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At one point, she believed GMAT wasn’t for her. After scoring 595, self-doubt crept in and she questioned her potential. But instead of quitting, she made the right strategic changes. The result? A remarkable comeback to 695. Check out how Saakshi did it.
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jeetparekh4195
Current Student
Joined: 01 Aug 2021
Last visit: 17 Dec 2021
Posts: 83
Given Kudos: 11
Location: India
Schools: Columbia CBS '24 Darden '24 Fuqua '24 Haas '24 Harvard '24 Kellogg '24 (A) Tuck '24 (WL) Wharton '24 (II) Ross '24 (A)
GMAT 1: 770 Q50 V46
GPA: 3.6
Schools: Columbia CBS '24 Darden '24 Fuqua '24 Haas '24 Harvard '24 Kellogg '24 (A) Tuck '24 (WL) Wharton '24 (II) Ross '24 (A)
GMAT 1: 770 Q50 V46
Posts: 83
08 Aug 2021, 03:55
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi all,
Recently scored a 770 😊
Just wanted to share the good news and wanted to thank this forum and its members for their continuous support and guidance.
Would also like to thank my GMAT guide/trainer Mitul Gada for his invaluable contribution in achieving this milestone.
Just some tips & key notes to the fellow members which could help them in their journey.
If your Quant/Verbal scores are above 43, just focus on the 700-800 level questions, and on the specific subjects you need help with. Kaplan has a GMAT800 book, MGMAT has an Advanced Quant book, Veritas has a Data Sufficiency book, an Advanced Verbal book, etc.
If you want to be a Verbal superstar, which is required to score above 750, do the Verbal sections from past LSAT's, as they are harder than the GMAT's Verbal. These are good for Reading Comprehension and especially Critical Reasoning, but not Sentence Correction. Don't do the LSAT Analytical Reasoning (as there is no parallel in GMAT), just the Reading and Logical Reasoning (which is similar to GMAT Critical Reasoning).
Focus on identifying the incorrect Verbal answer choices, not the correct one.
Make sure you can give an explicit reason why you can eliminate every single incorrect answer. If you cannot, you have not mastered that question, as the GMAT frequently has incorrect answer choices that "sound right", and occasionally correct answer choices that "don't sound right".
Books:
The most popular printed sets of comprehensive strategy guides are by Manhattan GMAT and the OG. I have gone through both, cover to cover, and I will say that they are ok by themselves if you don't want to gain more than 100 points or push past 700, but otherwise they will not be enough for most students. They are useful for a mid-500's student who wants to push into the 600's, but not much farther. Both sets of books are incomplete without an expert instructor to fill in the gaps they've left. (Maybe they were designed this way!) The main weakness of both guides is their treatment of the Verbal section. Neither of them really captures the essence of GMAT Verbal, especially the Reading Comprehension section, and to a lesser but still significant extent, the Critical Reasoning section. If you were stuck on an island and had to use them both, I would recommend using Manhattan's set first, then Veritas's, and if you had time for only one, Veritas. Manhattan's guides are aimed at a lower-scoring audience than Veritas's (by about 50 points). MGMAT has the Quant Foundations guide which Veritas does not, but Veritas's Quant guides are slightly better and more difficult than Manhattan's. MGMAT's Sentence Correction book takes more of a drill/concepts approach, while Veritas's question bank is more in the form of GMATlike practice questions. On the other hand, Veritas's last 5 or 6 Reading Comprehension passages are particularly weak and not worth your time.
I also practiced Math Bible & Kaplan books.
For Critical Reasoning, each have their own style of question, neither of which is particularly GMATlike, but they are close enough for you to get some help. But there are better materials out there. Oh, and Manhattan recommends writing/diagramming a bunch in CR and RC, but that's a bunch of nonsense. You don't have time to write, or figure out complex notational schemes. The most you want to write is in Reading Comprehension, and even then, it should be under a dozen words per passage, just enough to summarize each paragraph/the passage flow.
Don't do scratch work in your books!
Unless you're in the very early phases of your study, and these are nonOG books. You can't write onscreen in the GMAT, so you need to get in the habit of doing everything on scratch paper.
Speaking of which:
Keep organized notes.
3-ring binder, loose-leaf paper (so you can rearrange pages as necessary), all of your problems. Mark the book, page, problem # etc. for reference later. You need to be able to reproduce the exact steps that allowed you to answer the question in the time limit. Don't just scribble scratch work and never look at it again, especially if you're paying for a tutor.
Avoid repeatedly doing random practice problems without significant study in between if you're under 600, more than 40 points from your target, or trying to break 700. I see many students try to just solve hundreds of scattered problems in the hopes of gaining 150 points, and while it is necessary to solve many problems, a more efficient use of your time is to build a strong conceptual foundation first by learning the general principles, before trying to solve so many different types of problems. Otherwise, all the ideas you will learn from solving problems will just be scattered fragments of ideas your brain will scramble to attempt to assemble into a coherent whole. It's much faster to see the coherent whole first, then try to build it from all the bits and pieces. The wheel has already been invented!
Practice at/slightly above your level. Many students work on questions that are too far above their current ability level. Missing easier questions hurts more than getting difficult questions correct helps. Even if you can answer some tough questions, it will take you too long to answer them on the exam if you don't have solid foundations, and you will lose points by missing easier questions.
Get the maximum benefit from the questions you do. Quality times Quantity.
I've heard countless tales of students who've done "every question out there" yet who still don't hit 700, meanwhile none of my students run out of practice questions for Verbal, because we fully dissect each question and get 99% of what there is to learn from a few hundred questions, versus getting 10% from a few thousand.
If you're doing 1000s of questions and not seeing results, that is an enormous red flag. That means you are spinning your wheels but not getting much done. Master the questions you do (For Verbal, be able to give explicit reasons why every wrong answer choice is unambiguously incorrect); Don't just burn through questions ("Of course it's D--Next!"). Spending 4 minutes fully understanding 1 question is better than spending 4 minutes partially understanding 2 questions. You don't want to spend too much time on any one question, but the pattern should be that you take enough time to extract the appropriate level of benefit from the questions you study.
Avoid repeatedly taking practice tests without significant study in between, even if they are non-GMAC, as that time is better invested studying how to get questions right in the first place, before trying to get them right quickly. It does not make sense to time yourself as you are learning new material or concepts, since it could take you 10+ minutes to learn how to do a new problem type, but once you master it with me, less than 2 minutes.
Hope this helps!
All the best,
Jeet
Recently scored a 770 😊
Just wanted to share the good news and wanted to thank this forum and its members for their continuous support and guidance.
Would also like to thank my GMAT guide/trainer Mitul Gada for his invaluable contribution in achieving this milestone.
Just some tips & key notes to the fellow members which could help them in their journey.
If your Quant/Verbal scores are above 43, just focus on the 700-800 level questions, and on the specific subjects you need help with. Kaplan has a GMAT800 book, MGMAT has an Advanced Quant book, Veritas has a Data Sufficiency book, an Advanced Verbal book, etc.
If you want to be a Verbal superstar, which is required to score above 750, do the Verbal sections from past LSAT's, as they are harder than the GMAT's Verbal. These are good for Reading Comprehension and especially Critical Reasoning, but not Sentence Correction. Don't do the LSAT Analytical Reasoning (as there is no parallel in GMAT), just the Reading and Logical Reasoning (which is similar to GMAT Critical Reasoning).
Focus on identifying the incorrect Verbal answer choices, not the correct one.
Make sure you can give an explicit reason why you can eliminate every single incorrect answer. If you cannot, you have not mastered that question, as the GMAT frequently has incorrect answer choices that "sound right", and occasionally correct answer choices that "don't sound right".
Books:
The most popular printed sets of comprehensive strategy guides are by Manhattan GMAT and the OG. I have gone through both, cover to cover, and I will say that they are ok by themselves if you don't want to gain more than 100 points or push past 700, but otherwise they will not be enough for most students. They are useful for a mid-500's student who wants to push into the 600's, but not much farther. Both sets of books are incomplete without an expert instructor to fill in the gaps they've left. (Maybe they were designed this way!) The main weakness of both guides is their treatment of the Verbal section. Neither of them really captures the essence of GMAT Verbal, especially the Reading Comprehension section, and to a lesser but still significant extent, the Critical Reasoning section. If you were stuck on an island and had to use them both, I would recommend using Manhattan's set first, then Veritas's, and if you had time for only one, Veritas. Manhattan's guides are aimed at a lower-scoring audience than Veritas's (by about 50 points). MGMAT has the Quant Foundations guide which Veritas does not, but Veritas's Quant guides are slightly better and more difficult than Manhattan's. MGMAT's Sentence Correction book takes more of a drill/concepts approach, while Veritas's question bank is more in the form of GMATlike practice questions. On the other hand, Veritas's last 5 or 6 Reading Comprehension passages are particularly weak and not worth your time.
I also practiced Math Bible & Kaplan books.
For Critical Reasoning, each have their own style of question, neither of which is particularly GMATlike, but they are close enough for you to get some help. But there are better materials out there. Oh, and Manhattan recommends writing/diagramming a bunch in CR and RC, but that's a bunch of nonsense. You don't have time to write, or figure out complex notational schemes. The most you want to write is in Reading Comprehension, and even then, it should be under a dozen words per passage, just enough to summarize each paragraph/the passage flow.
Don't do scratch work in your books!
Unless you're in the very early phases of your study, and these are nonOG books. You can't write onscreen in the GMAT, so you need to get in the habit of doing everything on scratch paper.
Speaking of which:
Keep organized notes.
3-ring binder, loose-leaf paper (so you can rearrange pages as necessary), all of your problems. Mark the book, page, problem # etc. for reference later. You need to be able to reproduce the exact steps that allowed you to answer the question in the time limit. Don't just scribble scratch work and never look at it again, especially if you're paying for a tutor.
Avoid repeatedly doing random practice problems without significant study in between if you're under 600, more than 40 points from your target, or trying to break 700. I see many students try to just solve hundreds of scattered problems in the hopes of gaining 150 points, and while it is necessary to solve many problems, a more efficient use of your time is to build a strong conceptual foundation first by learning the general principles, before trying to solve so many different types of problems. Otherwise, all the ideas you will learn from solving problems will just be scattered fragments of ideas your brain will scramble to attempt to assemble into a coherent whole. It's much faster to see the coherent whole first, then try to build it from all the bits and pieces. The wheel has already been invented!
Practice at/slightly above your level. Many students work on questions that are too far above their current ability level. Missing easier questions hurts more than getting difficult questions correct helps. Even if you can answer some tough questions, it will take you too long to answer them on the exam if you don't have solid foundations, and you will lose points by missing easier questions.
Get the maximum benefit from the questions you do. Quality times Quantity.
I've heard countless tales of students who've done "every question out there" yet who still don't hit 700, meanwhile none of my students run out of practice questions for Verbal, because we fully dissect each question and get 99% of what there is to learn from a few hundred questions, versus getting 10% from a few thousand.
If you're doing 1000s of questions and not seeing results, that is an enormous red flag. That means you are spinning your wheels but not getting much done. Master the questions you do (For Verbal, be able to give explicit reasons why every wrong answer choice is unambiguously incorrect); Don't just burn through questions ("Of course it's D--Next!"). Spending 4 minutes fully understanding 1 question is better than spending 4 minutes partially understanding 2 questions. You don't want to spend too much time on any one question, but the pattern should be that you take enough time to extract the appropriate level of benefit from the questions you study.
Avoid repeatedly taking practice tests without significant study in between, even if they are non-GMAC, as that time is better invested studying how to get questions right in the first place, before trying to get them right quickly. It does not make sense to time yourself as you are learning new material or concepts, since it could take you 10+ minutes to learn how to do a new problem type, but once you master it with me, less than 2 minutes.
Hope this helps!
All the best,
Jeet
08 Aug 2021, 04:32
Kudos
Bookmarks
Congrats Jeet, What are your scores in Mocks??
jeetparekh4195
Current Student
Joined: 01 Aug 2021
Last visit: 17 Dec 2021
Posts: 83
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 11
Location: India
Schools: Columbia CBS '24 Darden '24 Fuqua '24 Haas '24 Harvard '24 Kellogg '24 (A) Tuck '24 (WL) Wharton '24 (II) Ross '24 (A)
GMAT 1: 770 Q50 V46
GPA: 3.6
Schools: Columbia CBS '24 Darden '24 Fuqua '24 Haas '24 Harvard '24 Kellogg '24 (A) Tuck '24 (WL) Wharton '24 (II) Ross '24 (A)
GMAT 1: 770 Q50 V46
Posts: 83
Kudos:
20
08 Aug 2021, 04:35
Kudos
Bookmarks
Was scoring 760/770/790 as well in the mocks. Missed 10 in the final exam as my place was affected by cyclone that day.
