Before you read any further, I must apologize for this long post about my GMAT experience. In the past, I went through several such posts from others and learnt a lot from them so I felt I should also give a detailed account of my experience. For those who go through this post entirely, I hope it will help you in some way.
I recently gave GMAT (on 16th May 2011) and got a score of 750 (Q-51, V-40). In few words, I must admit that I am quite relieved and happy with this score. About AWA, I have written the argument essay well but I kind of got into a block while attempting the issue essay. I am sincerely hoping that the evaluators will not be very strict on those essays and I will have a compatible score.
I wanted to thank all the active and passive contributors to this website for all the practice, help, guidance that I got from their articles. This website is among the few well-managed sites for GMAT aspirants and it was always a pleasure to go through the content here. Though I have not contributed much to the discussions here but I have used most of the verbal forums for practice and analysis of answers.
About myself:
I am 31, male, Indian, and a software professional. I have a total of 9 years of experience in both service and product based companies. I have worked in software development for 4 yrs, then in SAP consulting for 4 yrs and now in pre-sales since last 1 year. I have a good educational background and have also participated in many extra-curricular activities at school, college and workplace. This GMAT attempt was not my first. I had given it a try in May 2007 and had scored 680 then. However, at that point, my profile was not this diverse and also I felt my score was not sufficient for my experience. Let's hope this time I have taken care of at least the score part.
About my exam experience:
I gave the exam at NTTF Bangalore center. This center is located in an engineering college (NTTF Bangalore) on the Hosur Road, next to the toll gate near Infosys office in E-City. All the arrangements at this center are good except for the rest room, which is some distance away from the center and is also shared by the college staff members. Other things such as parking space, computer and mouse, chair, temperature control, center staff are all very good. Overall, I was definitely satisfied with the center.
About my preparation (I will first start with what I did 4 years back and then what I did this time):
In the past I have also given CAT exams for admission to Indian MBA schools and had scored around 95 percentile. My last GMAT attempt was within 6 months of this CAT attempt. CAT, as many of you might know, is a entrance exam for admission to premiere Indian business schools. It covers the mathematics part very well and GMAT Quant is only a subset of what is asked in CAT. Based on this, I knew that my Quant part is mostly taken care so I mostly concentrated on the verbal bit. However, one of the biggest mistakes I made last time was that I was not following any standard GMAT material and most of my practice was based on material such as 1000 SC/CR/RC. These sources could be good for practice but they cannot be the only material one must refer to. I did follow the OG but only in parts and some other online versions of standard content (I guess I was trying to save on the cost). In addition, I also did not take too many standard practice tests and even in the some I took, I skipped the AWA part during the exams. Last and the most serious mistake I made was I never analyzed my exams in detail. So basically, I was doing a lot of practice but not in a structured manner. Lack of full 4 hour practice during practice exams was another very big reason for my failure in the previous attempt as my mind almost got listless in the verbal section during the exam whereas I was doing the same verbal section quite well in my practice exams.
With the lessons from my previous attempt, it was easy for me to work towards the exam this time. I gave myself 4 months of time to prepare (I got serious only in the last 8 weeks). First things first, I contacted some friends and seniors who have given GMAT in the recent past and understood from them how GMAT has changed recently, if at all. I also checked with them what standard material they referred to. I had also referred to this website, and some other websites, to read the review of some of the material I planned to buy. Based on all this, I purchased the latest edition of the following - OG, Princeton Review, Manhattan SC Guide. With these I also got 4 PR exams, 6 MGMAT exams and 2 GMATPrep exams. I have also referred to 63 RC passages, ETS paper tests, 1000 SC & 1000 CR. Like last time, I mostly worked on Verbal this time as well. I mostly followed the CR & RC strategy from PR and SC from MGMAT. For Quant, I had no strategy as I was mostly able to solve all the problems from all the sources. Rest all of my preparation was similar to what everyone else does - practice questions, refer to websites and forums to understand and analyze, etc.
My scores in the practice exams are as follows (this time I attempted AWA very seriously in all the exams):
PR 1 - 620, PR2 - 680, MGMAT1 - 620, MGMAT2 - 690, MGMAT3 - 640, MGMAT4 - 750, PR3 - 640, MGMAT5 - 720, GMATPrep1 - 730, PR4 - 680, MGMAT6 - 710, GMATPrep2 - 710
In all these exams, Quant score was either 50 or 51. Verbal scores were in the range of 30 to 42. AWA I did not get evaluated.
About the actual exam:
There are only two things to mention.
1 - I was not used to typing on the desktop keyboard. I have been using laptop since last 6 years.
2- I tried to eat an energy bar in a great hurry during the 8 minutes break (between Quant & Verbal sections) and did not drink enough water as I wanted to avoid visiting the rest room. This felt like a good idea but it caused me a bad headache and I gave the verbal section with a nasty headache. Anyways, I am glad the exam went well.
Few suggestions from my side:
1: Take complete 4 hour exam and analyze each exam in complete detail
2: Refer to standard material for building any strategy. Also, refer the standard material to understand the true nature of GMAT questions.
3: Identify your weakness and practice a lot.
4: Don't get disheartened by the score of practice tests. Use the tests to identify your mistakes.
5: Don't worry about colleges, admissions etc during GMAT preparation. Keep them for later.
6: A failed GMAT attempt is not the end of the world. One can always come back strong.
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/smile.png)
Thanks and regards,
Sandeep