I just Beat The GMAT!

Warning: This post is longer than the Iliad.

Yeah, you read it right. I'm not over the moon with the score I got. More about that later.

The Beginnings

I started seriously considering the GMAT around late 2010. A couple of friends were preparing for the test, and though I had no intention of taking it at that time (wanted to work a bit more), I tagged along. I prepared for a month or so, familiarized myself with the test format, and went through OG12 once. Did a lot of reading, strengthened grammar principles. At that time, I was involved heavily with BTG SC forum. Also took the Manhattan free test and scored a 720, which was uplifting. However, things tapered off in a while and GMAT disappeared from the horizon. After a gap of one and a half years, in early March '12, I finally decided to give it a shot and booked a date for late May. Since I had scored 720 in the free test, I was pretty confident of securing 700+ in the real GMAT. The challenge was how much higher could I score. Though I'm a non-native speaker (Indian), I'm very comfortable with the language. English is a part of the school curriculum here. Moreover, I enjoy reading - I love the rhetorical flourishes of a Rushdie (though the same cannot be said about James Joyce!)

The Strategy

Quant was never a worry. I'm an engineer from IIT, so my basics were well covered. Hence, my entire focus was devoted to verbal. As the basic structure and material were learnt in the 2010 phase, this period was principally focused on polishing to perfection. I went through OG12 once again. I was hitting an accuracy rate of >90% in CR and RC and near about 90% in SC. Also, the time factor was strictly monitored.

After completing OG, I started section wise training. Started with CR - I thought that I needed a bigger challenge in CR, so I zeroed in on the Powerscore LSAT LR bible. Interestingly, I went through the entire book, not only through the question types relevant to GMAT. This was partly because the book is so well written that you feel like reading everything, and also because I wanted to attempt LSAT papers as a whole. After going through the LR bible, I started practicing the LR sets from old LSAT papers. At the same time, I also started practicing RC sets from LSAT. I did not do any preparatory reading for RC as I considered it an extension of CR. This LSAT fetish continued from late March to end of April.

Thereafter, I came back to SC. Revisited Manhattan GMAT SC book - the gold standard really - and started with Verbal Review. Simultaneously, I solved the CR problems of Verbal review and the occasional RC set from LSAT. I must emphasize that I did not prepare very intensively in these two months (March & April); it was very easy paced. There were a number of days when I didn't study anything at all (Not a great strategy frankly).

May arrived and, as I appeared in a few practice tests, I realized that though the Quant portion is not difficult, it is definitely tricky, especially DS and I needed some strength training there. Started with OG12 DS and continued until the Quant review DS questions were exhausted. Did not do PS at all, except the problems that appeared in the practice tests. By the time the test day arrived, I thought I was in a pretty good zone.

The Practice Tests

Accessed the practice tests through purchased MGMAT books. My strategy was to appear in one test a week starting April. (6 MGMAT + 2 GMAT Prep). All tests were taken in actual test conditions (With AWA + two 8 min breaks). The test performances were as follows -

MGMAT 1 - 700 (Q47 V39)
Was none too impressed with the score. Some of the quant questions seemed tough, so didn't think them through properly during the test. Verbal was a mixed one (CR - 100% accuracy, RC - only 4/13 correct! SC - some idiom errors, but mostly ok.) Test analysis showed that the quant questions that seemed tough were actually not so - I just needed to look closely. This was a revelation, considering the general reputation of MGMAT quant questions. Also, realized that I was getting a lot of detail question incorrect in RC (Unpardonable!) - This was because I thought I recollected stuff from the passage at the time of solving the question, when I actually did not.

MGMAT 2 - 740 (Q47, V45)
Felt much better! Very few quant questions seemed difficult. However, still got the same quant score. Why? Serious timing issues. Of the first 26 questions, got only 1 incorrect, but did not time them properly. As a result, could not do justice to the questions at the end and got a bunch of them incorrect. Verbal went smoothly, though saw a reversal in sectional performance (100% SC correct, mostly mistakes in CR)

MGMAT 3 - 760 (Q49, V45)
Felt even better! Quant was now manageable, though timing issues did not completely disappear. Was happy to sustain the verbal performance.

MGMAT 4 - 770 (Q50, V45)
Things were falling into place now. Quant still showed an improving trend, which was very encouraging. Verbal had kind of plateaued. Also, verbal was seeing a see saw battle in the last three tests. Poor performance (relatively speaking of course!) in any one of the three sections brought the score down the score to 45, and careless mistakes definitely cost me at least 2 points in these tests.

GMAT Prep 1 - 760 (Q51, V41)
Was relieved more than anything else to see that MGMAT scores weren't far off from GMAT Prep. That quant questions were a bit easier than MGMAT was evident. MGMAT questions had been calculation intensive, while those from GMAT Prep were much easier to solve, though there lay innumerable traps to catch the student off guard. Also it was interesting to note that the GMAT prep algorithm was much more strict. I had a lower verbal score while committing almost same or even fewer mistakes. And no, they weren't consecutive errors or suchlike.

GMAT Prep 2 - 770 (Q50, V44)
This was exactly 8 days before the test. Clearly, by the end of this test, my ability zone was well and truly established. Quant score dropped by a point because of careless errors. By this time, it had dawned onto me that however much I tried, I was bound to commit a few such mistakes in the test. So my most likely quant score would be 50 (A couple of questions would be incorrect as I wouldn't be able to solve them in the designated time and a couple of careless errors would happen.)

MGMAT 5 - 770 (Q50, V45)
4 days before the test. Almost a repeat performance of MGMAT 4. I desperately wanted to push the score to 780, but that looked difficult. Also, by now MGMAT question bank for higher level questions was severely depleted, and practice tests weren't adding too much to my preparation at that stage, so I skipped MGMAT 6.

Deliverance

Didn't study too much the day before. I had left out the 15 practice questions per section in the GMAT Prep software for the last day. Did all of these. Got all except 1 question in DS correct. This boosted my confidence. Had a good night's sleep. Arrived at the test center an hour early. Had to kill time as the earlier bunch was taking its test. It is at times like these when you realize the true value of classical music. The peace and calmness that you can get from them are incomparable. The nerves never frayed. It was astonishing to know that I was the sole test taker in my time slot. It was almost as if I was taking another practice test at home. Breezed through the AWA section. I liked AWA as it got my mind thinking. This was an excellent warmup before the real deal. Quant went pretty well, though the questions were a notch higher than GMAT prep, but manageable. Verbal wasn't too bad either. I was surprised not to see a boldface question though. Strangely, boldface was a strong suit, I rarely committed mistakes in boldface questions. There were no real troubles in RC. SC was slightly different than the material I had seen earlier. (Some real weird constructions/ comparisons etc). Idiom based questions were absent. CR was okay, perhaps there were a couple of questions that I wasn't 100% sure about. All in all, no major hiccups.

I had promised myself that I wouldn't seek a retest if I got more than 700, but my target score was 770 (which was very much possible, based on my practice tests). I had also factored in that the GMAT standard deviation is +-30 points so 740 was equally likely.

Finally, after all the humdrum and GMAT paraphernalia, the score flashed in front of me:
750 (Q50, V41).

First feeling was relief that I had not blown the test. Second feeling was disappointment that I missed the target score. Wasn't too impressed with my verbal score, which I considered rather middling especially after all the work that I had put in. Eventually I convinced myself that 750 is a great score and that I shouldn't be so fussy about it.

Insights

1. The first thing to remember is that GMAT is an out an out test of reasoning. It has been said a number of times, but I think this reality is still to dawn on a number of students.

2. GMAT is as much a test of timing as it is of content. Unfortunately people devote too much of their time perfecting content and too little time practicing timing. For example, I'm sure than for a person who's scoring 600 and wants to raise his / her score to 700, roughly a jump of 50 points can be achieved if he / she gets the timing right.

3. The GMAT question makers for DS have devilish streaks. They disguise tricks in the question in such a neat manner that mistakes are almost ordained. One needs to be wary of the DS minefield.

4. Reading helps. If you have difficulty getting through dense RC passages, started reading stuff in your day to day life. Read to enrich your life, don't treat it as a burden. (When I read any RC passage, I was always interested in the information that was being conveyed. I looked forward to understanding what the author was trying to convey. Never treated it as trash that I needed to get through in order to answer the following questions.)

5. LSAT LR is different from GMAT CR. LSAT is heavily focused on causal reasoning, conditional reasoning and formal logic. GMAT does not test these concept in great detail. So people who are jumping on the LSAT bandwagon should keep this difference in mind.

6. This one is for Indian readers. STOP using sms/text language in anything other than a text message! Your verbal skills are being destroyed by this phenomenon. I am certain that the number of people who use text language heavily in their writings and yet score high in GMAT is very very less.

7. It is useless to spend time understanding too much of grammatical terminology (I was guilty of that).

8. It is important to realize that at the time of the test, you are going to solve questions (verbal) through involuntary recall. Your mind just sees the mistake and identifies it. It is best to train yourself such that your recall mechanism is functioning well. All the strategies have to be ingrained so that they come out automatically when required.

Vote of thanks

BTG is an amazing network. It is a source of constant motivation, guidance, and precious knowledge. I thank the contributing members, experts, site moderators for making this site such a great place to be. There is absolutely no way I could have achieved my score without BTG.

Congrats! and thanks for the great recap. Best of luck with admissions!

Many congratulations. Thanks for sharing.

Best wishes.

Patanjali