[700 50Q 35V] : How my attempt to go one-up brought me down.

Score : 700 (50Q, 35V, 6.0 AWA) 90th Percentile
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A summary of my key learning's

I initially had this at the bottom of my post, but considering my long post I think it serves the purpose best here, right at the top.

I know this is a long post, and I understand that a lot of you might not be interested in reading it entirely, so here is a summary of the key takeaways from my tryst with the GMAT.

1) It is very important to practice under timed conditions. If possible try to be more strict with the timing than the actual GMAT (target 110 seconds for Quant and 100 seconds (on average) for Verbal).
2) Take as many practice tests as possible, there is no ideal number. 'The more the merrier' is the mantra here.
3) Remember that there are almost 10 questions in each section that are experimental. Don't try to tackle questions based on difficulty. If you think you cannot solve easily, don't dwell too much on it. There is a 25% (approx) chance that it could be experimental, and it might very well be. So just move on to give yourself a better chance with the remaining questions.
4) Whenever you feel that you are falling behind (in terms of time), be prepared to make a guess on the next question that presents any difficulty to you (take 20 seconds to analyze and if it looks difficult or strange just make a guess and move on).
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I took the GMAT recently after preparing for a good part of four weeks. My score was a tad below my expectations and I want to share my preparation and a few important takeaways from my test day experience.

Background
I am an Indian by citizenship, Engineer by education and a Product Analyst by profession. I did very well in academics, I consider the quant section as my strength and I think am decent at verbal too though my verbal score will not corroborate this. I do have a strong desire and a strong case to be at a top B-school and I believe I have the ability to bring this out in my essays. For this reason (and the fact that I really could not take out a lot of time) I did not want to expend a lot of time & energy for the GMAT, and had a humble target of 720. Looks like the GMAT has thrown the first punch at me, pushing me a few steps (actually 20 points) back and it is only going to get tougher from here on!

The kick-start to my GMAT
The MBA has been on my agenda for the last few years, what I was not sure about though was the 'when' part. Last fall I finally decided it was time and decided to target the 2010 admission rounds (for the class starting in fall 2011). The first thing I did was do some research on the GMAT and that led me to this forum. I joined the forum and initially was only a passive observer. I learned that the best way to prepare was to get a copy of the OG12 and do a self assessment using the GMATPrep test. I did just that, purchased the OG12, Verbal & Quant Review (4th ed) and downloaded the GMATPrep software. In Oct 2009 I took the first practice test and got a 720. This was exactly the score that I had as my target and I was so happy that I was already at 'that level'. In hindsight I shouldn't have scored that well, because I lost focus. I thought I did not need a lot of practice and could get to my magic number with just a little bit of effort. This was my first mistake. What should have been my first priority took backstage, coincidentally at work it got a little hectic and the kick-start to my GMAT died right there.

The second coming
It took a while before normalcy was restored at work and as soon as this happened I decided to take the GMAT and started studying with full force by the middle of May. I managed to spend 2 hours daily during the weekdays and upto 10 hours over the weekend. As father of a beautiful toddler girl, it really was difficult to take time out. Kudos to my wife who was so supportive during this time, without her support it would have been impossible. I had a spreadsheet to track my progress each day, the number of questions that I attempted and the mistakes that I committed. I filled in the details religiously to track if I was making any progress. I started being more active on this forum and purchased some additional material. Here is a list of all the materials I used.

Study Materials
OG - 12 Edition (Must have)
Verbal Review - 2nd Edition (I think I did not use this well)
Quantitative Review - 2nd Edition
MGMAT - SC Guide (A very good resource if you can use it well)
MGMAT - Word Problems

My Study Plan

Quantitative
As I mentioned earlier, this was my strong point and I did not have to put a lot of effort I went through the OG12 and the Quant Review material. Initially I did not try to time myself but once I realized that I was consistently hitting 95% in terms of accuracy I started timing each question and tried to solve a set of 35 questions under one hour. I think this is really important because once you really force yourself to hurry up it makes you more confident of your abilities in getting it right quickly. I say this because a lot of times I used to double, triple check the question and the answer (especially simple ones) just to make sure that I did not make a silly mistake. Putting yourself through a tighter time constraint than the actual test really helps you gain the confidence and avoid losing those valuable seconds.

Verbal
Based on my first practice test and the diagnostic test (from OG) I realized that I was already at a decent level with CR & RC. I was always in the 90 - 95% range, whenever I attempted questions on these two sections. SC was a totally different story though; I barely managed to get into the 80% accuracy level. Since the incremental benefit of putting any time on CR and RC was minimal in my case I focused the majority of my verbal effort on SC. In hindsight, I think it would have been better to spend even more time on SC, taking additional time off my little quant prep, since my quant score pretty much stayed at the same level all through.

For SC I use the MGMAT SC Guide and the explanations provided in the OG books (OG 12 & Verbal Review). According to me, the MGMAT SC guide is a must have for anyone who is not a native speaker. That said, I don't think I used the material properly, I thought I could get away without actually studying the book in great detail and mastering every rule. Also, I lost my focus based on some comments that MGMAT SC guide doesn't prepare for the tougher GMAT questions. This was another mistake, if I were to take the exam again (which I intend to) I will definitely master this book first.

AWA
For AWA I used the guidelines provided in the OG and made a few mental notes about using some keywords and maintaining proper structure.

The practice tests
In all I attempted only 5 practice tests. This (insufficient practice) was another mistake on my part. I had all the MGMAT CATs, PowerPrep, GMATPrep and some of the free tests offered over the net at my disposal, all of them adding up to more than 15. I should have attempted at least 10 of them but that's history now. My advice to folks out there is to take as many of them as possible, nothing beats practice.

Here is how I fared in the 5 practice tests that I took.

GMAT Prep - 1 OCT 29, 2009 50 (93%) 37 (80%) 720 94%
MGMAT CAT 1 JUN 05, 2010 48 (86%) 34 (72%) 680 90%
MGMAT CAT 2 JUN 12, 2010 49 (89%) 38 (81%) 720 94%
MGMAT CAT 3 JUN 20, 2010 49 (89%) 44 (97%) 750 98%
GMAT Prep - 2 JUN 26, 2010 49 (87%) 40 (89%) 730 96%

The d-day
Things were shaping up well for me heading towards the test day. I was getting good vibes, though the time constraint did not allow me to go through all the materials or to take lot of practice tests I managed to avoid the temptation of slogging during the last few days. It was important to be relaxed and not get stressed out at the last moment. On the day of the test, I woke up at 5, went through my daily chores, had a good breakfast and headed out a little after 6.30 AM. My test was scheduled to begin at 8 AM.

At the test center too it began well. Within no time I was staring at the first of my essays. I took a deep breath, gave it a good thought and started off with the essay. At the end of the first hour I was confident that I had done well on both the essays. With the confidence that I gained I decided not to take a break and jumped on to the Quant section. Based on the initial questions, I got the feeling that it was simpler than any of the tests I had taken. I didn't read too much into it and just went about solving them. I managed to time it well and by the end of it I had encountered only 3 questions that I thought were difficult. More importantly I was pretty sure about all the answers except for 2 out of the 37 questions (silly mistakes not accounted for though).

By now I was feeling a little tired and hungry. I took the optional break, ate a banana and a snack bar and walked a little bit before heading back. The verbal section was no different from the other two sections; I was doing very well, in fact by the time I was on the 25th question I had a little under 35 minutes remaining. I was already dreaming of a mid 700 score and a verbal score in the mid 40's. This is where it all went wrong for me. The 26th question was the first tough question on SC, it had three sentences and a lot of it was italicized at different places and separated by a lot of commas. In fact you could read it in different ways to get different meanings. I thought this was my make or break question and presumed doing well on this would ensure a high score. I spent a lot of time on this. I think I got it right because the next question was a CR that looked equally tough. I was enjoying this, thinking I was in the game and devoted more time on this. Same thing happened on the next question (CR) as well. These three questions had drained a lot out of me, by the time I had completed these, the equation had turned from an easy 16 questions in under 33 minutes to a manageable 13 questions in 23 minutes. From there on it went only downhill for me and I ended up having to guess the last 3 questions. The result, as I have it now, is a score of 35 when 40 was easily within my grasp.

Where did I go wrong?
When I think back now, I think those 3 questions in verbal were so cryptic that they must have been the experimental ones. I should have just treated them like I treated the other questions, and not tried to beat the GMAT at its own game. So trying to go one-up is precisely what let me down.

Retake?
I think yes, I am going to retake. The fact is that GMAT is not a barometer solely used for admissions. Scholarships, grading in the class and post MBA remuneration all have been linked to GMAT. So I will retake it, but not now. Now I am going to focus on the remaining aspects on my app so that I can meet the R1 deadlines. After submitting my apps I will take on the GMAT, for another bout. This time the target will be higher, but I will be humble and diligent.

This is all I have for you folks now. Hopefully my loss will be your gain. All the best!

Cheers,
Arun

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