I just Beat The GMAT!

Hello guys

Although I am not so regular on the forums, I have been a silent observer of recommendations and best ways to get a great score.

About 45 days back , I scored a 660 (Q48, V33) with 6/6 on AWA and a 5 on IR . I wasn't devastated but I knew I am someone who deserves a better score.

After the first performance , Phase II of preparation:

I strictly started focusing on my weak points: CR and RC. I had so much confidence on my sentence correction that I actually got used to spending more than the usual time on CR and RC questions because I knew I would save time on SC Questions. My SC Accuracy throughout Mock CAT's remained in 85-90% or even more sometimes. I would mostly thank the e-GMAT team for preparing an amazing SC Lesson Pack. The UGE ,as part of the SC deal, was amazing too.

I always faced a problem knowing my exact accuracy on CR as I had done all the Mock's during the first GMAT experience. In Phase II , I always used to encounter 2-3 CR questions I had seen before. Frankly , even after giving my second GMAT , I still do not have any idea my CR Accuracy.

For RC , I did Aristotle RC , about 50 passages in 20 days. I think my RC accuracy improved from 50 to about 70% which was good enough for me to cross 700.

So with a strong SC, a fairly good CR and an average RC , I was ready to cross the 700 mark on Verbal.

For Quant, I didn't practice ANYTHING at all. Just the regular Mocks . I learned fairly good tricks from MGMAT CAT's. I scored 48-50 range in MGMAT Quant. So I knew I was good.

Here are my CAT Scores in Phase-II Study . All of them are inflated by 10-20 points as I frequently encountered questions I had already seen.

Kaplan CAT (which come with Kaplan Premier Book)

Scores: 760, 720, 740 , 720, 720
MGMAT: 730, 690,700 , 720 , 710
GMAT Prep : 750 (gave only 1 and encountered 4-5 questions I had already seen before)
Real GMAT: 710 ( Q50, V37)
Most Important Learning of my preparation: If you want to score >700 , you should be 1) confident and 2) Know when to LEAVE a question and move on

I sort of feel my real GMAT score is still not my potential but I am running out of time for applications. So I will stop here and starts with essays.

Because this was my second attempt , I would say it takes courage to prepare second time + I was working full time and of-course other personal commitments. I am satisfied (not happy) with my score and I would say "GMAT builds character" because this was the first time I had to give something in life again to get better at it.

Congrats...Even I am prep for second attempt. hope for the best.

Hi Injobt123

That's a nice score you achieved in 45 days. Great going.
I am also facing accuracy problems with CR and RC especially when I give the mocks. Could you elaborate what type of approach you adopted to overcome your hurdle in RC and CR. Did you solve a mixture of RC and CR questions during practice in a time bound way?

I am in the same boat as you were mate. I am at 640. I posted a debrief in the strategy section.
You give me inspiration that the 700 score can be achieved.

Thanks!

Thanks All!

Captaingmat wrote:Hi Injobt123

That's a nice score you achieved in 45 days. Great going.
I am also facing accuracy problems with CR and RC especially when I give the mocks. Could you elaborate what type of approach you adopted to overcome your hurdle in RC and CR. Did you solve a mixture of RC and CR questions during practice in a time bound way?

For CR , I would recommend you to focus on pre-thinking approach which means you try to pre-think the strength/weakness/assumption etc. (as per question type) before looking at the options. This will get you in the right frame of mind to answer and get it correct. I started CR first without any timebound but later , in last 15 days spent 1 hour daily on CR questions in a timed way.

For RC , I would recommend doing as much practice as possible. Aristotle RC gave me good passages to practice. Although some of their passages are not GMAT like . but it gives you an idea of wide variety of topics you can encounter on the GMAT date.

All the best.

Also happy to report AWA: 5.5 /6.0 and IR : 8 (93%) !!

Congrats for an Amazing score.
I also want to improve my SC .Do you suggest that I should take eGMAT course for SC.Will that be helpful