la Amigos...I gave the GMAT twice in 2012, but on this post I would like to focus on the things I did differently and I hope it helps other test-takers who are on the same boat as I was. If you'd like to read about my previous experience then here you go... https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-610-to- ... tml#471048
How could I even think of "moving on", after having such a call sign !! Apologies Johnnie bhai
So back to 2013, I didn't get into any of the MBA programs that I had applied to, So instead decided to focus on my short-term goals for a few years. But in March this year, it was pretty evident that I had to know more as a professional and an MBA was still a better option than me trying to figure out things for years to come... I knew I had to improve my GMAT score, as the rest of my application is pretty competent. My quant score of 47 wasn't the main concern, it was the verbal 29-31 that needed some attention
While browsing the internet, I found many programs promising a GMAT score improvement. But after reading through a lot of them, I decided to go with e-gmat. At this point I wasn't really sure why I was choosing e-gmat, but boy am i glad i did!!! I joined their Verbal Live-Prep course, which includes all the online courses along with 12 weekend 2-hour sessions with Payal & Shraddha for SC & Rajat for CR and GMAT strategy sessions.
So from March this year Ive been working on improving my verbal skills and these are some of the things I did that helped a lot.
1.) Know my weaknesses and improve on them.
I knew my quant was a 47 and working harder to push this score wasn't going to get my overall score anywhere. I had to improve on the verbal section and that's what I focused on.
2.) Use the right tools.
After understanding all the concepts tested, I started to use grockit (comes along with e-gmat VLP) to apply some of the techniques and hone my timing. e-gmat practice exercises were very cool & the explanation for why the other 4 options are wrong is very improtant
3.) For the last 1 month, use only official questions
This is really very important and i cannot stress any more on this, the GMAT questions are of a different nature and getting to solve only official questions on the last few weeks leading to the exam gives the "Home Ground" advantage.
I used only:-
GMAC OG 12
GMAC Verbal Review 2
GMAC GMATPrep Supplement Pack
GMATPrep extract of all SC questions - (Only after you have given your final GMAT Prep test)
How my Verbal jumped from a 29 (53%) to a 38 (84%)
Sentence Correction: I just had to know the concepts tested better, e-gmat helped me understand all the concepts tested in a very simple manner. They have Audio-Video slides which include pre&post assessment tests that give you a good sense of understanding. Being a Live-Prep customer i had access to the weekend 2-hour sessions, the 1st SC session is the most important!!! Payal emphasizes on the 3-step process and that did the trick for me. I used the 3-step process on all the official questions and on the GMAT test day.
Let me put it this way... for a quant question, You do all the calculations, arrive at an answer, you know its the right one and you mark it. How many times have you felt the same way for verbal???
Reading Comprehension: Again the e-gmat course just had two 2-hour sessions for RC, the 1st one was enough to take my accuracy from 50% to 90%!! The process is so good that 24-hours past the test, I still remember the main point for each of the 4 passages I was confronted with!!!
Critical Reasoning: CR was always my strong point, but Rajat's classes gave a different perspective and took my accuracy even further. His session on pre-thinking is just awesome...
Believe in yourself no matter what...
Id like to share another point here, i just gave 2 mocks this time around. The 2 GMAT preps... My scores were as below:
May 17th 2013 GMATPrep1 -> 730 Q47 V42
Jun 16th 2013 GMATPrep2 -> 640 Q44 V34
So after my 1st GP i was elated, I was confident but still didn't book my test slot. I gave my 2nd GP on Jun 16th and BOOM!!! 640... It is now that I went ahead and booked the test for the next available 9AM slot... Why did I choose to go ahead?, Its because I believed in myself! My test was on the 24th of June @ 9AM...
Test Day:
AWA - Simple one, didn't take much time, just followed a template I used previously
IR - Nasty!! I got 3 MSR's which honestly I wasn't prepared for... 9 questions!!! But in general if you get the 1st 7 right and guess the last 5 you get a 7/8 and even if there is 1 mistake in your first 7, you end up with 5/8. This is what I inferred from the GMATPrep software scoring.
Quant - Started of with a few straight forward questions, but then came a massive number of word problems... I didn't get a probability question till about #32 and I was tensed if im going to score a 40 in this section. Just kept my cool and moved ahead. Didn't feel great, but that's supposedly a good indication on the GMAT
Verbal - From my 2 GMATPrep tests, it was evident that I needed to focus hard on the first 20 questions. GP1 I scored a V42 and had only 3 mistakes in the first 30 questions and 6 on the last 11. GP2 was V34 with 3 mistakes in the 1st 10 questions and 8 mistakes evenly spread across the other 31 questions. So on the real GMAT I just focused on each and every question and used the e-gmat 3 step process for SC's and their RC approach for every passage I got. Never got a bold-faced CR (I got 1 on each of my GMATPrep tests), but just kept the focus on the question in front.
Breaks - My previous attempts were filled with Red-Bull and energy-bars and what not... I've played professional cricket for 12 years and a few bananas usually does the trick for me. So this time i just carried 4 bananas... had 2 in each break with some official GMAT|Pearson VUE water
To conclude, I'd like to thank everyone on this forum for all the great posts and also a special shout-out to e-gmat for their wonderful verbal course. To all the other GMAT re-takers... Never give up on yourself and never stop believing that you can do it!! When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, it might seem as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
Regards,
JohnnieWalker - Keep Walking...
