I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi All,
I just wanted to pen down a few thoughts about my GMAT test-taking experience. Apologies for this being a bit long winded, but I hope this proves helpful for anyone giving the GMAT.

TL;DR;-
1. Prep was nothing extra ordinary, TTP accounted for the majority it. 100% completion and consistently studying everyday had a huge contribution to my
score.
2. Meditation played a pretty significant role in controlling test day nerves.
3. Test Day – Decided to go for Verbal -> Quant. Verbal was very straight forward, lost time on quant during the break (more on that later).

TL

Prep

I want to give a huge shoutout to the guys over at TTP, it was essentially 90% of my prep. I came across TTP while scouring reddit and GMATclub to find the best prep company. Having taken free trials of multiple prep companies (All the famous names) I felt TTP was a good fit for me. The UI and course material of TTP is lucid and really simple to understand! In terms of volume and quality for quant – It’s a lot! However, I would urge you to get through it as it really deepens one’s understanding. Historically TTP has been known to not be very comprehensive for verbal but credit to the team for really building that out too!
The TTP instructors were extremely accessible and were always happy to answer queries and provide insights over mail.
In addition, I also referred to GMATNINJA’s videos on Verbal. They are outstanding and would urge everyone to check them out! Credit to the GMATNINJA team for keeping their content free.
Lastly, after completion of TTP I referred to the “GMAT Official Advanced Questions” by GMAC and GMATCLUB’s 700 level questions for additional practice.
My entire prep took me about 2 months. Note, this was only possible in such a short time frame, as I had taken a break from my job at the time. Had I been working; it would have taken me about 5-6 months.

Mocks

Disclaimer My personal belief is that there is little value in taking a ton of mocks, so I didn’t really take too many. My advice would be to refer to a number of great debriefs here on GMATCLUB, where folks have covered mock test strategy and mock test providers in much better detail.

Mock Test #1 640 (Q40, V37)

Booked my test and took this mock completely cold. No prep would be an understatement, at this point I didn’t even know the format or structure of the exam. Not Bad!
The remaining mocks I took were right before the exam after my entire prep was completed, so the scores are higher than they would’ve been had I taken the mocks at regular intervals.

Mock Test #2 740 (Q50, V41)

8 days before test day– Quant was a breeze, was able to solve the questions without stress. I realized I needed to hone my verbal concepts. Watched all the GMAT Ninja videos again and read the “TTP verbal quick referencer”. Spent many a night on the GMATclub, solving advanced verbal questions and really trying to drill down the concepts involved.

Mock Test #3 700 (Q50, V34)

5 days before test day - This was a slap on the chin! After all those hours spent solving soul-crushing sentence correction questions and characterless comprehension passages, my verbal score had gone down! At this point, I was pretty demotivated and quite jaded with the whole ordeal.
I continued solving the advanced verbal questions on the GMAT club, shoutout to carcass for putting this together -gmatclub.com/forum/sc-verbal-qu ... l#p1509485

Mock Test #4 770 (Q51, V42)

3 days before test day – This just proves that anything can happen on test day! At the 700+ mark, the margins are so small, that a few mistakes could prove costly. The way the GMAT is structured, there is significant variation in score at the 700+ level without there being much difference in the number of questions the candidate gets incorrect.
For this mock I decided to change my approach to giving the verbal section prior to the quant, this worked for me however your mileage may vary.
I decided to end my prep on a high and not give any more mocks – Solely out of fear that I may do badly and feel demotivated on test day.

The day before the test
My strategy the day before any competitive exam, is to mostly chill and relax. I think it’s important that everyone finds what works for them in this regard. Different strokes for different folks

Test Day

If you are taking the GMAT offline, my advice is to find out the exact whereabouts of your exam center the day before-- Doing this will hopefully prevent you from running around like a headless chicken on test day; In the interest of transparency, I was more headless on test day than a bucket of KFC.
The proctor guides you through the formalities, during which the onset of feelings akin to those felt by prisoners being taken to the gallows is not uncommon. Just remember to stay calm.

A Few Test Day Tips:
1. Decide which section you’re going to attempt first before test day.
2. Often the proctors are busy and will not notify you when your break time has elapsed, remember to be cognizant of how much time you have left. During my test, I didn’t realize that the allotted break time had elapsed, low and behold I came back to the precious seconds ticking away in my quant section. Rookie mistake – I know! But I still thought it was worth mentioning.
3. You may feel that a section is going pretty badly half-way through, just keep at it – It’ll be fine.

Lessons Learned

To sum up, here are a few of my key takeaways from my GMAT journey:
1. There is a certain element of luck above the 700-720 mark, so don’t be disheartened if you see a variation in your score. Furthermore, the GMAT is only 20-30% of your MBA applications, more reason to not get too bogged down by a minor variation.
2. Meditating every morning really helped me improve my focus and get into the mindset to studying. Maybe give it a whirl if you like!
3. Taking a diagnostic test at the beginning of your GMAT preparation will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to create a study plan that is tailored to your needs and will help you make the most of your study time.
4. Focus on your weaknesses: Once you have identified your weak areas, focus your study efforts on improving those skills. Don’t dwell on familiar areas.
5. Practice, Practice, Practice!! Take practice tests under timed conditions and review your answers to identify areas where you need improvement. Note As counter-intuitive as this sounds -- I think while learning or brushing up concepts, don’t focus on trying to attempt questions in under two minutes. It’s more important to understand what the difference is between options and why the correct option is so.
6. Buy a reusable writing pad from amazon or laminate a bunch of graph papers on both sides if you’re cheap like I am. It’s important to practice writing on it before the test as it takes some getting used to.

If you’ve made it so far, I appreciate you reading this and do hope you found this useful. Best wishes folks!