GMAT JOURNEY

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 (15^TH – 22^ND December)

STEP 1:

Took my first practice test on 15^th 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 ------------------------ 15^th 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 (23^RD – 31^ST 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 31^st 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 1^st major test on the very next day, yeah on 1^st day of the year 2012.

Kaplan Practice test 2 -------------- 1^st January --------------------    730

PHASE THREE (2^ND – 9^TH JANUARY)

Had my XAT exam on 8^th 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 (10^TH – 26^TH 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 26^th January.

GMAT PREP Practice Test 2 ------------------------------- 26^th 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 (30^th JANUARY)

Had my actual GMAT on 30^th 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) !!

ROCK ON !!