The Ravi Shastri (e-gmat & team) to the Virat Kohli in me :p

I started my GMAT prep in August of 2021. I stumbled across an advertisement of e-gmat for a 1-1 consulting with a mentor (Anshul Biserya). I had no idea about e-gmat then. Anshul told me to take an e-gmat mock and then re-connect again with him. I score a 640 (Q48,V29) in that mock. Anshul pointed out that I was lacking conceptual knowledge in CR and SC since inspite of spending more than optimal time. He suggested that I start with concepts of CR and SC. He explained me how to structure my prep for each of the 2 sub section.
So here is how the e-gmat Modules are structured -
It starts with a master comprehension course. This module is like salt. Doing it won't really boost your score a lot, but not doing it can expose serious flaws across all three subsections in Verbal. It essentially teaches how to break sentences in to meaningful parts, aiding in extracting meaning of the sentence. This is forms base to solving SC and RC questions and helps to systematically deconstruct CR questions as well.
I then started with CR module.(for readers - I suggest start with SC) The CR module is quite detailed and teaches right from identifying premise, anti premise, conclusion etc to explaining how gmat introduces incorrect ans choice. So here's an important bit - All subtopics (assumptions, strengthen etc.) start with concept, then have a post assessment quiz and then an entire chapter of 5-6 questions (known as application module) to explain step by step how to approach each question.
Another very important trick that it teaches is the art of pre-thinking. The idea is very simple - Ask urself what are you looking for in the answer choice. IMHO it doesn't let the answer choice divert your thoughts from the argument and more importantly the authors conclusion and line of thinking.
Think of it this way - You want to bake a cake - Wouldn't it be easier to know the recipe, identify the ingredients and then go to the store to buy them rather than just directly going the store!!
It took sometime for me to grasp the art of pre-thinking, but it happens. And it's still improving!!!
The SC module is quite detailed as well. Pretty much covers all the bases. It introduces the meaning based approach. Meaning base approach simply asks us to first understand what the author is trying to communicate via the sentence and then go ahead with the error analysis and answer choice analysis.
What really stands out is that if you write to e-gmat with ur concerns about gmat prep, they most certainly will respond with a good solution.
So what happened is after every course i.e. SC, CR etc. I took multiple small quizzes of hard and medium level (e-gmat calls this cementing quizzes). I was scoring well within 70-80% weighted scores. So I was like yesss!!! finally I know what to do and how to answer correctly with some confidence. So i decided to give a mock (this was in end of September), the same mock I had initially given (I wanted to boost my confidence so decided to re-take the same mock) and guess what! I scored a 630 (Q47 V30)! I was shocked. How did that happen. So shell shocked i wrote to e-gmat team. Archit from e-gmat replied to me with a detailed video about my mock analysis. He mentioned that though i might have understanding of the concepts, i SEVERELY lack application in CR. So he gave me a plan for both CR and SC. I followed this plan properly. I went through the application files of all CR concepts again over the next few weeks, polished understanding of some of the tricky SC rules for modifiers etc. More importantly i made sure i go through the error log at-least once every 4 days.
Now come start of November, I gave another 15 question quiz for CR and SC (Hard + Medium). E-gmat calls these quizzes as Ability quiz. It gives a percentile score for the test. I scored an 88th percentile in SC and 92nd percentile in CR. I was happy. I now felt much more confident with SC and CR. For CR i was very sure that i can pre-think in 7/10 cases. So i went ahead and booked my GMAT test for Mid of December.
After scoring decent in the ability tests, I took 2 Sigma-X mock over a period of week (It was end of November by then). I scored a 650 (Q42, V37) and 700 (Q49,V36). My 700 score was exactly 9 days before my exam date. I was gaining some confidence now. I kept doing my routine - give quizzes, create error log, revise error log and repeat.
Then out of now where Dhananjay (DJ) from e-gmat reached out to me 5 days before my gmat date. I was surprised that e-gmat keeps a granular check on who is scoring what! He told me that I could most certainly achieve a high score and that he is willing to help me with my prep over the next few weeks. He told me that e-gmat has a Last Mile Program (LMP)
I will tell you what this is -
Think of a T20 match. For the first 16 overs the team has played well and set up a good base for a strong finish. And then in the last 4 overs go boom bang boom and score a 200+ score.
The last 4 overs is where the LMP comes into play in our GMAT match. The aim is to get those 20-30 points in the finishing lap of the journey.
However, this plan actually requires 3-4 weeks, but Dhananjay tailored it to my timeline and gave me a 3-4 day plan. We had a session for analysing my my mock. He showed me where my next improvements could come from. He sent me a customised plan too later in the day. I followed the plan to the best possible manner. It did help me boost my SC score. DJ had pointed out in our discussion that i'm taking too long to solve medium level SC questions. So the plan he gave me for SC was helpful.
I scored a 710 in my actual GMAT (Q47,V39).
The Q47 was slightly disappointing.
Dhananjay is still working with me for the next jump and hopefully that will come soon.
Till then in E-GMAT style - HAPPY LEARNING!!