The best thing to happen to my GMAT prep!

I would like to start by thanking my mentor Deepak for guiding and supporting me throughout my prep journey with e-GMAT. I do not think that my score of 710 would have been possible without his mentorship.

I started my GMAT prep in Feb 2020 with an aim to take the GMAT by end of April 2020; I figured that a time frame of almost 3 months should be good enough to get a top score. Having been a good student all my life, I really thought that this was an achievable target.

I began my prep by solving all 4 books from Kaplan – including GMAT 800 which is supposed to be a book on advanced-level questions. I found the questions from all books to be quite easy and cruised through all the books in less than a month. Once I had solved all the questions in all the books, I took a Kaplan mock test in which I scored 690. In the following days, I took another couple of mocks and scored 670 and 680. I was not even breaching the 700 mark and needed to change my preparation strategy. But at this point, I realized that I was all out of prep material and would need to buy a new course. By a stroke of luck I came across an e-GMAT webinar, which led me to purchase the entire course.

About 5 days after I started studying from the e-GMAT course I received an email from Deepak asking if I would like to enroll under the mentorship program. Seeing no downside to having a dedicated mentor, I gladly agreed.

Deepak gave me a day-by-day planning of the tasks that I would have to do, every week. These activities could be learning concepts, taking cementing quizzes or taking practice quizzes. In case I encountered any problems, or felt like I needed additional practice of a particular topic, I would shoot an email to Deepak and he would quickly re-work my study plan. It was amazing to have this kind of personal attention for an exam which is mostly self-prep.

While following Deepak’s study plan, I encountered some problems. For my critical reasoning prep, I wasn’t scoring well in quizzes even after spending enough time on the concept files. I wasn’t even able to pre-think, a skill that is quite important to be able to crack the CR section of the GMAT. So I notified Deepak of the issue and immediately he re-worked my study plan to give me more practice for CR.

Another issue was that I felt very fatigued with the prep and Deepak, being the excellent mentor that he is, gave me a confidence boost by reassuring me that I was actually doing well. This may seem trivial but trust me such boosts go a long way.

Deepak also conducted fortnightly strategy huddles in which he would discuss topics pertinent to taking the GMAT. These huddles not only helped me improve my approach to taking the test (for example, better time management), but also helped me interact with members of my cohort, most of whom were in the same boat as I.

I took Deepak’s guidance from April to June 2020 and I was able to take the GMAT within 10 days of my target date.



Test day experience

On the test day, I was mostly confident of my capabilities. I had put in the work so there was no reason to worry. Moreover, I was extremely well-rested and had two 700 or higher scores from my mock tests.

Coming into the test, I had taken 2 mocks from e-GMAT, scoring 750 and 700 respectively. I just chalked off the lower score to disturbances while I was taking the test. In hindsight, I should have taken another test to be sure of my prep level.

My test center was terrible. It was very dirty. There was a carpet which was full of dust. The bathroom was a short walk away from the test room and was also dirty. The air conditioner was not able to cool the room. The test administrator entered the test room a couple of times to try and get the air conditioner to work better, resulting in disturbance while taking the test. The keyboards were not convenient for typing and many times more than one key got pressed when I was writing my essay. The keyboards were also below a certain height - resulting in typing inconvenience. There was a lot of lag in the system as well - after selecting a choice, I would have to wait a few seconds for the radio button to reflect my choice. Finally, there were monkeys right outside the center's main door. This was an extremely poor testing experience for me.

I scored 710 in the exam. Q49, V39, IR 8, AWA 6. I’m mostly happy with the score, but feel like I could’ve scored better in a decent test center.

To conclude, I would like to say that GMAT prep is a marathon and not a sprint. So, please keep enough time for your prep, and even time to re-take the test if necessary. You may do everything right but the wrong test center may also ruin your score. If possible, check out the test center beforehand. Focus on the test-taking strategies rather than trying to get every question right. Sometimes, skipping questions is better for your score than sticking with them. Invest in good prep material. If possible, reach out to your friends who might have taken the GMAT and ask about their experiences with different prep materials.

Shout out to Deepak for being an amazing mentor and friend.