I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi All,

Gave my GMAT( 2nd Attempt) on 27th Nov and got a score of 710.

My previous attempt was a disappointing 660(49 Q, 31 V).

https://www.beatthegmat.com/down-but-not ... tml#290764

So what made the difference this time?

Since my preparation was very thorough last time it helped me identify what went wrong at the test.

1) Focus on OG alone.

I realized that the actual GMAT was very similar to GMAT Prep with some questions in maths even repeating on the actual test. Therefore, I focused only on mastering the OG. I did OG 11 this time as I had already completed OG 12 thrice before my first attempt.

2)Remain Calm.

I realized that there was hardly any question that one can get wrong on GMAT if given time.Hence, the trick to crack GMAT is to remain calm by telling yourself that "there is lots of time, don't panic". It worked wonders for me. I could see the improvement straight away in Maths, where my score started touching 50 consistently and also my RC accuracy improved.

3) Don't expect things to be perfect at the test

One should not expect everything to be smooth at the exam. Things will go wrong.
For example, I actually overshot my break in Maths by about a minute but I didn't let it distract me as there was no way I could change what happened. I just thought that let me not waste any more time and get on with it.

4)Time Management

Managing your time is very important. Don't waste too much time on one question. You need to be conscious of the fact there are experimental questions on the GMAT which don't contribute towards your score. So have your skipping strategies in place based on your strengths and weaknesses

5)Analysing your tests

This is very important. You should not only review the wrong questions but make sure the ones you got correct were for the right reasons. Especially, in CR and RC.

My Preparation this time:

I spent around 2 months solving and analyzing the answers of the OG. The trick was to get my thinking aligned to the author's as that's what matters at the GMAT, especially in Verbal. Once I was done with verbal I wrote 6 GMAT Prep tests in 12 days and wrote the exam.

My test scores were 700,690,690,760,690 and 760.

My focus during these tests was to implement my strategies and remaining calm, as I am someone who panics easily.
In the hindsight, I feel that if I had more time( I was chasing deadline of 30h Nov) I could have scored better as I would have improved my speed in Verbal as I had not perfected my time management. In the actual exam I was actually doing a passage with 10 mins left but still stuck to my strategy.

As I said when I scored 660 ," I am down but not out" and with score of 710 I have definitely proved that!

Congrats...

thanks

Great job! You are an inspiration

Thanks Milan.

I hope people can learn from my experience and can achieve a score of 700+, especially when the preparation time is less.

Hi All,

I was asked about my Verbal preparation in private message, so thought will post the reply here so that everyone can benefit.


For verbal initial preparation involved understanding the 3 question types.

1) SC- Manhattan SC Guide- once i knew the rules, just practiced lots of questions from OG.

2) CR - understood the basics from Kaplan 800 like what is premise, conclusion etc. After that did a thorough analysis of OG. U need to understand y the answer choices are wrong and y one particular was correct. Try to think how a GMAT author would think. Most important here is don't mark answer by what feels correct. U need to answer based on what is asked

3) RC- For me I read the whole passage thoroughly( skimming technique didn't work for me) but at the same time I won't read any line twice. After each para I would make notes of idea being covered not more than 1 sentence . This improved my accuracy as I was reading to conclude each para. Just like in CR here also analyze all the answer choices and thinking of the author.

Regards,
Rahul

hey congrats on the gmat score .did u hire any tutor while preparing for the same .do u recommend me hiring 1