Delighted to score a 730 in my third attempt

This was my third attempt. In my first one,I got enrolled in Jamboree Delhi,but it didn't help me much and I scored a 660(Q50 V27). Thinking that maybe I didn't give much importance to verbal,I decided to solve all OG questions again and almost ignored Quant. Result 650(Q48 V32). This was the point I got dejected completely,as being a high achiever in my school and college life,I had always gotten what I wanted without much of an effort. I was looking at forum posts on gmatclub for some hope when I saw an e-GMAT ad that promised 700+ around score. The one thing that stood out for me was the "for non-natives" part. That made me click the ad which redirected me to their website(one of my best decisions till now). There e-GMAT has these free webinars which I thought would be just another sales pitch to get me to buy their product(see my skepticism). But I decided to check them out anyways. If you haven't done that,DO IT. In the free webinars, Rajat did initially explain about how e-GMAT works(for about 20 mins),but after that it's all substance. In that one 3 hour session I realized how foolish I was to think I would ace the GMAT without knowing the basics. After going through the free modules I decided to buy the Verbal Live course.

After looking at the product I decided my schedule and set myself small targets,like completing SC course in 2 weeks and such.After 40 days,I decided to buy their quant online course too as I knew I couldn't be careless about it this time. I had decided that this will be my last time taking the GMAT,as I thought if I couldn't get a score after clearing my basics too then maybe I am not good enough for this. I studied for 10 days and got my quant back on track. I had taken the verbal live course in which the live sessions were invaluable,as I got to know good points such as importance of first 10 questions along with in depth explanations which help mould your thought process. The pre-thinking session was such an eye opener and made CR questions very easy. Earlier I used to solve SC by "if it sounds right,it is right" approach(I know,dumb) and couldn't exactly tell what part of a sentence is what. But after learning the basics I was able to actually make out the parts of a sentence and felt more confident(more confident than in quant,imagine that).There is this second live session of SC where the instructor tells about what a sentence is made up of,and I don't know what clicked in my mind at that time,but this helped me to see a holistic view of the SC questions,making them a cakewalk down the line. Although there are summary pages in all the modules,but I still kept a notebook and wrote my own summary of each module,which helped me revise the concepts when I moved to CR and RC and thought that I was losing touch with SC. The RC modules were also very good,and helped me strengthen the topic which had spelled my doom in the earlier two attempts. No longer was I scared from the long RCs which consisted of technical terms.

There was also one factor regarding e-GMAT which I found important,and that was the emails about the success stories of candidates. Believe me, staying focused for two months is not an easy task and you could easily lose way. But whenever I felt that I needed some motivation,I watched those videos and it reminded me of why I started this journey in the first place. Even after 4 months I remember a sentence spoken by one of the successful candidates during his skype interview,that "you should chase excellence,not a particular score". This sentence resonated with me somehow,and while earlier I thought that 9/10 was a good accuracy,I now wanted to chase excellence and to get all correct,not because it would get me a good score,but because it would make me feel good that I am on course to master the topic. You should definitely try to up your motivation from time to time during preparation,as someone has rightly said,motivation isn't something you can stock up once for a period of time,it's like food,you need it regularly.

I used only e-GMAT study material and OG13 in my last attempt,as I didn't want to solve questions from other material and elevate or degrade my confidence with respect to them. The OG questions alone are so rich that I believe if a person can analyse his performance on only those questions then he/she can get a very good score. I solved the OG the third time,but saw the questions in a totally different way after learning of the concepts. Also,I purchased the official exam pack,which I think is invaluable to your preparation in the final phase.

Their is so much that I could go in details of,but this post has already become very long. I would end this by asking all you people to keep trying,you will eventually succeed if you have the determination to do it.