Though I am so so elated with this score, but now that I have it. I feel I could have definitely pulled it up by atleast 20-30 points. But everything aside I am done with it and have finally beat THE GMAT.
I had been following this site for almost 6-7 months and had always dreamt of posting my success story here
Before I start the saga (trust me its going to be a long one) .....I really want to thank my wife who kept me on track , sacrificed her innumberable weekends coz of my schedule and kept me motivated enough. Also everyone on this site who post their views/answers/scores - thanks for all the posts and please keep those post on coz they add a lot of value to the study cirriculum of any Gmat aspirant.
Now that I my oscar speech is done, here is my story ..........
As my nick says my intial plan was to take the exam in July 2008 and now when I look back I dont even know where did past 7 months vanish. This is my second attempt, first attempt in Jan 2006 with a 10 day prep (very half hearted) and I got a 640 then (Q 50 V28). From my last score it was evident i had to really spend most of my time to prepare for Verbal.
I will go with my study strategy later in the post , but will start off in a reverse order --- My Test Experience first , last few weeks , gmat study strategy
Test Day Experience.
My test was on 02 Feb(Monday) in London. I had taken a 12:45 p.m. slot and for those who were/are in London, 02 Feb was a nightmare. It was heaviest snow in London in last 18 years and a typical 1 hour jounrey took me more than 3 hours. Luckily as I had an afterrnon appointment, i had some time with me in morning and i could manage to leave home by 9:30 a.m. and reach center by 12:30 p.m. Also , as I had checked out my center on Friday evening, I didnt have to find my way else I would have really had a tough time making it on time.
Lesson Learnt
1. Always be ready for unexpected and worse.
2. Do do do .. go to your center once before the actual exam, it saves you anxiety as well as time.
I had a very good experience with the London test center, its a very quiet center, excellent rooms and machines. Also fortunately everyone started late on that day , so the lady at reception asked me to grab a sandwich or something to drink if I wanted to as the rooms were full. I was more than happy to just take a break from that greusome travel. Once I got back (went to buy a choclate), she asked me if i WAS ready and I was good to go.
Luckily my essays were not very tough and I had enough points to write (Though I still havent got my AWA score).
Did my ritual of having some some water and Kit Kat in my first break:P
First question on Quant was a bouncer, I spent 3-4 min on that but I think i managed to find an answer. I never have pacing issues in maths and though once in a while when i used to get easy questions, the thought that I am not doing very well, did crosss my mind, but my entire energy and focus was to make do the best I can do in quant coz I knew that based on my previpus practice scores I cant rely too much on Verbal. I did have some very tough DS questions in between for which I took educated guesses rather than wasting 5-10 min on doing one question and screwin rest of the section. I finished Quant with 10 min to spare. Used 5 min from those 10 min to relax, then completed last question and took 10 min break.
Went our had some water and another slice of Kit Kat
Verbal started with 3 straight SCs (the bit i practiced the most ) , then 2 CRs and then a RC. In verbal somehow I can never say whether I am doing well or not and generally my approach is to always to take it question by question, so was in a good pace. In my maths break I wrote the golden timing rule below on the erasable pad. GUys this is the key it really helps me to keep in track and not over invest in an question.
Questions done 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time on ur screen 75 67 58 49 40 31 22 10 04
Again level of verbal was very much comarable to Gmat Prep - may be slghtly tougher but I foound it very similar to Gmat prep.
Finalllly WAS SOOOOOOOOO GLAD TO see my score. My target was 740 but I was happy with anything above 700 , . Finally finished my test had some water and another slice of Kit Kat
to finish the bar !!!:)I shall write in a seperate post regarding my last few weeks and my study strategy and please feel free to message me in case you have any questions I will be more than glad to help.
