I had written this experience long time back and have forwarded it to many since then. But today after such long, I realized that it would be better to write it all here so that it might help anyone and everyone. Hope it helps you in your preparations or rather helps you in deciding whether you wanna pursue this line !!
Statutory Warning: A very long detailed narration ahead :P
It is said that you plan everything and then LIFE HAPPENS. I learned about the harsh realities of our Indian education system when my long time dream of pursuing MBA from IIMs was crushed brutally though I literally rocked every entrance exam (99.34 being the lowest percentile). I might write about those experiences some other time, it would suffice here to say that it was then that I decided to pursue international studies.
I never cared to know much about the other study options available for me (this is something that I partially regret) and worked wholeheartedly at Futures First before finally quitting in October 2011 to take next steps towards my goal. I knew the times ahead would be testing me so I treated myself with a month long trip (which I refer to as my own bachelor party :P) ....
Wow Have I already lost your interest? For all who have been keen enough to listen to my gibber-gabber, here comes the part which you might find useful in your own preparations...
After the awesome GOA trip i was all set to begin with my
GMAT preparations. As i knew little about GMAT pattern I decided to start with
an actual practice test available on mba.com ie. GMATprep software. Many argue
that as we have only very few practice tests available with us we should not
waste one in the very beginning but I totally and strongly disagree with them
as giving one paper in the very beginning not only makes you aware of the test
pattern but also make you very much aware about the time shortage that you may
face during the actual exam and also gives idea about your weakness in each and
every section (even each question type).
PHASE ONE (15TH – 22ND
December)
STEP 1:
Took my first practice test on 15th December and I
scored 680 in my attempt where I felt serious shortage of time and as was
expected my accuracy in English was terrible :(.. So it was clear then
and there that I should work on English as much as possible and mathematics can
be done without much emphasis on it. As it was my first test and I knew I would
be studying hard so I set my target to be 720+ (believe me setting a target score and having a fixed exam date are very
very necessary in GMAT preparation)
GMAT PREP Practice
Test 1 ------------------------ 15th December -------------- 680
STEP 2:
Started with Official
Guide in the very beginning (again people say that one use OG in the very
end as it has questions very similar to the actual exam) but well you should
remember that you have about only 2 months to prepare so start with the most
important first so that at later stage you may decide what to do and what to
leave without much tension.
GMAT CLUB is very
important site for the preparation. Kept reading their articles, solved their
problems and subscribed to their Question of the day
STEP 3:
Start concentrating on my weak point – English. Started
doing OG verbal review (won’t recommend it) and Manhattan Sentence Correction (Awesome book – Must do for anyone
weak in English).
All this 3 books don’t take much time to complete and I needed
more practice especially for tough questions so I decided to order Kaplan
verbal workbook and Kaplan GMAT premier as well .Both the books are good but
most important thing is that you gain access to online resources.
PHASE TWO (23RD – 31ST
December)
Took Kaplan diagnostic test before starting any of the two
books and as it was not time constrained got good accuracy but yeah the
questions were definitely difficult than the earlier books and some were
comparable to GMAT Club’s toughness level as well. Here began the task of going
through the books while solving problems from different sources as much as
possible.
Took Kaplan’s first practice test on 31st December
(yeah I had no new year plans whatsoever :P :P) and did really good but had no
score available as it was a paper-pen practice test from the book itself and
also had many seen questions. I was happy with the performance and decided to
give my 1st major test on the very next day, yeah on 1st
day of the year 2012.
Kaplan Practice test
2 -------------- 1st January -------------------- 730
PHASE THREE (2ND – 9TH
JANUARY)
Had my XAT exam on 8th of January so decided to
put GMAT studies on hold for a week and rather do prep of the toughest of all papers
XAT (eventually paid off as I got XLRI interview call) but as I had completed all
the books I had so decided to order Manhattan critical reasoning book as well .
The book as such is ok but again but all I wanted was access to online papers only.
Thus all I did for GMAT in this period was questions from the GMAT Club and a
few quizzes from Kaplan online center.
PHASE FOUR (10TH – 26TH
JANUARY)
This is most important phase of the entire preparation. All I
did was kept on reading as many novels as I could, to increase reading speed, to
adjust to reading boring articles and to improve my ear’s habit of listening to
correct English idioms while giving all the tests which I had. Practiced for
AWA a day or two only. Below is the list of all the marks I obtained.
Kaplan Practice Test 3
------------------------------ -------------- 10 January ---------- 760
Manhattan Practice Test 1
------------------------------ -------- 11 January ---------- 740
Manhattan Practice Test 2 ------------------------------ --------
14 January ---------- 780
Manhattan Practice Test 3
------------------------------ -------- 17 January ---------- 750
Kaplan Practice Test 4 ------------------------------ --------------
18 January ---------- 720
Manhattan Practice Test 4 ------------------------------ --------
20 January ---------- 760
Manhattan Practice Test 5 ------------------------------ --------
21 January ---------- 780
Kaplan Practice Test 5 ------------------------------ --------------
22 January ---------- 770
Manhattan Practice Test 6 ------------------------------ --------
23 January ---------- 770
Kaplan Practice Test 6 ------------------------------ --------------
24 January ---------- 770
Having such exceptionally high marks consistently made me
very happy but I knew I had many seen questions repeated in these tests so I
decided to give my most precious and the last practice test on 26th
January.
GMAT PREP Practice Test 2 ------------------------------ - 26th
January -------------- 750
Bang! After this I did very few questions daily for next 3
days and raised my desired target to 750 for the test day.
THE G-DAY (30th JANUARY)
Had my actual GMAT on 30th January and I went for
the paper highly motivated. The actual paper turned out to be much more
difficult than any practice paper I had given. Don’t know whether it was the
actual paper atmosphere or whether it was actually tougher. However, I kept my calm
and did my best and in the end scored a decent 730. Thus even though my score
was as much as I had targeted initially I was unhappy and felt a bit depressed
for I had tasted the thrill of much higher scores.
PS - Hope my long narration and my experiences prove useful for everyone. All the
very best to you for your preparations and for any further details or help you can mail me at vj.iiita@gmail.com. Do lookout for some important tips in the comments as well.
PSS: Will publish my post GMAT journey soon as well (hopefully) !!
PSS: Will publish my post GMAT journey soon as well (hopefully) !!
ROCK ON !!