Just done with my GMAT 4 hrs back. Got a shocking and unexpected score - 760. Here's my debrief. Since I am super tired and also because people will find it easier to read, I am mentioning my it in points instead of big lengthy paragraphs (unless reqd).
Note: Please ignore any mistakes- grammatical or otherwise since i am too tired to edit it right now. I will edit it properly tomorrow and provide links to the materials i used. I havent re-read it after typing so i am sure there will be many mistakes. Please ignore it for now. It will be dealt with soon!
My Background
- Work in construction industry
- Workdays Monday to Saturday - 12-14 hrs min everyday
- Sometimes work on Sunday for 3-4 hrs but rarely
- This is my first GMAT attempt
- Started preparing around April beginning
- Wasn't able to give more than 30-60 min a day due to heavy work load
- Majority of study time was on Sundays
My studies
- In April, google searched GMAT to see what it was all about
- Spent 2 weeks just browsing, reading forums, seeing associated colleges, etc
- Bought OG 13 and started to solve all problems one by one
Tip: Dont solve questions section by section - Example 100 questions in SC then move to 100 q in CR. You'll get bored and tired and wont be able to concentrate
1. Quant
Materials I used:
-OG 13
-Gmatclub Question of the day
Other Details:
-Went through all OG questions.
-My quant was naturally good so didnt bother with all the theory.
-Most of my quant practice came from free online tests such as those in Gmat Club.
-Quant in MGMAT mocks are interesting and challenging.
Tips:
- Go through OG just for fun. The Q here is way too easy. Most questions are 500-600 levels.
2. Verbal - SC
Materials used:
-MGMAT SC guide (Must Have)
-Gmatclub Question of the day
-100 SC questions set - gmatclub
Other Details
- Verbal overall was my weakness
- 100 SC set is a must have for everyone. It increased my accuracy from 60% to 90% within 10 days.
3. Verbal - CR
Materials used:
-Powerscore CR (Must Have)
-Gmatclub Question of the day
-700-800 level CR set - gmatclub
Other Details
- Verbal overall was my weakness
- Again, the CR set here increased my accuracy from 65% to 90% within 10 days.
Tip:
-700-800 CR set is a must do for everyone. If you are short on time just do the 100 questions of superset included in it. They are superb.
4. Verbal - RC
Materials used:
-Aristole RC 99
-700-800 level RC set - gmatclub
Other Details
- RC was my biggest weakness in Verbal
- Lots of practice required to get better at it.
- Aristole RC is divided into 3 sets of difficulty. I directly too the hardest one.
- After doing half the problems, gave up on it because it was crazy hard. You would never see such RC coming in GMAT even in your dreams.
- Yes I know it was supposed to be more for practice, but I wasnt going anywhere with it so I kept it away.
- My accuracy was around 50% a week before the exam
- The RC set here increased my accuracy to 80%
5. IR
Materials used:
-MGMAT IR
-Magoosh IR (Available Free)
Other Details
- Just like lot of others, IR was my nightmare.
- Max correct ans i got in all mocks was 5.
- Never finished IR properly in any mock.
- I just left it to God for the actual IR in the exam and hoped for the best.
Tips:
- IR materials dont really matter. Dont waste your money
- Best practice is do it along with GMAT mocks
- Just understand the types of questions once. Dont waste your time going into detail
5. AWA
Materials used:
-chineseburned notes - gmatclub
Other Details
- Chineseburned notes are all you require.
- From his notes made a template common to all arguments.
- I wrote the same intro and concl to all without even reading the questions. Saves time, increases words.
- Gave AWA with all my mocks. This was my only practice
Tips:
- AWA materials dont really matter. Dont waste your money buying them.
- Most good materials are available in gmatclub forum itself.
- Best practice is do it along with GMAT mocks
- Unless your writing skills are bad, dont spend much time practicing it.
My mocks
For the last 2 months before the GMAT exam, i made it a habit to give one mock every sunday and review it deeply. (4 hrs + 3 hrs for review)\
I had set my target at 700.
1. MGMAT Mock 1 - 630 (Q44,V32)
Started with this mock which i got with MGMAT SC book purchase. These mocks are highly recommended. They are the best available out there.
Anyway, so my first mock disappointing. I said no prob.. Just starting to work. Will get better.
2. MGMAT Mock 2 - 660 (Q44,V36)
Improvement. Felt better. Hoped for further increase in next mock.
3. MGMAT Mock 3 - 640 (Q44,V33)
Down again. I noticed that my Q was pretty fixed by V kept going up and down.
4. MGMAT Mock 4 - 640 (Q44,V33)
Still no improvement. I started feeling disappointed and tensed. Low on confidence. Is this my final level? 640? I thought its time i tried a mock apart from manhattan just to make sure.
5. Kaplan Free mock - 720 (Q47,V36 or something)
Kaplan scoring is highly inaccurate. Talking about the mock, Q was unbelievably easy. It was giving mostly 500 level questions. I coulnt help but laugh while giving the test. Weirdly, I got just 3 ques wrong in Q and still got Q47. In V i got 20 wrong ( more than Mgmat) and still got V36. I looked up some discussion threads discussing Kaplan tests and found out people usually get in low 600s ( those who get MGMAT in 700) So I was fully confused with the result and chose to ignore it.
6. Princeton Free mock - 660 or something not sure
Dont remember the details sorry.
7. MGMAT Mock 5 - 620 (Q45,V31) - 2 weeks before GMAT
After this is I decided that my actual level was low 600 only and I should probably aim for 650 in the actual test. After studying and giving so many mocks for 2 months and getting a score lower than my 1st mock was completely demoralizing.
8. GMATPrep Mock 1 - 700 (Q49,V36) - 1 week before GMAT
I let out a sigh of relief. One thing i noted here is that MGMAT Q is much tougher than actual GMAT. MGMAT V is similar in SC and CR but RC are much much tougher than actual GMAT. In Q i got 13 incorrect and in V i got 14 incorrect. I was happy with my Q score. Decided that in the week thats left i will concentrate only on Verbal.
9. GMATPrep Mock 2 - 710 (Q50,V35) - 2 days before GMAT
Slight improvement. Improved Q again. V was quite to the contrary. My main aim here was to reduce the number of incorrect answers. I got 10 incorrect in both Q and V which was a big improvement. I didnt understand why even after giving 4 lesser incorrect ans than previous mock by score reduced by 1 point. But happy with anything above 700.
Exam Day
- Reached 1 hr in advance
- Got gatorade. Just something i read in gmat club forums :D
- Finished with the routine checks
- They allowed me to start immediately. (Highly recommended not to wait longer. You will feel tensed and probably tire soon)
1. AWA
- Didn't see the question. Wrote my template of introduction and conclusion (chineseburned notes)
- Recommended not to see questions, your mind will start wandering, you may forget the template
- Make sure you write template withinin 6-7 min, read question deeply 2-3 min, Fin essay with clock around 23 min, check for spelling, grammatical errors, sentence construction, etc for remaining time - very imp
- In my exam AWA wasn't that straightforward. Took some time to come up with points.
- Fin with 1 min to spare. Did decent. Will update AWA score when it comes.
2. IR
- My nightmare.
- Got the 1st question as easy as anyone can imagine. It was a Quant Find X-Y 2 part. Took 5 min, got completely confused, guessed and moved on.
- More tension due to this. Already short on time.
- Others were somewhat easy and managed to get some of them right. Had to guess a few. Finished right on time.
- My aim was to get above mean score in IR. I think i achieved that. Will update once scores come out.
Note: IR in actual exam is way way easier than those in mocks. Trust me. I know i too read this on posts by other members and didnt believe it but you have to see it to believe it. MGMAT IR is killer - tough and time consuming. Dont get scared by it. GMATPrep IR is slightly tougher than actual IR too.
3. Break
- Wrote time limits for my quant section in the booklet.
Questions Done - Time left
7-61
14-47
21-33
28-19
35-5
37-0
Other people follow others. This is my own. I have tried many. This suited me perfectly. You follow whatever you want but DO follow.
- After that i went out
- Drank half bottle gatorade
- Stretched hands and legs.
- Went in
4. Quant
- Always been my strength
- Straightforward PS questions, quick to solve
- Many DS were tricky so i took my time
- Overall maybe guessed/unable to solve just 2-3
- Fin with 2 min left. Felt positive about my performance.
5. Break
- Wrote time limits for my verbal section in the booklet.
Questions Done - Time left
10-57
20-39
30-21
40-3
41-0
Other people follow others. This is my own. I have tried many. This suited me perfectly. You follow whatever you want but DO follow. Make sure to use bigger interval than Q as you may have to accommodate RC in it.
- After that i went out
- Drank remaining half bottle gatorade
- Stretched hands and legs.
- Emptied Bladder
- Went in
6. Verbal
- My overall score has been coming down mainly because of verbal
- Cleared my head. Told to myself, we will take this one ques at a time.
- Many SC were straight forward. But i took my time reviewing each option just to make double sure that there wasn't a trap.
- CR were easy too apart from a few tricky ones. The prob with them is they take more time to read than SC which leaves you lesser time with options
- Tried to read quick and tried to understand what it was trying to say. Answered (do check all options no matter what) and moved on.
- RC was more of a surprise and a relief. I got 3 or 4 RC. Sorry dont remember exactly how many. Really easy ones and straightforward.
- Passages were easy to understand. No weird terms and didnt have to remember anything. Answered most questions without reading the passage again.
- During my last question stage ( Ques 31-41) i was going really behind the clock ( according to my time limits wrote during break) so had to speed up
- Marked some quick answers for the last few questions - but never guessed. If wasn't sure took my time to re-read the questions and solutions again
- Dont make hasty decisions due to time shortage. Make quick decisions not guesses.
- Done just in the nick of time. Felt that I did ok but wasnt feeling that confident of verbal overall.
7. Done
- Went through the routine surveys
- If you have updated your profile, most options will already be selected in the survey.
- Clicking Next - Next - Next .. countless times
- The important screen with warning in red - Cancel score or show score. They give 1 min time limit. Make sure you select within that else score will be cancelled. Clicked OK and hoped for a score starting with 7.
- 760! completely surprised. At first I thought it was showing something else, maybe what I could have got if i had not made mistakes or something like that. Kept staring at the score looking at all parts of the screen for any conditions apply or something.
- when i was completely sure of my score, i was elated. Couldnt take my eyes off the computer screen. Finally the proctor has to come and tell me to click finish and get out.
- Took my unofficial Report again making sure that it was my name written above the score.
Thanks for reading! There are some things I would still like to add. I will do that tomorrow. If you have any questions regarding anything at all, feel free to ask here. I would be glad to help. If this debrief helped you in any way you know what to do (Kudos![:P]( "Razz")
) so that i know my 3 hrs spent writing this wasnt a waste of time.
Cheers!
-
Note: Please ignore any mistakes- grammatical or otherwise since i am too tired to edit it right now. I will edit it properly tomorrow and provide links to the materials i used. I havent re-read it after typing so i am sure there will be many mistakes. Please ignore it for now. It will be dealt with soon!
My Background
- Work in construction industry
- Workdays Monday to Saturday - 12-14 hrs min everyday
- Sometimes work on Sunday for 3-4 hrs but rarely
- This is my first GMAT attempt
- Started preparing around April beginning
- Wasn't able to give more than 30-60 min a day due to heavy work load
- Majority of study time was on Sundays
My studies
- In April, google searched GMAT to see what it was all about
- Spent 2 weeks just browsing, reading forums, seeing associated colleges, etc
- Bought OG 13 and started to solve all problems one by one
Tip: Dont solve questions section by section - Example 100 questions in SC then move to 100 q in CR. You'll get bored and tired and wont be able to concentrate
1. Quant
Materials I used:
-OG 13
-Gmatclub Question of the day
Other Details:
-Went through all OG questions.
-My quant was naturally good so didnt bother with all the theory.
-Most of my quant practice came from free online tests such as those in Gmat Club.
-Quant in MGMAT mocks are interesting and challenging.
Tips:
- Go through OG just for fun. The Q here is way too easy. Most questions are 500-600 levels.
2. Verbal - SC
Materials used:
-MGMAT SC guide (Must Have)
-Gmatclub Question of the day
-100 SC questions set - gmatclub
Other Details
- Verbal overall was my weakness
- 100 SC set is a must have for everyone. It increased my accuracy from 60% to 90% within 10 days.
3. Verbal - CR
Materials used:
-Powerscore CR (Must Have)
-Gmatclub Question of the day
-700-800 level CR set - gmatclub
Other Details
- Verbal overall was my weakness
- Again, the CR set here increased my accuracy from 65% to 90% within 10 days.
Tip:
-700-800 CR set is a must do for everyone. If you are short on time just do the 100 questions of superset included in it. They are superb.
4. Verbal - RC
Materials used:
-Aristole RC 99
-700-800 level RC set - gmatclub
Other Details
- RC was my biggest weakness in Verbal
- Lots of practice required to get better at it.
- Aristole RC is divided into 3 sets of difficulty. I directly too the hardest one.
- After doing half the problems, gave up on it because it was crazy hard. You would never see such RC coming in GMAT even in your dreams.
- Yes I know it was supposed to be more for practice, but I wasnt going anywhere with it so I kept it away.
- My accuracy was around 50% a week before the exam
- The RC set here increased my accuracy to 80%
5. IR
Materials used:
-MGMAT IR
-Magoosh IR (Available Free)
Other Details
- Just like lot of others, IR was my nightmare.
- Max correct ans i got in all mocks was 5.
- Never finished IR properly in any mock.
- I just left it to God for the actual IR in the exam and hoped for the best.
Tips:
- IR materials dont really matter. Dont waste your money
- Best practice is do it along with GMAT mocks
- Just understand the types of questions once. Dont waste your time going into detail
5. AWA
Materials used:
-chineseburned notes - gmatclub
Other Details
- Chineseburned notes are all you require.
- From his notes made a template common to all arguments.
- I wrote the same intro and concl to all without even reading the questions. Saves time, increases words.
- Gave AWA with all my mocks. This was my only practice
Tips:
- AWA materials dont really matter. Dont waste your money buying them.
- Most good materials are available in gmatclub forum itself.
- Best practice is do it along with GMAT mocks
- Unless your writing skills are bad, dont spend much time practicing it.
My mocks
For the last 2 months before the GMAT exam, i made it a habit to give one mock every sunday and review it deeply. (4 hrs + 3 hrs for review)\
I had set my target at 700.
1. MGMAT Mock 1 - 630 (Q44,V32)
Started with this mock which i got with MGMAT SC book purchase. These mocks are highly recommended. They are the best available out there.
Anyway, so my first mock disappointing. I said no prob.. Just starting to work. Will get better.
2. MGMAT Mock 2 - 660 (Q44,V36)
Improvement. Felt better. Hoped for further increase in next mock.
3. MGMAT Mock 3 - 640 (Q44,V33)
Down again. I noticed that my Q was pretty fixed by V kept going up and down.
4. MGMAT Mock 4 - 640 (Q44,V33)
Still no improvement. I started feeling disappointed and tensed. Low on confidence. Is this my final level? 640? I thought its time i tried a mock apart from manhattan just to make sure.
5. Kaplan Free mock - 720 (Q47,V36 or something)
Kaplan scoring is highly inaccurate. Talking about the mock, Q was unbelievably easy. It was giving mostly 500 level questions. I coulnt help but laugh while giving the test. Weirdly, I got just 3 ques wrong in Q and still got Q47. In V i got 20 wrong ( more than Mgmat) and still got V36. I looked up some discussion threads discussing Kaplan tests and found out people usually get in low 600s ( those who get MGMAT in 700) So I was fully confused with the result and chose to ignore it.
6. Princeton Free mock - 660 or something not sure
Dont remember the details sorry.
7. MGMAT Mock 5 - 620 (Q45,V31) - 2 weeks before GMAT
After this is I decided that my actual level was low 600 only and I should probably aim for 650 in the actual test. After studying and giving so many mocks for 2 months and getting a score lower than my 1st mock was completely demoralizing.
8. GMATPrep Mock 1 - 700 (Q49,V36) - 1 week before GMAT
I let out a sigh of relief. One thing i noted here is that MGMAT Q is much tougher than actual GMAT. MGMAT V is similar in SC and CR but RC are much much tougher than actual GMAT. In Q i got 13 incorrect and in V i got 14 incorrect. I was happy with my Q score. Decided that in the week thats left i will concentrate only on Verbal.
9. GMATPrep Mock 2 - 710 (Q50,V35) - 2 days before GMAT
Slight improvement. Improved Q again. V was quite to the contrary. My main aim here was to reduce the number of incorrect answers. I got 10 incorrect in both Q and V which was a big improvement. I didnt understand why even after giving 4 lesser incorrect ans than previous mock by score reduced by 1 point. But happy with anything above 700.
Exam Day
- Reached 1 hr in advance
- Got gatorade. Just something i read in gmat club forums :D
- Finished with the routine checks
- They allowed me to start immediately. (Highly recommended not to wait longer. You will feel tensed and probably tire soon)
1. AWA
- Didn't see the question. Wrote my template of introduction and conclusion (chineseburned notes)
- Recommended not to see questions, your mind will start wandering, you may forget the template
- Make sure you write template withinin 6-7 min, read question deeply 2-3 min, Fin essay with clock around 23 min, check for spelling, grammatical errors, sentence construction, etc for remaining time - very imp
- In my exam AWA wasn't that straightforward. Took some time to come up with points.
- Fin with 1 min to spare. Did decent. Will update AWA score when it comes.
2. IR
- My nightmare.
- Got the 1st question as easy as anyone can imagine. It was a Quant Find X-Y 2 part. Took 5 min, got completely confused, guessed and moved on.
- More tension due to this. Already short on time.
- Others were somewhat easy and managed to get some of them right. Had to guess a few. Finished right on time.
- My aim was to get above mean score in IR. I think i achieved that. Will update once scores come out.
Note: IR in actual exam is way way easier than those in mocks. Trust me. I know i too read this on posts by other members and didnt believe it but you have to see it to believe it. MGMAT IR is killer - tough and time consuming. Dont get scared by it. GMATPrep IR is slightly tougher than actual IR too.
3. Break
- Wrote time limits for my quant section in the booklet.
Questions Done - Time left
7-61
14-47
21-33
28-19
35-5
37-0
Other people follow others. This is my own. I have tried many. This suited me perfectly. You follow whatever you want but DO follow.
- After that i went out
- Drank half bottle gatorade
- Stretched hands and legs.
- Went in
4. Quant
- Always been my strength
- Straightforward PS questions, quick to solve
- Many DS were tricky so i took my time
- Overall maybe guessed/unable to solve just 2-3
- Fin with 2 min left. Felt positive about my performance.
5. Break
- Wrote time limits for my verbal section in the booklet.
Questions Done - Time left
10-57
20-39
30-21
40-3
41-0
Other people follow others. This is my own. I have tried many. This suited me perfectly. You follow whatever you want but DO follow. Make sure to use bigger interval than Q as you may have to accommodate RC in it.
- After that i went out
- Drank remaining half bottle gatorade
- Stretched hands and legs.
- Emptied Bladder
- Went in
6. Verbal
- My overall score has been coming down mainly because of verbal
- Cleared my head. Told to myself, we will take this one ques at a time.
- Many SC were straight forward. But i took my time reviewing each option just to make double sure that there wasn't a trap.
- CR were easy too apart from a few tricky ones. The prob with them is they take more time to read than SC which leaves you lesser time with options
- Tried to read quick and tried to understand what it was trying to say. Answered (do check all options no matter what) and moved on.
- RC was more of a surprise and a relief. I got 3 or 4 RC. Sorry dont remember exactly how many. Really easy ones and straightforward.
- Passages were easy to understand. No weird terms and didnt have to remember anything. Answered most questions without reading the passage again.
- During my last question stage ( Ques 31-41) i was going really behind the clock ( according to my time limits wrote during break) so had to speed up
- Marked some quick answers for the last few questions - but never guessed. If wasn't sure took my time to re-read the questions and solutions again
- Dont make hasty decisions due to time shortage. Make quick decisions not guesses.
- Done just in the nick of time. Felt that I did ok but wasnt feeling that confident of verbal overall.
7. Done
- Went through the routine surveys
- If you have updated your profile, most options will already be selected in the survey.
- Clicking Next - Next - Next .. countless times
- The important screen with warning in red - Cancel score or show score. They give 1 min time limit. Make sure you select within that else score will be cancelled. Clicked OK and hoped for a score starting with 7.
- 760! completely surprised. At first I thought it was showing something else, maybe what I could have got if i had not made mistakes or something like that. Kept staring at the score looking at all parts of the screen for any conditions apply or something.
- when i was completely sure of my score, i was elated. Couldnt take my eyes off the computer screen. Finally the proctor has to come and tell me to click finish and get out.
- Took my unofficial Report again making sure that it was my name written above the score.
Thanks for reading! There are some things I would still like to add. I will do that tomorrow. If you have any questions regarding anything at all, feel free to ask here. I would be glad to help. If this debrief helped you in any way you know what to do (Kudos
) so that i know my 3 hrs spent writing this wasnt a waste of time. Cheers!
-