I got a 670.
Not too bad but much lower than my peers and it most certainly did not help the cause I was pursuing at that time. The key issues were the fact that I nearly slept off in the final VA section and struggled to manage my time which resulted in me blind guessing the last 4 questions. An ice-cream at the end of the day was the only consolation.
Fast forward to 2015. I'm 18 months into my job and I have decided to plan for an MBA. The one thought that kept nagging me was that I was not comfortable with my GMAT score. It was a no-brainer that I had to re-take it.
Unlike 2012, two things were different this time.
Firstly, I booked the exam with my own money. It was not cheap and the realization of this made me sober up to the task ahead. Secondly, I did not give myself the luxury of time. Application deadlines are still months away but since I don't study till my house is on fire, I gave myself about 9 weeks to prepare. In the last week of January, I booked a date for the first week of April.
January ticked over into February and I had soon lost one week. I rang up a friend and borrowed his old Official Guide. I downloaded the Prep software and of course, browsed through this website and bookmarked the page that listed all the free resources. Then I started studying.
The thing is, since I have a decent mathematical background (engineering), I find the quant section quite simple. I know most of the math quite well and about 40 questions into the problem solving section, I was bored. And this was just the second day of my preparation. And once I get bored of something, I struggle to return to it. Here is where the first point above came handy. One look at my balance statement and I pushed myself to resume practice.
Slowly, but steadily, day after day, for about 75-80 minutes each day, I practiced from the OG. It was going really well and I was beginning to feel good. One week went by and I was getting into a rhythm. Then disaster struck.
I was actually quite pleased with myself because I was putting in those 80 minutes each day even after a long day at work. The disaster came in the form of having to work on-site for a week. I did have comfortable hotel accommodations and, in hindsight, enough time to study for at least an hour each day if not more. For the first 5 days, I opened the OG, stared at it for about a minute and then closed the OG. And then I snuggled inside the ridiculously plush hotel linen and curled into a fetal position and slept.
Only on my last day at the hotel did I practice any thing. Essentially, I studied only for one hour that entire week. Three weeks over and two of those had essentially been wasted.
Weeks 4, 5 and 6 were without any drama and I steadily made my way through the OG. At the end of week 4 I took the first test on the GMAT prep software. I scored a 720 and was rather surprised to learn that I was being most horrible in the Data Sufficiency questions. Also, I was struggling with time all throughout.
End of week 6 I took the Kaplan free test and my score improved to 730. Once again, it was in Data Sufficiency that I was insufficient.(
) But I took heart in the platitude that Kaplan tests are a wee bit tougher than the real thing.Week 7 and 8 progressed just like the previous weeks. I was nearing completion of the OG and on the last weekend before my GMAT, I took the second and final test on the Prep software. I scored a 740. A slight improvement in each section but I felt no better with this score because many questions were familiar from the OG.
Last week before the GMAT and I finally finished the OG with 2 days to go. On the last two days, I solved the extra questions that are there on the prep software and read up the strategies for the AWA section. On the evening before the exam, I read through the multiple AWA statements at the back of the OG just to rack my brains. The night before the exam, I watched 3 episodes of Friends (Season 9),
Finally, the day of the exam dawns. I slept well and woke up at about 7:15 AM feeling fine. My appointment was for 10:30 AM. I left home at about 9:15 AM and was at the center by 9:45 AM. Formalities were done, bags were locked away, a sip of water was taken and I entered the room and started my exam.
The AWA was a good one and I was initially flummoxed. But I could think of enough points and I framed it well enough to feel confident about it. I submitted it with 15 seconds to spare. Then the IR section started. The initial questions were fairly straightforward and given the required rate of 1 question every 2.5 minutes, I was in surplus by the time I started the 4th question. Here, I got stuck. I spent nearly 7 minutes on this question and I wasn't entirely sure my answer was right by the time I eventually marked it. Which meant that my surplus was now a deficit. But thankfully, the rest of the questions did not throw any curve balls and I managed to finish the section with a minute to spare.
As I walked out for the first break, I was excited. I barely took more than 2 minutes of the break (I only sipped some water) and was back for the QA stretch. Now, this is rather silly, but I like it if the first question in this section is a problem solving question and not a DS question. And by golly, the first 2 questions today were both PS. It really set my mood right and I was soon making merry with the questions. There were, however, two moments of gulping. Twice, I solved a question and marked the answer and clicked on next and confirmed it only to realize that I had overlooked something. Of course, there is no going back so I soldiered on. But these two moments did play with my mind for all of the rest of the exam. I finished the quant section with more than 4 minutes to spare and went out for the second break.
At this point, I was almost quivering with all the nervous energy. I wanted to get back right away but I forced myself to use the washroom and I washed my face. I drank some juice and rushed back in for the last stretch.
10 questions into the exam, I got stuck. Now, 41 questions in 75 minutes calls for a rate of approximately 1.8 minutes per question. Of course, with Reading comprehension questions, this is not exactly applicable as the time taken to answer the first question will also include the time taken to read the whole passage. This is expected to balance out, though, as the subsequent questions will not require as much time since the passage has already been read. I had to read the passage that began with the 10th (give or take 2) question thrice! Once again, I had fallen behind the clock and I was beginning to get nervous. Fortunately, I was able to get a few sentence corrections quickly and by the 35th question, I was nearly on time. The last 3 questions were a blur. By that time, a part of my brain was already in the future thinking of what was to happen. I got the last question with 45 seconds to spare but double checked to be sure and finally clicked on submit when the clock ticked down to single digits.
4 tension filled minutes of filling out the personal details later, I asked for the score to be generated.
760 overall, 50 in Quant, 42 in VA and an 8 in Integrated Reasoning.
Have you seen Roger Federer fist-pump when he hit that tweener winner in the US Open in 2009? I did something like that, with a silent roar.
