notes. Through the E-gmat SC course you will learn how to read sentences in a GMAT specific style. Break it down ,ID sub verb, learn to question what comes next, learn to spot the key words like however,furthermore look for results, look for contradictions and pay attention. Surprisingly RC is not time consuming once you start to actually understand the passage. My timing tip Long passages take 8 min overall 3 to 4 min to read the passage and make your notes while reading them and generally you will take 30 secs to 1 min to answer the following questions. short passages overall 6 min and again 3 min to read and make notes.
3. For quant here are the things that worked for me
- GMAT CLUB TESTS are an incredible resource. do all the tests . learn and understand your mistakes. There is also a gmat blog called gmathacks ,his method on how to practice the quant section ,review tests etc..really worked for me .
The most important in the math section is marrying timing with accuracy. now the EmpowerGMAT course emphasizes this and their tips and tricks are amazing on this subject and im not sure if i can repeat their course material here, But those tips and tricks are alone worth paying for. anyway the gist is to ensure that you do not screw up the easy questions and do not waste time on questions you know are too hard/too crazy or just don't know. Learn to move on and maintain time, ensure you get all the easy and medium ones right you are guaranteed a score 48+ by doing this.
4. GMAT really tests you physically and psychologically. Time each and every practice. Do the entire 4 hours while doing the practice tests at home. Study in 75 min sessions . to build a bit of stamina do 41 math questions and 45 verbal questions in a session.
5. Once you have decided to start studying, do not stop for anything. even if you dont feel like at all, power through and do a 30 min session ,do some revision , do anything but dont let the flow go. without realizing a days break becomes two and suddenly its December.
6. Learn to visualize how you'll do each aspect of the test . Play this "tape" before you sleep. For example Your awa approach, how you will approach the IR section, in quant the emphasis on the opening questions ,ensuring you dont go past 3 min on any question , your timing strategy , note taking strategy, and actually answering the question asked,what you'd do if you find a question that stumps you, contingency plans these sort of things. similarly for verbal. and finally imagine that score you want popping up on the screen, imagine telling people who care about your success or maybe even to the person you wanna stick it too. It helps! it calms you down itll keep your mind prepared to deal with any possible scenario on test day.
7. Most important tip for last. LEARN TO NAP. NAPS ARE AMAZING. NAPS SAVE LIVES. i have a demanding job in marketing and i cant wake up early to study. But what i learnt to do effectively was to NAP. Id get back home at what ever time in the evening ( A month before the GMAT i ensured it was around 6,atl east as best as i could -i start work by 8am) and nap for half an hour. This half hour nap was the fuel required to study at least 2 hours/day so my schedule was nap from 6 to 6:30 then take a shower (cold water, warm showers make you lazy, cold showers get you alert ) . study from 7 to 9 have dinner and im back studying from 10 to 11 and if required till about midnight and then get 6-7 hours of sleep (a goods nights rest is crucial during the learning phase and in general)
to nap effectively learn about the 4-7-8 technique. be careful with the naps if done right its great, you can concentrate for your study session and you'll notice the careless mistakes you make during the quant session reduces,however nap too long and you are groggy , nap to less and its pointless.
PRACTICE TESTS Sources review( trust me i did a lot of these)
1. VERBAL - all the practices tests are pretty rubbish for this , im not joking ,test prep companies just cannot get this right and i cant understand why. MGMAT has weird CR, Veritas has weird SC, and 800score is maybe too easy or just too crazy.. for Verbal only the GMAT PREP tests are worth it. and even then i wouldn't recommend buying the additional exam pack (These are old and not relevant anymore)
to practice verbal all i did was go through the forums and download the GMAT PREP questions for SC ,CR and RC and practice of the OG. This is sufficient if you really focus on learning the "why" you got a question right and "why"you got something wrong.
to learn the why just post the question on google and the manhattan and GMAT club forums are gold. with some expert GMAT instructors solving the question along with the "why"
2. Quants - as mentioned GMAT CLUB TESTS are amazing, veritas tests are great for learning some really interesting and challenging problems. I found the MGMAT tests very heavy and difficult in a weird way. GMAT makes the questions tricky but generally it involves some kind of pattern recognition or a neat way of thinking and can be solved in 3-4 steps. MGMAT questions just seems number heavy and just hard to read and required too many steps to solve.
Regardless if you want to save money procuring their tests i recommend you buy a kindle version of any of their guides and you should get 6 months of access to their tests. you save loads of money this way. up to you
3. 800 score tests are decent practice, bit on the easy side, but great to learn pacing and some pointers along the way
Finally test day tips
1. i didn't book my test day before like most people, i just kept practicing and when i was confident i just booked a date within the next three days. You will always have openings cause tons of people keep cancelling. A high risk approach but one that ensure you'll never have to waste money postponing the exam.
2. before the exam ,maybe 2 hours before, i did around 20 questions in quant. to make sure i didn't freeze at the start of the test (it happened to me before).
3. Ensure you do not need the loo during the exam this will affect your score. and remember the test is 4 hours . so train your bowels if you have to . seems basic but i cant be the only person who has unfortunately not been able to concentrate cause of this (GMAT Attempt 1)
a small word about the score, Yes im male,indian and engineer and a 710 may not be enough in this group. but honestly its actually a good score if you are one of those people who think its not, well your only ruining it for yourselves and other people from the same cohort. Move on to the rest of your apps your better of spending more time on the GMAT. If a college still doesnt accept you even if the rest of your app is solid, well that points to something wrong in their system and nothing wrong with you.
I feel like ive left out some information if i remember it i shall post it anyway best of luck in your attempt, happy to answer any questions you might have!
hope this helps you, also apologise for the typos
My 2 year GMAT journey!!
23.08.2013 GMAT attempt 1 - 610 (43 Q 31 V AWA 4.5 IR 5)
08.08.2014 GMAT attempt 2 - 640 (47 Q 31 V AWA 5.0 IR 6)
18.12.2014 GMAT attempt 3 - 650 (43 Q 36 V AWA 5.0 IR 5)(a disaster exam ,where my computer crashed. Unfortunately this happened prior to the rule change, so i kept the score foolishly and GMAC did not let me cancel it post the exam)
27.11.2015 GMAT attempt 4 - 710 (48 Q 39 V AWA 6.0 IR 5)
So ill quickly get the first 2 attempts of the GMAT out of the way.. i thought i was ready to write the GMAT on both the attempts but in hindsight i was brutally under prepared and my real learning came after this. But i do have things that i would avoid doing -just for some context, Im an Indian,based out of Chennai and the kaplan course is absolutely terrible dont do it. In fact i think all the class courses are just swindles and not worth wasting your time and money on, especially considering the quality of courses available online ,these offer loads more flexibility and access to content.
GMAT ATTEMPT 3
So finally after 2 heart crushing failures that caused me to question my own capability and intelligence i decided things needed to change and i decided this for 2 reasons.
1) i was determined to get a decent score and prove that i can
2) needed to save money in what was becoming an expensive process cause of the crazy exchange rates
After going through each and every review on this forum i decided to purchase the E-GMAT online course , and this course is absolutely fantastic. I was always pretty good at CR and RC but e-gmat took it to the next level, importantly this course really helped me understand how the SC works and how its all about a few key rules. Immediately after the course i experienced a huge leap in SC.
Let me put this in context, I've always been pretty decent at English in general and thought SC could be solved by ear and based on what i already knew and read so in all my prep tests i was scoring a 27-33 - Pretty much indicating i was guessing on SC (i didn't know this at the time). however after the E-gmat course i was consistently getting a 35-37 and this reflected on my actual test 3!
unfortunately during the test my computer crashed while i was doing the IR section and then the test center people tried to add that 1 min on to my Quant section but all they did was disturb my flow and i got flustered and completely screwed up the quant section. The real screw up was that i should've cancelled my score but rules hadn't changed yet so i kept the score (maybe a bit foolishly in the hope i could still apply to schools that year). The GMAC Is probably one of the least customer friendly in these sort of situations..so if you find a some sort of error like this for you ,remember everything is recorded so make signals, ensure you show your frustration, better to cancel your exam and retake it later make sure you mail,complain and record everything. (the GMAC allowed me to write the next exam for free to be fair,but it wasn't exactly pleasant dealing with them)
After this i really had given up and forgot about the GMAT for a couple of months before deciding to give my 4th attempt. The thing with the GMAT is each time i put in the hours gave up a lot of weekends and outings and even at times let work suffer(but never too badly) . So with each failed attempt was more doubt and basically questioning if you really want this and luckily for me my answer each time was "yes". I was also confident that my previous attempt was an anomaly from my practice tests and add to that a technical failure during the test day that threw me off completely i decided to give the gmat another go
GMAT ATTEMPT 4 and the 710!!
After clearing my head ,getting work back on track i decided to give the test one last attempt so i first wanted to review my previous test so purchased the ESR GMAT report of my score and it showed my timing break down and accuracy break down and basically confirmed what i already knew but insightful.
1. I was weak at PS in quant
2. I was taking way too much time for SC and once i spent too much time on SC my accuracy suffered.
Decided that i already knew enough about the GMAT at this point and just needed to work on my weak areas so targeted giving the exam within a month
I subscribed the EmpowerGMAT course and followed the verbal score booster plan (again in the hope of learning something new, and again done after scouring through reviews). This really propelled my score. Their SC course is incredibly short and effective. With incredible tips and tricks for effectively slashing answers . For me it worked out perfectly and EMPOWERGMAT proved to be a great finishing school . well at the end i was hoping to get a 40+ score on verbal but ill settle for a 39!! After seeing the 710 on the screen i was overcome with relief and after some ridiculous amount fist pumping it sunk in and a sense of achievement came over me.
My GMAT TIPS & Advice
1. The verbal section is the key for a high score. Almost everybody knows this now. I didn't know when i started out, if you happen to start out now on your journey pay heed to this . You are forced to score a high score in quant and there is no escaping this, but if you want a significant score on the GMAT verbal is the key area and its where you can make significant gains. And in order to do this you need to nail SC
2. RC read everything . i mean it! Take really good notes. Through the E-gmat SC course you will learn how to read sentences in a GMAT specific style. Break it down ,ID sub verb, learn to question what comes next, learn to spot the key words like however,furthermore look for results, look for contradictions and pay attention. Surprisingly RC is not time consuming once you start to actually understand the passage. My timing tip Long passages take 8 min overall 3 to 4 min to read the passage and make your notes while reading them and generally you will take 30 secs to 1 min to answer the following questions. short passages overall 6 min and again 3 min to read and make notes.
3. For quant here are the things that worked for me
- GMAT CLUB TESTS are an incredible resource. do all the tests . learn and understand your mistakes. There is also a gmat blog called gmathacks ,his method on how to practice the quant section ,review tests etc..really worked for me .
The most important in the math section is marrying timing with accuracy. now the EmpowerGMAT course emphasizes this and their tips and tricks are amazing on this subject and im not sure if i can repeat their course material here, But those tips and tricks are alone worth paying for. anyway the gist is to ensure that you do not screw up the easy questions and do not waste time on questions you know are too hard/too crazy or just don't know. Learn to move on and maintain time, ensure you get all the easy and medium ones right you are guaranteed a score 48+ by doing this.
4. GMAT really tests you physically and psychologically. Time each and every practice. Do the entire 4 hours while doing the practice tests at home. Study in 75 min sessions . to build a bit of stamina do 41 math questions and 45 verbal questions in a session.
5. Once you have decided to start studying, do not stop for anything. even if you dont feel like at all, power through and do a 30 min session ,do some revision , do anything but dont let the flow go. without realizing a days break becomes two and suddenly its December.
6. Learn to visualize how you'll do each aspect of the test . Play this "tape" before you sleep. For example Your awa approach, how you will approach the IR section, in quant the emphasis on the opening questions ,ensuring you dont go past 3 min on any question , your timing strategy , note taking strategy, and actually answering the question asked,what you'd do if you find a question that stumps you, contingency plans these sort of things. similarly for verbal. and finally imagine that score you want popping up on the screen, imagine telling people who care about your success or maybe even to the person you wanna stick it too. It helps! it calms you down itll keep your mind prepared to deal with any possible scenario on test day.
7. Most important tip for last. LEARN TO NAP. NAPS ARE AMAZING. NAPS SAVE LIVES. i have a demanding job in marketing and i cant wake up early to study. But what i learnt to do effectively was to NAP. Id get back home at what ever time in the evening ( A month before the GMAT i ensured it was around 6,atl east as best as i could -i start work by 8am) and nap for half an hour. This half hour nap was the fuel required to study at least 2 hours/day so my schedule was nap from 6 to 6:30 then take a shower (cold water, warm showers make you lazy, cold showers get you alert ) . study from 7 to 9 have dinner and im back studying from 10 to 11 and if required till about midnight and then get 6-7 hours of sleep (a goods nights rest is crucial during the learning phase and in general)
to nap effectively learn about the 4-7-8 technique. be careful with the naps if done right its great, you can concentrate for your study session and you'll notice the careless mistakes you make during the quant session reduces,however nap too long and you are groggy , nap to less and its pointless.
PRACTICE TESTS Sources review( trust me i did a lot of these)
1. VERBAL - all the practices tests are pretty rubbish for this , im not joking ,test prep companies just cannot get this right and i cant understand why. MGMAT has weird CR, Veritas has weird SC, and 800score is maybe too easy or just too crazy.. for Verbal only the GMAT PREP tests are worth it. and even then i wouldn't recommend buying the additional exam pack (These are old and not relevant anymore)
to practice verbal all i did was go through the forums and download the GMAT PREP questions for SC ,CR and RC and practice of the OG. This is sufficient if you really focus on learning the "why" you got a question right and "why"you got something wrong.
to learn the why just post the question on google and the manhattan and GMAT club forums are gold. with some expert GMAT instructors solving the question along with the "why"
2. Quants - as mentioned GMAT CLUB TESTS are amazing, veritas tests are great for learning some really interesting and challenging problems. I found the MGMAT tests very heavy and difficult in a weird way. GMAT makes the questions tricky but generally it involves some kind of pattern recognition or a neat way of thinking and can be solved in 3-4 steps. MGMAT questions just seems number heavy and just hard to read and required too many steps to solve.
Regardless if you want to save money procuring their tests i recommend you buy a kindle version of any of their guides and you should get 6 months of access to their tests. you save loads of money this way. up to you
3. 800 score tests are decent practice, bit on the easy side, but great to learn pacing and some pointers along the way
Finally test day tips
1. i didn't book my test day before like most people, i just kept practicing and when i was confident i just booked a date within the next three days. You will always have openings cause tons of people keep cancelling. A high risk approach but one that ensure you'll never have to waste money postponing the exam.
2. before the exam ,maybe 2 hours before, i did around 20 questions in quant. to make sure i didn't freeze at the start of the test (it happened to me before).
3. Ensure you do not need the loo during the exam this will affect your score. and remember the test is 4 hours . so train your bowels if you have to . seems basic but i cant be the only person who has unfortunately not been able to concentrate cause of this (GMAT Attempt 1)
a small word about the score, Yes im male,indian and engineer and a 710 may not be enough in this group. but honestly its actually a good score if you are one of those people who think its not, well your only ruining it for yourselves and other people from the same cohort. Move on to the rest of your apps your better of spending more time on the GMAT. If a college still doesnt accept you even if the rest of your app is solid, well that points to something wrong in their system and nothing wrong with you.
I feel like ive left out some information if i remember it i shall post it anyway best of luck in your attempt, happy to answer any questions you might have!
hope this helps you, also apologise for the typos
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