Achieved Required GMAT Score

[TheBoss2009]

I started writing this debrief after my exam on December 28, 2009, but couldn't finish it. Here is the final version with the hope that my story will benefit other GMAT test-takers.

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I'm not sure if my story fits this forum but I'm going to share it as I've availed tons of benefit from 'Beat the GMAT' website, especially from reading pre- and post-GMAT stories. Now, it is my turn, to share my story so that someone can benefit from it.

Background

I'm a senior software engineer with almost nine years of industry experience. You guessed it folks. I'm a nerdy brown man originally from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. I already have a Master's degree in Electrical, but I'm interested in getting an MBA degree. By the way, I wrote my entire Business school essay on my two-part philosophy. If someone is interested, please check that out on my blog. The business school I'm applying for MBA has a GMAT requirement of 530 and above.


It is hard for me to study and keep myself motivated for any test without scheduling it. With that in mind, on first September, the day of my thirtieth birthday, I went ahead and scheduled the GMAT exam for November nineteenth. The timing of the test was kind of odd as it was at 6pm in the evening. Although I'm not a morning person but starting a four hour test at six in the evening was something that I didn't like. There were no other timing slots available except eight in the morning or six in the evening. Even though at that point, I thought that I have plenty of time to study, which was almost two-and-a-half months, but one thing I didn't realize that how my life is going to change in the months ahead.

While I was out-of-town for my Naturalization ceremony, my realtor called and told me and my wife about the house. To cut the long story short, my wife and I liked the home and went ahead with the lending process. Buying a home is a long and tedious process. I'm planning on writing a separate blog on my experience with the whole home buying process. While I was working full-time, I was also busy with the home buying process. I thought that the process is going to stop once we move into our new home. But I was absolutely wrong. Since we used to live in a small two bedroom home before moving to our new home, we didn't have any furniture. So, I got busy with the new home projects. During this entire time, I didn't study for GMAT. In early November, I received a call from business school admission coordinator and she asked me to submit the pending documents including GMAT. I told her that I was busy and I'm planning to reschedule my GMAT. The admission coordinator told me that if I want to be considered for spring semester, I've to submit my GMAT by the end of December. After a week of thinking process, and to give myself enough time for preparation, I rescheduled the GMAT exam for twenty eight of December. During the same time, I got my promotion at work, and thus my responsibilities were increased. So, once again I was busy at work and busy at home. By the time I realized that I've not started my preparations for GMAT, it was already eleventh of December. I was lucky that my manager approved one week off before my exam. So, I had a little over two weeks to prepare for GMAT, with one working week and one off week.

Most of you who are still reading this never ending debrief, must have realized that I'm a structured procrastinator. I finally laid down my plan to take the GMAT and achieve required score of 530 and above with two week's worth of preparation. I must caution you at this point that my strategy was for achieving desired score for a busy professional in a very limited amount of time.

Resources:

I used very limited resources, which includes:

1.Official Guide, 12th Edition
2.Princeton Review
3.Kaplan GMAT Advanced 2009-2010 Edition

I religiously used the following for my preparation:
1.Official Guide, 12th Edition

I used OG12 religiously throughout my whole preparation. I solved all the problems in OG12. It includes the following:

a.Problem Solving: 230 questions
b.Data Sufficiency: 174 questions
c.Reading Passages: 34 passages
d.Critical Reasoning: 124 questions
e.Sentence Completion: 150 questions

I also read OG12's math and grammar review section twice.

2.Princeton Review

I mostly used PR for getting myself familiar with GMAT format. I didn't solve any problems from PR. Since I already read Eric's debrief in which he said that OG12 is the bible, the Koran, the Torah, and the Gita of GMAT. I didn't spend my time on solving irrelevant problems as problems in OG12 are the closest to the actual GMAT exam questions. I mostly read PR in my bed before starting questions from OG12. For instance, I would read the entire chapter about Sentence Correction, and then start solving SC problems from OG12. PR is a well-written book and it is fun to read it. Specially, for beginners, it is a great resource as it doesn't try to intimidate them.

3.Kaplan

During the final week of my preparation, I glanced through this book, especially for Math and Grammar review. I personally didn't find anything useful in Kaplan. I've heard that questions in Kaplan are harder than actual exam but I didn't get a chance to solve them. I found very good explanation about the eraser board in the introductory chapter of Kaplan and that was something I found useful. Overall, I didn't consider this book for my preparation.
My Strategy for each section:

1.Problem Solving Questions

I went through Math review from PR, OG12, and GMATPrep CD. Trust me, the review and examples in GMATPrep CD are extremely relevant, and the explanation is well-written. I would highly suggest memorizing all the formulae by using flash cards, and using them while solving the problems. As soon as I finished math review, which didn't take much time, I jumped to OG12 and started solving PS questions. I was using stop watch to time all the questions. In one session, I solved a set of twenty questions. Some of the questions were easy but I was spending more than two minutes to solve them. I struggled with a lot of questions at the end, especially the last one hundred questions. Eric is absolutely right about the difficulty level of last one hundred questions. I wanted to solve each of the 230 questions again, but I didn't have time before the exam.

2.Data Sufficiency Questions
I struggled with DS questions initially, but after I started applying Eric's techniques, I was able to easily solve most of the DS questions. First mistake was not identifying the exact type of the DS question. And, it is not that hard. DS questions are either yes/no or value type. The second mistake was mixing the two statements. These two techniques are extremely important and thanks Eric for mentioning them in your debrief. In one session, I solved a set of only ten questions as my brain couldn't handle more than ten. They are extremely weird type of questions and I still detest them the most. But, they are definitely not invincible.

3.Reading Comprehension

I read almost 34 passages from OG12. I followed the techniques by other high GMAT scorer. I liked the idea of perusing and not skimming the whole passage. I would only proceed to the questions after comprehending the passage completely. My success rate in RC passage was almost one hundred percent, but my major weakness was time. When I initially started solving RC questions, I was reading one passage in 4-6 minutes, and spending on average 2-3 minutes on each question. Despite practice I couldn't improve my time. When I started racing myself, my success rate dropped drastically. RC passages are not easy, and some of the paragraphs and sentences are extremely complex in terms of structure and information. I didn't have time to go through the LSAT passages, but according to several debriefs, they are harder than GMAT RC questions.

4.Sentence Completion
I reviewed the sentence completion from PR and OG12. I reviewed complete grammar from very basic parts of speech to complex issues involving diction. After finishing the review, I started OG12 SC questions. I was very happy with my performance for the first fifty questions. It started to get difficult and tricky afterwards. I solved all the 150 questions. I didn't spent time memorizing the GMAT idioms. I knew most of them already. But the way GMAT compose their SC questions, sometime it is hard to tell the idioms apart.

5.Critical Reasoning
I didn't start solving CR questions until three days before my actual exam. I know it was insane but I considered CR questions as common sense questions. I eventually solved all the questions from OG12. I felt very confident about the CR questions. I read PR for CR techniques and it didn't take much time. However, most of the questions were easy to moderate in OG12.

6.Essays
I came up with a good strategy for analytical writing section. I created my own template. But, I've to give credit to myohmy and Erin. They posted sample templates under 'Beat the GMAT' resources section. It helped me a lot. I don't like to do brainstorming before writing. While I'm writing, I think of examples and facts. I owe these guys a huge thank you. I scored a perfect 6.0 in AWA.

Before the Exam Day

I didn't take off before the exam. My exam was on Monday, and I was studying on Sunday. I tried to take breaks but I felt the best strategy for me was to keep studying. I took half a day off when I started my preparation, and next day I was feeling rusty. I didn't want to get into this situation. From Friday, I was already feeling anxiety and nervousness. On Sunday, I woke up with a sore throat and fever. This is not the kind of situation you want to be in before the exam day. I knew that my sickness was solely due to extreme stress and anxiety. I was stressed due to myriad of reasons. One of the biggest reasons was my employer's expectations. Since my employer was sponsoring my GMAT and MBA, I didn't want to let my employer down by not getting the required score. I didn't want to get embarrassed in front of my employer. Besides, my perfectionist personality was putting additional pressure on me. I read other similar stories on Beat the GMAT forum about getting sick on or before the exam day. I tried all the possible medications and herbal supplements to get better before the exam. When I get sick, it normally takes three to four days to recover. I was despair and fear was looming around me. By Sunday evening, I developed coughing and headache. I couldn't concentrate and focus. At that point, I decided to stop my preparation and just solve few easy questions. I went through the math review from GMATPrep CD. I solved all the practice questions. Before I went to bed, I quickly glanced at the essay template. Since my exam was on Monday at 2pm in the afternoon, I decided to go through the essay template again in the morning.

I went to bed after mid night. I tried to fall asleep but I couldn't. Around 2 in the morning, I realized that I was extremely sick and anxious. So, instead of fighting and pushing myself to sleep, I just lay in the bed and tried to relax. All the GMAT questions were racing through my mind. My mind was adamant not to sleep. My body was tired but my mind was anxious and awake. I didn't try to resist what my mind was doing. It was one of the most painful nights of my life before the exam. I didn't take Nyquil before I went to bed because it gives me severe drowsiness the next day. Although, it helps me sleep when I'm sick. So, Nyquil was not an option.

Exam Day

I woke up at 9pm but stayed in the bed till almost 10 pm. I couldn't sleep but I was feeling much better. I did my morning rituals and took hot shower. I ate my breakfast at around 11pm. My wife made me some eggs and toast. As usual, I had a cup of tea. After finishing the breakfast, I called the test center to check about the passport. The gentleman at the customer service was extremely nice and cooperative. He told me that I don't need to bring my passport and just bring the driver's license. Since my passport was at the bank locker, it saved me from extra hassle on exam day. I went to my office room and solved few problems from GMATPrep CD. I went through the essay template again and made sure I remember some of the good phrases and vocabulary.

I left home at around 12:45pm. Since it was lunch time for offices, I made sure I had plenty of time to get to my test center. I reached my test center a little after 1pm. When I walked into the test center, I was pleased with the environment. When I took my GRE in Pakistan, I was treated like a criminal, and I felt violated after body search and interrogation. The proctor took my finger prints and picture. I put all of my belongings into the locker room including my wrist watch. I did my own body search in front of the proctor and then he escorted me to my desk. He gave me a dry eraser board with two steadler permanent markers. The eraser board had 4 or 5 pages and they were longer than standard A4 size page. I quickly went through initial screens and selected business school to report my score. Since I had some time left, I started to practice on the eraser board to get the feel of it. I would suggest buying them from Walmart while solving OG12 problems. It is not a bad idea to go to GMAT with least possible variables and surprises. But writing on the eraser board didn't bother me at all. I started my first argument essay and nailed it. I had five minutes in hand after proof-reading. During this time, I tried to relax and started preparing myself for next essay. I started my analysis of an issue essay and nailed it as well. I like to write without brainstorming on paper. I believe it gives me extra time to write while I'm thinking. I finished the entire AWA section and raised my hand for break. I only had 8 minutes to go to the rest room and eat some snack.

When I came out of the testing room, the proctor told me that my date of birth in the system is incorrect, and I've to provide another ID with my date of birth on it. I asked him about solving this problem after the exam, but he was following the book. I searched my wallet for the ID with my date of birth and finally found an expired Permanent Resident Card, which he accepted as an evidence to fix the problem. I quickly ran to the bathroom as my bladder was exploding. I splashed water on my face and came back. I ate a piece of yogurt bar, drank some water and went back to the testing room. I went through the body search again and checked in. When I got to the desk, the clock was saying that I exceeded five minutes of my quantitative section. On top of that, the proctor couldn't enter his password correctly. It took him another minute to enter correct password to unlock the exam. When I started the quantitative section, I almost missed six minutes or three questions. I was nervous and rushed on the first few questions to catch up. A word of advice for all GMAT test-takers: Please come back to your desk and make sure you have couple minutes to settle down, breathe and relax. Most of the quantitative questions were similar to GMATPrep practice tests. I was cruising on the problem solving questions but the data-sufficiency questions were really difficult. I got few difficult questions from probability and statistics. I finished all the quantitative questions on time. I raised my hand for break. The proctor came and took me out. This time, I ran to the bathroom, splashed the water on my face, and came back within two minutes. I ate another bar and drank yogurt drink. When I went back to the desk, my head was heavy and my eyes were hurting. I was looking at the screen but I couldn't focus or concentrate. I was trying not to think about the quantitative section. One thing I forgot to mention here is that when I came back to my desk, I still had three minutes of my break time left. I went through the tutorial and started my Verbal section. As usual, the first question was from sentence completion. I was doing fine in the beginning, and then I received a long RC passage. I could hardly read on the screen. I took a few seconds break and convinced myself that this is the last section and I've to try my best and finish it. Verbal section was brutal in terms of time and level of difficulty. The CR questions were moderate, but the RC passages gave me a hard time. I finished verbal section with one minutes in hand. I skimmed most of the RC passages as I was not able to focus. I went to the score page and clicked on 'Report Score'. I knew that I messed up the quantitative section due to time and verbal section due to fever. When I opened my eyes and looked at the 530 score, I was much relieved because I got the minimum required score for business school. I scored a 39 in quantitative and 25 in verbal. I could have done much better but given the situation I was in, I was extremely happy with my score.

After exam, I came home and finished writing my essay. I've posted my essay on my blog. Next day, I submitted my resume and essay along with unofficial GMAT score to business school.

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I received a letter today from Graduate School that I'm admitted to MBA program. Thanks to Eric and other folks on 'Beat the GMAT' website. I read each and every story and article multiple times before I took my GMAT and it helped me a lot. Although, I didn't score high in GMAT, but my objective is achieved. Kudos to Eric and his team!

[LusitanoGMAT]

Thank you so much for your detailed post! It offers MUCH support for those who've been out of school for a while (esp. if/working demanding jobs). You've accomplished a great deal in two weeks, very intense. I'll definitely take a look at the two other posts you mentioned. Many thanks and Congrats!!!

[beatthegmat]

Wow, thank you so much for sharing this incredibly detailed post! Congrats on your admit!