GMAT preparation : A transformative experience

GMAT review

Hello everyone! I recently took my GMAT exam on January 31st and scored 710. My preparation journey was quite lengthy and perhaps unconventional, involving multiple attempts before my latest endeavor, which fell on the final date of the current edition of the GMAT. Throughout this process, I gained invaluable insights, and I'm eager to share some of those, particularly highlighting the significant role that e-gmat played in helping me attain that score. I underwent a lengthy self preparation journey that did not result in achieving my target score. After reading several positive reviews on GMAT Club and participating in some excellent YouTube live sessions by them, I made the decision to choose e-gmat for my preparation, and I'm extremely grateful that I did.


My section wise improvement:

Verbal:

I believe an important aspect for scoring well in Verbal is building the skill of comprehension. It took me some time, but eventually, reading passages with the genuine aim of comprehension rather than superficially became second nature to me. Visualizing the provided information and forming logical connections while reading eventually became a non-negotiable process, significantly altering the way I grasped CR and RC passages. The process of ‘Pre-thinking’ in CR helped me improve my timing in CR questions and also reject incorrect answer choices on solid grounds.

Quant:

Considering my background in engineering, I almost completely ignored preparing for Quant section in my previous attempts. Everytime, scoring a Q42. For my latest attempt, I went through every Quant module given in the course. While solving questions, I noticed that, like many others, I was making errors in questions I knew how to solve! I referred to these errors as 'silly' mistakes. After this, I realized the importance of ‘process skills’ in quant as well. I changed the way I solved quant questions, laying stress on consciously making sure all cases are covered, explicitly writing constraints while reading the question stem, etc.

Specific areas of the course that benefited me:

1. The course content is comprehensive and very well structured. I personally believe that if you do this course right, follow the exact learning process diligently, you will see a remarkable transformation in your performance. The structured approach to learning was instrumental in facilitating my learning journey.

2. E-gmat emphasizes a lot on skill-building over mere content absorption. Towards the end of the course aside from one or two topics, I didn't find it necessary to revisit the course material, as such.

3. Scholaranium : I can't stress enough the significance of this platform in evaluating and analyzing my progress. It provided all the data necessary for understanding my strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

4. Mentorship : Shout out to Akash for mentoring me in the final days of my prep. Every step was personally structured towards filling my process gaps and test readiness! It was not just about giving mocks, it was about giving tests / quizzes the right way!

Some tips:

1. Maintain an error log! I maintained a very detailed error log with detailed notes on where I faltered and corrective actions. This error log became my only source for revision in the later stages of prep. I used ‘notion’ for this.
2. As an e-gmat student, I would say, trust the process, it works! Look, the course is lengthy, time consuming and feels daunting at first. Halfway through the learning phase, I got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content that was left to consume and the time I had taken to complete the first half of it. I already felt exhausted. But, I continued with the course, taking breaks at appropriate intervals. I realized it was best for me to take my time and do things the right way.
3. Do not attempt GMAT unprepared. This might sound trivial to most, but some of us have a different approach to giving exams! :P There are no shortcuts to GMAT and I feel you need to be prepared for every scenario : order of questions, super hard RC passage right in the middle of the test etc. Giving mocks is a great way to analyze such gaps and be prepared for it. Keep calm, exercise. A lot has to go right to achieve a score that accurately reflects your true potential.