I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi,

I took my GMAT on 29th June and scored 740(Q 49 V 41). It was my first attempt and am pleasantly surprised with the score. I am not a very organized person and when it came to GMAT preparation, I had no one strategy to follow. I tried a number of different approaches. I started with maintaining error logs but then could not keep up with it because I thought it ate up a lot of time. I wanted to practice a lot of prep tests towards the end of the preparation but then I realized that if I took tests very often, I was left with little time to work on my weak areas. Also, I felt that a lot of tests had a different question pattern from the official Prep tests and therefore I did not find their evaluation credible.

I have been a regular visitor of Beat the GMAT forum. Undoubtedly, it helped me a lot with the preparation. All my doubts were answered within minutes by members or experts, the 'I Just Beat the GMAT' section motivated me when I thought I won't be able to make it. Strategy section helped me try different strategies before settling on one that helped me the most.

I am currently going through a very rough phase of life. Studying for GMAT was a respite from my real world problems. Because of my personal circumstances, it was difficult for me to devote more than a couple of hours every day to books and that too hardly in one stretch. I tried to take out 15 or 30 minutes whenever I could for GMAT prep. It was only during the last ten days that I could study for 4 hours at a stretch every day. I spent a total of 4 months preparing for the test.

Major take aways from my experience:

1. OG 12th Edition - It is the GMAT Bible. I would recommend going through it twice so that you are proficient in most of the problem types.
2. 'Thursdays with Ron' - I discovered them in the last week of my preparation. They are very good lectures. Do go through them whenever you get time.
3. Make your own notes while studying. Revise and Revise.
4. Identify your weak areas early and spend time to understand the concepts.
5. For RC - I realized it 2 days before the exam that my accuracy was highest when I read the passage thoroughly before solving the questions. I spent almost 3 minutes reading the passage but the time spent was worth it.
6. Since I am a non native English speaker, I had to spend a lot of time on Verbal, SC and CR to get a decent score.
7. Focus and stay committed. No matter how much time you can afford to GMAT prep, be realistic and keep your eyes on the goal.
8. Don't panic. During the actual test, I wasn't doing well in the Quant section. I was nowhere as comfortable as I was during my prep tests. At one point, I almost gave up but then I sat back, took a deep breath and proceeded with my best guess. I made sure that I managed time well. Guess, that did the trick.

Let me know if you have any questions. Would be happy to help!

All the best!