2 yrs,5 attempts,My("Tough Mudder") Journey to 730

[mimi215]

Hi There!

I am FINALLY done with the GMAT as of today! - My GMAT journey concluded with a 730(Q49,V41). Ever since I joined "Beat the GMAT" 2 years ago, I have envisioned writing a debrief of my experience. To start out with, I want to say a big THANK YOU to the Beat the GMAT community, I have learned a lot and have gotten a lot of support over the last 2 years - wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of this community!

The last few days have been eventful. I completed my first Tough Mudder challenge (an over 11-mile and over 20 obstacle course) on Saturday (5/19) and walked away with several cuts and bruises. Although it may sound pretty corny, I felt that my experience with Tough Mudder helped reminded me to keep my eyes on the prize (and continue to persevere) when it came to taking the GMAT.

Below are my GMAT scores:
-GMAT #1 - 650 - June 2010
-GMAT #2 - 590 - Sept 2010
-GMAT #3 - 600 - March 2011
-GMAT #4 - 640 - April 2012
-GMAT #5 - 730 - May 2012

June 2010: I took the GMAT for the 1st time after taking a review course of the GMAT. The course was helpful in preparing me for the exam. Although I thought 650 was a respectable score, I realized that it was not probably enough to help me stand out when it comes to applications.

Sept 2010: After 3 months of studying, I decided to re-take the test. However, I found myself very distracted on test day - work was crazy during that time and I had been working all weekend - I found myself thinking about work while I was taking the exam at the testing center, and I was not able to focus on the test. When I saw my 590 score, I almost couldn't stop the tears from flowing out of my eyes. After calming down for a little bit, I decided that I would give the exam another try...

March 2011: My 3rd attempt ... despite not feeling well during the test (I had major head and stomach aches), I decided that I still shouldn't cancel my score and I ended up with a 600... After 3 attempts at the GMAT, I wasn't sure what to do... I posted on Beat the GMAT and asked for the thoughts of fellow community members on whether I should re-take the exam... I received great support and heard some inspiring stories of people who have taken the exam several times and ended up achieving their goals.

April 2012: A little bit over a year after my 3rd attempt, I decided to re-take the GMAT after taking the Princeton Review GMAT Prep course - the course was very helpful and I walked into the testing center feeling pretty good. When I saw my 640 score, I felt dejected... 4th attempt and the score was still lower than my 1st attempt??? I took a couple of days to reflect on my experience and decided to give the exam 1 LAST shot before the GMAT exam is changed to the new format...

Today: I felt pretty prepared for the exam when I walked into the test center today but was still walking a little bit funny because of muscle soreness from Tough Mudder. Although the exam is long, as usual, I felt focused and confident for the most part. At the end of the exam, I clicked through all the sections leading up to the score and was VERY surprised when I saw the 730 and blurted out "oh my goodness!..." I couldn't believe my eyes, 2 years and 5 attempts later, I had exceeded my goal of 700! I know that 5 attempts was a lot but I was determined to reach my goal and believe that the end justified the means - would love to hear your thoughts.


Study Materials Used
The OG GMAT Review - 12th Edition
Manhattan GMAT - Sentence Correction
The Princeton Review Manual for the GMAT
Kaplan GMAT 800
Beat the GMAT flashcards (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/free-gma ... flashcards)

Tips
"¢ Learn from your mistakes - keep track of the questions you get wrong during practice exams and review them and understand your mistakes so that you can learn more them.
"¢ Practice, Practice, Practice... - practice exams are great to help you identify your areas of weakness and to get used to the pace of the exam.
"¢ Use flashcards - I kept the flashcards (I had printed them out and stick them on 3x5 notecards) in my purse and reviewed them whenever I have some down time - they were very helpful!
"¢ DON'T cram the night before the exam - make sure to relax and do something fun (ex. dinner and a movie)- it is important to relax and get a good night of sleep.

I apologize for the lengthy post... the purpose of this post, apart from sharing my emotional journey, is to hopefully provide hope and encouragement for someone who is going through the GMAT journey. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer. Also, please share any thoughts you have about my LONG journey.

Best of luck and don't ever stop believing in yourself!

[LDRich13]

Congrats!!!!

This gives me hope. I too took a class and didn't see a huge increase, but I plan on using their tips and progressing from there. Your tips are great as well! Congrats again (On Tough Mudder...my friends just finished that race...and the GMAT)! Best of luck with your Grad School apps.

[gmat2805]

Congrats. This is inspiring. I took GMAT today and cancelled my scores . Is number of attempts considered bad if we keep on trying and not getting good score. Will getting a new score less than previous score lead to any problems. I am really shattered by what I did today. My loweest was 590 in Kaplan CATs I could have atleast seen the score !!

[mathewmithun]

congrats...ur story and the way you succeeded and reached ur goal is really inspiring. Hope I get a chance to write such a note in BTG...(I had really flopped my first attempt with GMAT and i earnestly hope to succeed at the next chance...)

[kaps786]

Congrats! this is indeed inspirational.

I wanted to check what you felt helped you most in improving your scores in terms of the resources used. I know you mention different resources and emphasize a lot of practice tests also in your debrief, but some more details about which of these helped you most with what ...would also be useful for all.

Any other inputs on changes in the way you approached the exam, fifth time around...would be helpful as well.

Thanks
Kaps

[African Dude]

Congrats on achieving that excellent score.

[destroyerofgmat]

Congrats! That's awesome. I am in the same boat you were in...two years into it, 4 tests down (highest score is 600), dejected, and feeling hopeless. Last test was on May 4th. I'm debating whether to give up. I've been depressed since the exam. What type of practice did you do the month between your 4th and 5th exam?

Thanks

[mimi215]

Thanks for the comments!

@ldrich13 - Glad to hear that my post was able to help provide you with some hope (this was my main purpose for sharing my experience here) and congrats to your friends who recently completed Tough Mudder and the GMAT!

@gmat2805 - Thank you for your comments! From what I have heard thus far, most schools do not care too much about how many times you take the exam since most of them take the highest score. No harm in trying if you think you can still improve your score significantly.

@mathewmithun - Thank you for you post and best of luck with your GMAT journey!

@kaps786 - The resources that were the most helpful for me between my 4th and 5th attempts were: Kaplan's GMAT 800 (especially for Sentence Correction), Beat the GMAT flashcards, and online practice exams from MBA.com and the Princeton Review website. I knew that I had more room for improvement on my verbal section, especially Sentence Correction, so I focused a lot of my efforts on reviewing the commonly tested types of questions and memorizing idioms.

@African Dude - Thank you!

@destroyerofgmat - What is goal score? Have you narrowed down on your area(s) of weakness on the exam? If so, make sure to focus on those areas during your practice exams - this was the most helpful for me when trying to improve my verbal (especially sentence correction) - I used Kaplan's GMAT 800 and practice exams from MBA.com and Princeton Review as my main study resources between my 4th and 5th attempts of the exam.

Thanks again for the comments! Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like more information!

[rupa_m]

Congratulations !!! very encouraging notes from you.

[dgp_joynpti]

Hi There!

I am FINALLY done with the GMAT as of today! - My GMAT journey concluded with a 730(Q49,V41). Ever since I joined "Beat the GMAT" 2 years ago, I have envisioned writing a debrief of my experience. To start out with, I want to say a big THANK YOU to the Beat the GMAT community, I have learned a lot and have gotten a lot of support over the last 2 years - wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of this community!

The last few days have been eventful. I completed my first Tough Mudder challenge (an over 11-mile and over 20 obstacle course) on Saturday (5/19) and walked away with several cuts and bruises. Although it may sound pretty corny, I felt that my experience with Tough Mudder helped reminded me to keep my eyes on the prize (and continue to persevere) when it came to taking the GMAT.

Below are my GMAT scores:
-GMAT #1 - 650 - June 2010
-GMAT #2 - 590 - Sept 2010
-GMAT #3 - 600 - March 2011
-GMAT #4 - 640 - April 2012
-GMAT #5 - 730 - May 2012

June 2010: I took the GMAT for the 1st time after taking a review course of the GMAT. The course was helpful in preparing me for the exam. Although I thought 650 was a respectable score, I realized that it was not probably enough to help me stand out when it comes to applications.

Sept 2010: After 3 months of studying, I decided to re-take the test. However, I found myself very distracted on test day - work was crazy during that time and I had been working all weekend - I found myself thinking about work while I was taking the exam at the testing center, and I was not able to focus on the test. When I saw my 590 score, I almost couldn't stop the tears from flowing out of my eyes. After calming down for a little bit, I decided that I would give the exam another try...

March 2011: My 3rd attempt ... despite not feeling well during the test (I had major head and stomach aches), I decided that I still shouldn't cancel my score and I ended up with a 600... After 3 attempts at the GMAT, I wasn't sure what to do... I posted on Beat the GMAT and asked for the thoughts of fellow community members on whether I should re-take the exam... I received great support and heard some inspiring stories of people who have taken the exam several times and ended up achieving their goals.

April 2012: A little bit over a year after my 3rd attempt, I decided to re-take the GMAT after taking the Princeton Review GMAT Prep course - the course was very helpful and I walked into the testing center feeling pretty good. When I saw my 640 score, I felt dejected... 4th attempt and the score was still lower than my 1st attempt??? I took a couple of days to reflect on my experience and decided to give the exam 1 LAST shot before the GMAT exam is changed to the new format...

Today: I felt pretty prepared for the exam when I walked into the test center today but was still walking a little bit funny because of muscle soreness from Tough Mudder. Although the exam is long, as usual, I felt focused and confident for the most part. At the end of the exam, I clicked through all the sections leading up to the score and was VERY surprised when I saw the 730 and blurted out "oh my goodness!..." I couldn't believe my eyes, 2 years and 5 attempts later, I had exceeded my goal of 700! I know that 5 attempts was a lot but I was determined to reach my goal and believe that the end justified the means - would love to hear your thoughts.


Study Materials Used
The OG GMAT Review - 12th Edition
Manhattan GMAT - Sentence Correction
The Princeton Review Manual for the GMAT
Kaplan GMAT 800
Beat the GMAT flashcards (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/free-gma ... flashcards)

Tips
"¢ Learn from your mistakes - keep track of the questions you get wrong during practice exams and review them and understand your mistakes so that you can learn more them.
"¢ Practice, Practice, Practice... - practice exams are great to help you identify your areas of weakness and to get used to the pace of the exam.
"¢ Use flashcards - I kept the flashcards (I had printed them out and stick them on 3x5 notecards) in my purse and reviewed them whenever I have some down time - they were very helpful!
"¢ DON'T cram the night before the exam - make sure to relax and do something fun (ex. dinner and a movie)- it is important to relax and get a good night of sleep.

I apologize for the lengthy post... the purpose of this post, apart from sharing my emotional journey, is to hopefully provide hope and encouragement for someone who is going through the GMAT journey. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer. Also, please share any thoughts you have about my LONG journey.

Best of luck and don't ever stop believing in yourself!

[dgp_joynpti]

Its really an encouraging story for those who could not achieve success in the first attempt.I am also too much depressed for my scores.In the first GMAT exam I scored 550 and in the second I scored 580.Basically I am involved in POWER PLANT COMMISSIONING ACTIVITIES so I have to invest a lot of time for the plant.Now it has become a big challenge for me to score above 700.Please do offer me some tips so that I am able to score above 700.

[jvoralik]

CONGRATULATIONS on such an amazing score! Thank you very much for sharing your journey. Your perseverance is encouraging.

Cheers!

[pitpat]

Congrats! This story is inspiring!

[mimi215]

@rupa_m - Thank You!
@dgp_joynpti - Practice exams, Beat the GMAT flash cards, and Kaplan GMAT 800 were the most helpful to me when I was studying for my last exam. Good luck with the exam and don't give up!
@jvoralik - Thank You for the note!
@pitpat - Thank You!

[mrinal2100]

Hi mimi,
i gave the GMAt yesterday and scored 620.I felt i was running out of time and some DS questions were also tricky.during the fifth time what changes did u make for your preparation.