I just Beat The GMAT!

I have been a member of the BTG community for a while now and have always wanted to start a thread with my GMAT debrief. So here it is. I will begin with my D-Day brief and try to follow up with strategies and prep tips.

D-Day - 1
I had wound up all my preparations two days before the exam. For the last day, I had written down outlines of Analysis of Argument and Analysis of Issue essays for revision. Around the mid-day, I went out and checked the location of the examination center and the travel time. Got back cooked a nice meal (helps me relax, you should do whatever soothes you down). Selected what I would wear the next day, collected all the things necessary for the appointment:
1. Passport (id proof)
2. GMAT appointment letter
3. 2 Kit-Kat bars (breakfast and exam-break)
4. Bottle of water
Happy with my preparations, I talked wife and friends and had a nice night's sleep.

D-DAY
On the D-day, woke up nice and early. Did a few stretching exercises, got ready, had a chat with wife and set out for the exam center. As luck would have had it, all the transport systems were running like clockwork and I reached at 8:25 for a 9:30 appointment. The center wasn't even open. Finally a guy walked in at 8:30 and told me that I had to wait outside as they had to clean the premises. Cue ... it started raining!!! Had to wait outside under an overhanging roof to save myself from the rain, for a good 15 minutes before I was allowed to enter.

Anyways shook myself for the test, went through all the pre-test checks - emptied the pockets, removed the wrist watch, removed the Kit-Kat and bottle of water from the carry-bag before putting everything in the locker, did the digital signature thingy, had the palm veins scanned and was ushered into the examination center. Took a deep breath and settled myself for the exam. I don't know what are the other exam centers like but I felt really nice about this one - nice comfy chair, good height for the PC screen, nice keyboard, temperature controlled - overall the best exam conditions I could have asked for.

Essays
My exam started with the usual info screens. Clicked through them like a breeze, entered my choice of 5 schools, stretched my fingers and got ready for business. I was well prepared for the AWA section, having written something like 7 essays of both kinds, and to make matters easier both the topics were extremely easy to write about. There were gaping holes in the argument and a no-brainer of an issue. I think I completed my argument essay with 4 min left on the clock and Issue essay with 8 min on the clock.

Quant
Took a small break after the essays to gather my thoughts before the Quant section. Was really confident about this one and seemed to be doing quite well. But my bubble was burst by a question similar to cuberoot(125)/squareroot(25) = ?. I really panicked when I got such an easy question. Thankfully, I was solving the questions really fast and had a lot of time to spare. So calmed myself again and and attacked the questions with a renewed vigor and greater concentration.

Verbal
Took another break after Quant, had a Kit-Kat drank some water and felt ready for the Verbal part. Nothing spectacular, except the fact that despite the preparation I put in, I was still stuck with two answers choices after elimination, in nearly half the CR and SC questions, and both the answer choices seemed equally plausible. In my practice tests I had always had 10-15 minutes left after Verbal, so I consciously slowed myself down, spending more time on each question. By the last two questions, I just wanted to get the test over with, and clicked on the answers without much thought. I had a feeling I had screwed up in Quant and never really expected something great in Verbal.

Did ponder for a few seconds on the screen to cancel the scores, but decided against it. I was never going to prepare again anyways . Mildly surprised at the final scores, as the test had dimmed my expectations a little.

Quant - 50 (93%)
Verbal - 44 (97%)
Overall - 760 (99%)

This is exactly the score and the break-up which I had in my GMAT Prep I retake. I would have to say that the GMAT Prep Tests are a pretty good judge of your final score. Anyways that's the easier part of my MBA journey done . Now a summer break and then back to the grind with the essays and recos. Would like to add a few more posts about GMAT prep strategies and Do's and Dont's, but more on that later. For now, a month away from the books and the constant checking of MBA courses' websites beckons.

Congrats mate..
i hope to get a score as awesome as urs..

All the best for your future..

krishnasty wrote:Congrats mate..
i hope to get a score as awesome as urs..

All the best for your future..

Thanks ... and I am pretty sure with honest preparation you can get a similar score.

hey great score, u wrote the score was exactly the same as ur GMATPrep retake score ? Thats really good !!!


also percentiles are really taking a dip. 50-45 used to be a 770 few months back.

bblast wrote:hey great score, u wrote the score was exactly the same as ur GMATPrep retake score ? Thats really good !!!


also percentiles are really taking a dip. 50-45 used to be a 770 few months back.

Yep the score was exactly the same, including the break up as my GMAT Prep1 Retake (https://pyarapopat.wordpress.com/2011/06 ... e-results/) ... Although now that you mention it I have realized that I have posted my breakup incorrectly in the thread title (it is 760 - 50,44; correctly mentioned in the post)

What was the gap between gmat prep-1 retakes ? incidentally I had read one of ur blogs mgmat-6 in which u scored a 780 !!!! . That was weird, never heard people usually scoring so high on mgmats.


BTW what was ur verbal error breakup for 44 in gmat prep ? I also took a Gprep today and the last 2 errors(40,41) I think really brought my score down by a couple of points. I wonder how GMAT punishes for performing well for 71 mins and then faltering in the last 2.

I retook the GMAT Prep1 on saturday and GMAT was on Monday, so 2 day gap.
With the MGMATs you should notice an increasing sequence of scores ... the trouble with giving 6 different exams set up by the same people is that you kinda figure out their question types ... so by the time you reach MGMAT 6 you are well prepared for their particular kind of grinding ... i too started out with sub 700s on MGMAT and ultimately ended with 780 on MGMAT.

With the GMAT format getting consecutive questions wrong definitely hurts. Suppose you were heading for a Verbal score of 45 at the end of Q39, you got 40 wrong your score drops to say 44 (since this was a difficult question your score won't drop much) ... the trouble is that Q41 is now easier and you still get it wrong, your score might drop by further 2 points to 42 ... Here expectations come into play - if you were aiming for 42 at the start you got what you wanted ... if you wanted to score higher definitely you need to keep your concentration up for the entire 75 minutes.

Keep in mind the GMAT format will hurt you more if you do this for Q29 and Q30 instead of Q40 and Q41. In the middle of the test the fluctuations in your score will be higher, so getting consecutive questions wrong will be even more punishing. So keep your concentration up for the whole of 75 minutes and if you think you are not sure about your answer on a particular question ... pay extra attention to the next question ... this was one of the things I worked on in my practice tests.

Hope I was able to get my point across .

Awesome score. I am allowed to be jealous.

It is definitely helping me to know that your retake score was in the high 760s and you got a similar score on the real test.

Congrats on the score and all the best for the rest of your journey!

PS: Hey Nice looking blog! Very well organized!

vineeshp wrote:Awesome score. I am allowed to be jealous.

It is definitely helping me to know that your retake score was in the high 760s and you got a similar score on the real test.

Congrats on the score and all the best for the rest of your journey!

PS: Hey Nice looking blog! Very well organized!

Thanks Vineesh

Its nice how u actually interpreted the 45 to 42 thing. Thats what exactly happened to me. Actually the CR at 40 was a monster and the SC at 41 was icing on the cake. Probably GMAT does test u in the final lap before giving u a 45. I Gotta work harder.

Agree with the logic behind increase in MGMAT scores.

Congrats man .. Thats an awesome score..

kruthika wrote:Congrats man .. Thats an awesome score..

Thanks ... I visited your blog ... You are doing a pretty thorough job of maintaining an MBA prep journal ... Kudos !!! ... have added you to the blogroll of my own blog

Congrats
Awesome score....
Q50 is just too awesome...
I hope to get that

cans wrote:Congrats
Awesome score....
Q50 is just too awesome...
I hope to get that

Thanks ... I have never been good at maths, so 50 is pretty reachable with an honest effort ... for me GMAT was a puzzle which I loved to solve, perhaps that is reflected in the scores

Hope you do well too ... best of luck!!!

gullubadshah wrote:

kruthika wrote:Congrats man .. Thats an awesome score..

Thanks ... I visited your blog ... You are doing a pretty thorough job of maintaining an MBA prep journal ... Kudos !!! ... have added you to the blogroll of my own blog

Thanks gullubadshah! The blog has been a motivating factor for me infact!