740 on GMAT took me by surprise because that’s the highest i scored in all my mocks and the real one combined,so it was a pleasant surprise.I am writing this story so that it inspires atleast a few procrastinators like me. I started preparing to t…
740 on GMAT took me by surprise because that's the highest i scored in all my mocks and the real one combined,so it was a pleasant surprise.I am writing this story so that it inspires atleast a few procrastinators like me. I started preparing to take a shot at GMAT a long time ago,almost 2 yrs ago when cracking CAT was still a realistic dream.
In the very first diagnostic test i took (GMAT Prep) i scored a 680,so i thought just a little bit of practise would take me past the 700 barrier,but that did not happen for a very long time.I am normally stronger in verbal than quants and i never got less than 95 percentile in CAT verbal anytime, however GMAT verbal was different ball game altogether,i was scoring less in verbal than quants for the first time in my life,this left me totally puzzled.
I scheduled my first GMAT way back in 2009 and not feeling confident i kept postponing the exam,till it finally came to cancelling my slot in feb 2010.Cut to 2011,i thought enough is enough and decided to do something seriously about GMAT.
First,i identified that the only way to improve the verbal scores from 32 to 40 was to get as many SC questions right as possible.I realized that there was nothing much i could do about CR and RC,because those two areas,i feel are too closely linked to how well you understand written english more than anything else,of course you need some lateral thinking to get a very tough CR or RC question right but that comes AFTER you understanding what a answer choice exactly means.
Coming to lateral thinking,no amount of practise is going to make you think any differently from how you do now,that's the way you look at stuff and you have to accept it,but what you can change is the effort you put into understanding what the question is really asking and what exactly a answer choice is conveying(the literal meaning),infact translating the answer to your mother tongue may help you a lot,but otherwise that's all you can do for CR and RC.
I hate grammar,in fact sentence corrections are the only questions i leave on CAT or any similar test,but for GMAT SC is critical,and its something in which you can realistically hope to get better through practice and making note of your mistakes.I used Manhattan GMAT SC book and i think that's more than enough to crack SC on GMAT,over a period of 2-3 months i got better in SC,and now that my SC got better my verbal score went up as well,i was scoring 38-39 in the mocks now.
After all this,my score still remained at 690,never touching the 700 mark,so all these years i was scoring 680-690 with or without preparation.
There had to be something wrong somewhere, and that's when i made one final change to my strategy which i think is the single most important thing for indian test takers in quant section(since quants is a matter of prestige for most of us)"Just learn to leave a question and move on if you don't it get it within 3 mins max",for a long time i was not completing my quant section in time(guessing the last 5 questions almost every time),once i stopped doing that hitting 700 became very easy.Tough test,easy test didn't matter,all i had to do was make sure i finish the exam on time and a 700+ score would follow,as simple as that and all this happened in just 1 month,so sometimes a small change in your strategy can make a huge difference,sometimes the difference between a 680 and 740.
sidhart Says740 on GMAT took me by surprise because that's the highest i scored in all my mocks and the real one combined,so it was a pleasant surprise.I am writing this story so that it inspires atleast a few procrastinators like me. I started preparing to take a shot at GMAT a long time ago,almost 2 yrs ago when cracking CAT was still a realistic dream....
congrats bhai. do well in ur career and life. IVY league schools for you . :cheerio::cheerio::clap:
Congrats man. Thanks for sharing your experience.