560 to 690 to 720: Practice Makes Perfect

Find out how Beat The GMAT members tackled GMAT test prep with positive results. Get tips on GMAT test prep materials, online courses, study tips, and more.
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560 to 690 to 720: Practice Makes Perfect

by ShivaniRaj » Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:51 pm
June 2016-GMAT 560 (No Preparation)

August 2016-GMAT 690

January2017-GMAT 720 CAT 2016 99.23


That's the magic of numbers. They are not ambiguous. Unique and Distinct.

Looking at my scores, what proverb comes to mind: "Practice makes Perfect" or "Try and Try again until you succeed".

Let's now dissect my learning.

The test, owned and administrated by the Graduate Management Admission Council, is a route to develop critical business skills. GMAT is a computer adaptive test, so it is impossible to skip "difficult" questions from particular sections. It is critical to develop the ability to solve almost all types of problems.

Out of Free resources, Manhattan Free books are a must. Try to get all GMAC material. Treat Official Guide as a Bible. Powerscore CR PDF is also helpful.

But first, focus on the preferred school's GMAT requirement so you know what you need to aim for. Don't spend too much time trying to achieve the perfect result. Save some of it for researching schools, writing a great application and impressing the admissions board in the interview. These are as important as a good GMAT score.

GMAT is a verbal game. When I researched, I found EduShastra Verbal Teachers very good compared to others. But the problem with Verbal are:

a) The Verbal skills taught in school and colleges is totally different from GMAT.

b) Many international applicants with superior Quantitative but weaker Verbal skills take the GMAT and skew the results.

GMAT is a marathon with "Time" as a most critical factor. Practice with following timing in your mind. For Quant. ~ 2 minutes per Q, 40-50 seconds for SC, 1.5 minutes for CR, 2.5-4 minutes for reading the passage and less than 1 minute for the questions that follow.

Spend Optimum time for GMAT. Optimum time is 2-4 months. Do not spend time like me. Real GMAT questions are rare and after 3-4 months of preparation, students do repeat questions. Now you are in a Dream world created by you only where you know the answer even before reading the full question. Every question looks like a friend who meets you every month, so you can even tell everything about him/her. I have seen many fake toppers who score more than 700 in mocks due to repeated questions and in real exam, they are not even able to go beyond 550.

One of the most important reason for me to join EduShastra was to meet students of the same IQ pool. The way they customize class modules according to the initial mapping was also very helpful.

I spent lot of time finding strategies for acing GMAT. Many student calls it tips and tricks. Teachers at EduShastra insisted me on finding my own strategies. Every topic is taught by not less than 3-4 teachers. Every teacher tells their own strategies. In beginning, it was lot of confusion where one teacher says "North" and another teacher says "South". But there teaching pedagogy is "Hear everyone but Adopt none". They focus on evolving a student strategy rather than student adopting teacher's ways. Train yourself to find YOUR best solution approach to answering GMAT questions. Unfortunately, this can be a very difficult and time consuming approach as you will need to research several methods of solving for each question and then figure out which is best for you.

Even their Class module system based upon initial mapping and weekly evaluations is helpful. Every student gets their class modules based upon their strengths and weaknesses. The course keeps on changing the direction as it evolves.

RC: Try also to use "STOP" strategy in RC. Spend more time upfront to get to know the passage's Structure, Tone, Organization and main Point.

CR: The logic in CR is analytical. If you are good in breaking the stem into components, you will not struggle with this part.

SC: Focus on "Meaning and Structure". Approach every sentences with the goal of creating logical meaning instead of "relying on your ear". Use "Elimination Strategy" in this part.

Last but not least, be positive !!!<i class="em em-innocent"></i><i class="em em-innocent"></i><i class="em em-pray"></i><i class="em em-pray"></i>

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by Mayank Bhardwaj » Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:39 pm
Highly Informative Post...