I just Beat The GMAT!

Hi,
I have given my gmat and have improved my score from 610 to 720, would like to help fellow applicants for the same. Currently I am doing 1 year MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad.
You can find my daily blog on https://maulikhelpsu.blogspot.in/

I would also help you with the applications and would answer specific question if any, u can get in touch with me on [email protected]....
ATB with GMAT and applications........

Hi sorin,
Thanks for extending the invite......
Currently I am doing my MBA from IIMA PGPX...
Below given is my story....
From 610 to 720.......has been a journey worth remembering.......employing strategies and methods, changing them, and redeploying them until you arrive at the right one for yourself.
I will tell the method that worked for me......word of caution is that this strategy may not work for you so take this as a guideline and implement and adapt ur strategy.....After all Adapting is the key to survival....since Darwin.....
So here it goes......
Got a real dip in confidence when I got 610.....could not study and focus for about a month.....but then I refocused myself on what to improve and how to go ahead.

For Quant:-
1. Identify your bottleneck(where ur falling short in score) DS/PS, once you have done this 50% of the work is done.
2. Use about 3 preliminary tests to analyze this, for this u can use the diagnostics in OG and the 2 power prep thats what I did.
3. My weak area was DS, so I then shifted my focus to DS in Quant....always remember when ur working on DS u also have to use the other skills so they also improve....so improving the problem area leads to improvement in the already strong area.

How did I focus on DS:-
1. Every day I used to solve 20 examples of DS in a timebound approach. Maintained an excel giving me the % of correct to track my improvement.
2. I also maintained an excel detailing the responses that I got wrong...so that I can know where am I faltering.
3. I also created a label for error i.e error was due to oversight, Fundamental understanding, Fatigue or any other cause. This labeling helped me pin point my reason for problem in DS.
To my surprise i realized that my Understanding was strong, I just never checked the option upto C whenever i was done with A I used to set a judgement in my mind.....so for me I had to go through a thought process shift.

How did I focus on Verbal:-
This is the bone of contention for most..............
I adopted a similar strategy....though I needed to improve in all the areas, my weakest was Sentence correction.
1. Every day I used to solve 20 examples of SC in a timebound approach. Maintained an excel giving me the % of correct to track my improvement.
2. I also maintained an excel detailing the responses that I got wrong...so that I can know where am I faltering.
3. I also created a label for error i.e error was due to oversight, Fundamental understanding, Fatigue or any other cause. This labeling helped me pin point my reason for problem in SC.
To my surprise i realized that my Fundamentals were weak.
How to improve Fundamentals:- Please read this carefully......
U cannot know all the rules in english...you do not want to be William shakespeare.....So u need to focus on the rules asked in the GMAT......
How to do this is tricky, get all the OG sets 10,11,12,13 now you have a pretty exhaustive set of Sentence correction. Now when u solve a question you will get a rule, even if you get the answer correct always go ahead and see the understanding, this will help u solve the doubts in the fundamentals.
Formulate an excel with the rules and the problem of SC written in the row next to it. Later when you want to understand the rules better, read and go through the problems that you have identified....
In GMAT you will never face a problem you have faced, so the focus should be on rules and these will get u through.

For RC:-
Only option is read I read a lot of novels , magazines, newspaper articles to improve my understanding.

For CR:-
I was just good at it, so just practiced from the OG.
Importance of online forums:-
I used to regularly browse through them to see the responses of people and understand their reasoning, though i did not post actively on beat the gmat I read a lot of posts daily i spent around 30 mins on this website........

Hope this may help people understand my process and helps u improve the score......Hope u all achieve your dreams
You can write to me for help on [email protected], and can see my daily blog of MBA journey on https://maulikhelpsu.blogspot.in/

TC, hope this helps.......ATB for the test.....

Hi Maulik,

congrats on your score.

I would have a couple of small questions and if you don't mind, I would like to ask some of them to you .

I am studying for the GMAT lately and I am not quite sure how I should further attack the GMAT. I kinda like your strategy as it is not too "complicated" but seems to make sense.

My questions so far:
- When do you think should one go ahead and find out about bottlenecks? Right after studying the basics and doing a couple of questions? Or should one already dig deep into the theories, solve lots of questions and then find out about where concepts etc. are missing?
- What would you recommend in terms of timing? So far I never timed myself what leads to slow answering process (so far I thought/think that if I can solve a problem slowly, with enough practice I can solve it fast). Would you always put yourself under time pressure?
- Regarding the concepts: When answering the questions, did you reach a point where you could exactly point which concept you need to use or where exactly the mistake is (especially in the verbal part)? I often guesstimate after eliminating 2 or 3 choices.

Would love to hear some comments from your side!

Very best regards,
mott

Hi,
I think I had replied to you via email.......But still if u need anything please feel free to ping me anytime.....ATB U will make it.....

Hi do update me if my story gets published in ur newsletter would like to read it......

beatthegmat wrote:Hi Maulik_gmat,

Your story seems really interesting, so I was wondering if you could share it on our forum too. I am sure our members would benefit from finding out how you managed to up your score to 700+. Also, it could be featured in our weekly newsletter.

Thanks,

Could i have a soft copy of the newsletter or could u give the link where i can view the newsletter......

Hi!!
I was wondering, how good you did it in IR.
From what source did you study for this?

thx
Sybil