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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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My second GMAT attempt ended with a 715 (V87, Q85, DI85) — 99th percentile overall, with both verbal and DI sitting at the 98th percentile. But getting there required understanding something I had completely missed the first time around: at a 675 level, the gap to 715 is almost never about knowledge. It's almost entirely about how you take the test .
Starting Point: What Went Wrong at 675
My first attempt ended at 675 despite mock scores regularly hitting 720-750. I was practicing enough, but I was approaching every question with brute force — the way every Indian student is trained since childhood. I would chase hard questions, spend five minutes fighting a single problem, and start sections cold without any mental warm-up. After stepping back, I identified three errors that were entirely non-knowledge in nature: missing early questions due to mental unpreparedness, ego-attachment to hard questions that fatigued me for the easier ones, and pursuing DI the wrong way entirely. Switching to the e-GMAT platform gaveme the structure and analytics to systematically address all three.
Data Insights: From DI80 to DI85
While going through the e-GMAT course, I discovered that my DI approach was fundamentally wrong. I was jumping straight to the numbers — rushing through datasets and flipping data points in my mind. e-GMAT's DI course structure helped me reframe the section entirely. I started treating it like reading comprehension: spend time understanding the full dataset first, locate all data points, then move to questions. The questions themselves are largely observational — you rarely even need a calculator if you know where to look.
MSR Strategy
The e-GMAT sectional mocks were invaluable for building my MSR framework. I created a simple rule: if an MSR had more than 3 datasets or more than 3 nested questions, I marked it and moved on immediately — no ego, no hesitation. In my first attempt, I ran out of time after getting stuck on two long MSRs for nearly 10 combined minutes. In my second attempt, I got a medium MSR with three datasets, marked all three questions, and came back to answer them correctly at questions 14, 15, and 16. I got only 3 incorrect in the entire DI section versus 10 in my first attempt.
Verbal Journey: Maintaining V87
After scoring V86 in my first attempt, I knew verbal was my strength. While going through the e-GMAT course in my first prep cycle, I had invested heavily here. So my second-attempt goal was maintenance, not rebuilding. The e-GMAT Scholaranium cementing quizzes were crucial — I ran custom 22-question sessions daily, filtered specifically to my weak spots: historic RCs, bold-face questions, and assumption-based CR. I also gave one sectional verbal mock daily to keep the rhythm.
Critical Reasoning
The e-GMAT course introduced me to the practice of segregating RC and CR cognitively. For RC, I treat the passage as absolute truth — no dissection, no outside inference, just what is written. For CR, I actively deconstruct from the first word — building a mental map of premise, inference, and conclusion before I reach the question stem. The e-GMAT error log was my constant companion here, helping me track which archetypes I was missing. Over time, this process became muscle memory: assumption questions, strengtheners, weakeners — each has a mechanical check I run in roughly 90 seconds.
Reading Comprehension
My weak spots in RC were historic passages and bold-face questions. While going through the e-GMAT course, I discovered that I was applying critical thinking to RC — essentially analyzing passages the way I would a CR argument. That was the mistake. The fix was mechanical: read for structure and location, not for analysis. Four-question RC sets took me around six minutes total — four minutes for the passage, thirty seconds per question after.
Sectional Mocks and Analytics
What I really appreciated was how the platform strategically eases you in — starting with condensed sectional mocks rather than full-length tests. I gave one DI sectional mock and one quant or verbal sectional mock every single day. This let me track my time-per-question precisely and identify where I was losing time versus where I was banking it. e-GMAT's sectional analytics showed me that I was spending five-plus minutes on hard questions that were tanking my accuracy on the medium ones — a direct hit to my overall score.
Sigma-X Mocks and Error Log
The e-GMAT error log was central to my second attempt. After every mock, I didn't just review wrong answers — I tracked the type of error (knowledge gap versus process gap versus test-taking error). Most of my errors at the 675 level turned out to be the third type. Sigma-X mocks helped me simulate test conditions and build the habit of checking elapsed time after every question — something I had never done in my first attempt and paid for dearly when I ran out of time on DI.
Key Takeaways
Final Thoughts
The e-GMAT platform is completely self-sufficient. Following the course structure systematically delivers results without needing external help. My jump from 675 to 715 had almost nothing to do with learning new concepts. It had everything to do with understanding how the GMAT scores you — and then engineering my test-taking behavior around that reality. If you're stuck above 655 wondering what's left to learn, the answer is probably nothing. The question is whether you've mastered how to perform.
Starting Point: What Went Wrong at 675
My first attempt ended at 675 despite mock scores regularly hitting 720-750. I was practicing enough, but I was approaching every question with brute force — the way every Indian student is trained since childhood. I would chase hard questions, spend five minutes fighting a single problem, and start sections cold without any mental warm-up. After stepping back, I identified three errors that were entirely non-knowledge in nature: missing early questions due to mental unpreparedness, ego-attachment to hard questions that fatigued me for the easier ones, and pursuing DI the wrong way entirely. Switching to the e-GMAT platform gaveme the structure and analytics to systematically address all three.
Data Insights: From DI80 to DI85
While going through the e-GMAT course, I discovered that my DI approach was fundamentally wrong. I was jumping straight to the numbers — rushing through datasets and flipping data points in my mind. e-GMAT's DI course structure helped me reframe the section entirely. I started treating it like reading comprehension: spend time understanding the full dataset first, locate all data points, then move to questions. The questions themselves are largely observational — you rarely even need a calculator if you know where to look.
MSR Strategy
The e-GMAT sectional mocks were invaluable for building my MSR framework. I created a simple rule: if an MSR had more than 3 datasets or more than 3 nested questions, I marked it and moved on immediately — no ego, no hesitation. In my first attempt, I ran out of time after getting stuck on two long MSRs for nearly 10 combined minutes. In my second attempt, I got a medium MSR with three datasets, marked all three questions, and came back to answer them correctly at questions 14, 15, and 16. I got only 3 incorrect in the entire DI section versus 10 in my first attempt.
Verbal Journey: Maintaining V87
After scoring V86 in my first attempt, I knew verbal was my strength. While going through the e-GMAT course in my first prep cycle, I had invested heavily here. So my second-attempt goal was maintenance, not rebuilding. The e-GMAT Scholaranium cementing quizzes were crucial — I ran custom 22-question sessions daily, filtered specifically to my weak spots: historic RCs, bold-face questions, and assumption-based CR. I also gave one sectional verbal mock daily to keep the rhythm.
Critical Reasoning
The e-GMAT course introduced me to the practice of segregating RC and CR cognitively. For RC, I treat the passage as absolute truth — no dissection, no outside inference, just what is written. For CR, I actively deconstruct from the first word — building a mental map of premise, inference, and conclusion before I reach the question stem. The e-GMAT error log was my constant companion here, helping me track which archetypes I was missing. Over time, this process became muscle memory: assumption questions, strengtheners, weakeners — each has a mechanical check I run in roughly 90 seconds.
Reading Comprehension
My weak spots in RC were historic passages and bold-face questions. While going through the e-GMAT course, I discovered that I was applying critical thinking to RC — essentially analyzing passages the way I would a CR argument. That was the mistake. The fix was mechanical: read for structure and location, not for analysis. Four-question RC sets took me around six minutes total — four minutes for the passage, thirty seconds per question after.
Sectional Mocks and Analytics
What I really appreciated was how the platform strategically eases you in — starting with condensed sectional mocks rather than full-length tests. I gave one DI sectional mock and one quant or verbal sectional mock every single day. This let me track my time-per-question precisely and identify where I was losing time versus where I was banking it. e-GMAT's sectional analytics showed me that I was spending five-plus minutes on hard questions that were tanking my accuracy on the medium ones — a direct hit to my overall score.
Sigma-X Mocks and Error Log
The e-GMAT error log was central to my second attempt. After every mock, I didn't just review wrong answers — I tracked the type of error (knowledge gap versus process gap versus test-taking error). Most of my errors at the 675 level turned out to be the third type. Sigma-X mocks helped me simulate test conditions and build the habit of checking elapsed time after every question — something I had never done in my first attempt and paid for dearly when I ran out of time on DI.
Key Takeaways
- Mental warm-up before every section matters — solve 2-3 easy questions before you start any mock or section
- Protect medium and easy questions before chasing hard ones — one hard question done perfectly cannot offset two medium questions missed from fatigue
- DI is the most forgiving section — skip ruthlessly, protect the observational questions, and return to skipped items
- Segregate RC and CR cognitively — RC is about location and text, CR is about dissection and logic
- Track time after every single question during mocks — not as a stress trigger, but as a calibration tool
Final Thoughts
The e-GMAT platform is completely self-sufficient. Following the course structure systematically delivers results without needing external help. My jump from 675 to 715 had almost nothing to do with learning new concepts. It had everything to do with understanding how the GMAT scores you — and then engineering my test-taking behavior around that reality. If you're stuck above 655 wondering what's left to learn, the answer is probably nothing. The question is whether you've mastered how to perform.
13 Mar 2026, 06:10
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Great work! I wish you all the best with your applications.
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