My GMAT Story : 640 to 720 in 4 months.

Hi There!

Are you not able to break 700? Are you consistently scoring 680-690? Are you not able to improve your verbal score? If the answer to any of the questions is Yes, this review is for you.

My short story of 2 attempts.
I gave my first attempt in October 2021 and scored a 640(Q48, V30). Bummer right? [ I would like to mention that I believed I was at a 690 level but who cares what I think? The screen flashed a 640 and that was it. I was devastated)
I gave my second attempt after 4 months in February 2022 and scored a 720 (Q51, V35)

So, what changed? In this 4 months gap, I bought the online e-GMAT Verbal and Quant course. After going through the course, I reached out to the team about my problems and the e-Gmat team assigned me with an expert Dhananjay Lowe for 1-1 personalised coaching (free of cost) as part of their LMP ( Last Mile Program) . This was the best decision I took in 2 years of my study drills. DJ (Dhananjay) has provided most of the feedback over email and there was one call at the start of the coaching and one before my exam. The coaching he provided was very realistic with achievable goals. That is one of the things that I like about eGmat. It is realistic.

Before buying e-Gmat course:

Just as an aspiring MBA applicant, I was excited to give GMAT. I started with Official Guide (1st mistake). I bought GMAC mocks ( GMAC provides 2 free mocks and 4 paid mocks). After attempting the first free GMAC mock test ( I think I scored in 500s. It got reset as the GMAC changed the portal recently resetting everything), I started my prep. My study drill was as below-

- I was confident in Quant and was scoring 47-48 and sometimes 49. So, I would not solve many quant questions in my practice. I would just solve 20 in 20 minutes as a break from Verbal.
- I exhausted my Official Guide hard copy books (that I bought in 2019 but I started my prep in 2021) and went to gmatprep and started solving questions in a random manner by selecting difficulty level to 700+ and source as Official Guide. I always timed myself. I did this for about as long as I can remember ( 6 months I think).
- So far, I had not made any notes. I had a fair idea of what a GMAT exam looks like and I was at a 650 level which was an improvement from the score I started with. (500s)

My two cents about using OG- Do not start with Official Guide. You lose the fresh perspective with which you can approach each question. Be smart about using the OG. Go through the GMAT Syllabus. Study all the topics and start solving OG when you have a fair idea about all the topics and you think you have the expertise to solve them.

I finally bought GMAC Mocks and gave them all in 1 week before my first attempt(2nd mistake), scoring 690 in all of them and 700 in one.I SCORED a 640(Q48 and V30) in my final exam. So what really went wrong?

After buying e-Gmat course:

Below is a summary of what went wrong with my first attempt and the solutions to each of them that eGmat provided.
1. Lack of a study plan was one problem in my prep which led me to not master any topic. I would always assume I am bad at Reading Comprehension which was actually not the case as pointed out by Dhananjay in our first 1-1 call where he quickly analysed the free eSigma Mock ( mocks by eGmat) I had given.
- Egmat created a study plan for me on the first day I bought the course. They will guide you how to create one as per your current level. I cannot emphasise more on the effectiveness of the study material they provide. They have recorded videos for every topic in a guided manner. You just have to buy the course and the rest is taken care of. There wasn’t one day I wasn’t excited to explore what’s in this video and I learnt from each and every video. There are different modules - Master comprehension, Reading comprehension, Sentence correction and Critical Reasoning. The quality of the material is top notch. I went through all the modules. Dhananjay made sure I do not skip even one video which I very much tried to. :P
2. Not analysing the mocks properly. Exhausting 4 mocks (actually 5) in one week was the second big mistake. Ideally, you need 3 days for 1 mock. First day - you give the mock, second day - analyse it and then third day - work on the problem areas. ( maybe take more days) It is very hard to analyse mocks by yourself if you do not have a detailed analysis of your mock available.
-eGmat has some serious and one of the best mock analytics going on at the backend. The in depth analysis of each mock is amazing. It tells you about your problematic areas. There are videos available on the dashboard of how to use this tool which I would strongly suggest you watch in the very beginning. I did it way later in the process. You should use the material and the tools smartly to make the most out of the course. I was still not able to make the most out of the analytics until Dhananjay made a personalised video of one of my attempted mock “How to analyse mocks?”
3. Not creating an error log. If you do not follow a plan, it is highly likely that you will not make an error log for sure. Now, what is an error log? It is simply a list of all the questions you did wrong. To make sure you never make the same mistake again, eGmat has a very smart tactic of creating an error log. This was one of the first exercises Dhananjay asked me to do. He pointed out errors in my error log ( Can you imagine?). Now, what are errors in an error log? It is very important to understand why you marked what you marked and why you thought the right answer was wrong. Egmat has video solutions to every question which help you analyse where did you go wrong. ( almost all the questions with just a few exceptions for which detailed explanation is provided. )
4. Quant experts- I thought 48 is great. Until I came across a concept called cementing (an eGmat jargon). During my 1-1 coaching, I was asked to ‘Cement’ Quant. I did not know what is that until I cemented quant and scored a Q51 in my final exam. Basically, it is a drill of giving a set of medium and hard level quizzes till you achieve a desired accuracy. (The standards defined by eGmat which are very much achievable). Scholaranium is a tool created by eGmat for Quizzes and Mocks. It is an amazing tool with thousands of quality questions. you can create custom quizzes by defining difficulty level of the questions. Make Scholaranium your best friend. Fellows, if you are good at quant, I would suggest why not be even better at it? Keep hustling.
5. Confidence - You need to trust yourself. Sometimes, when you are so close to your target score, doubting your choices (not life choices) can really hurt your score. Once you know you are ready and you are achieving your target score in the mocks, book a date and give the GMAT within 2 weeks.

After 4 months of effort and support from eGmat team, I finally scored 720. I would like to thank DJ for his constant support. Lastly, the Last Mile Programme ( through which I received the 1-1 coaching) was a huge success for me.

To summarise, if you are new to GMAT, approach it the right way. If you are already preparing, go about it in a guided manner if you are not doing that currently. After a while, the drill is simple - give a mock, analyse and practice.

Apart from eGmat course, below are some of the things I did in the span of 2 years of my on-off GMAT prep. I actually prepped in full swing from June-2021 to Feb-2022.
- I watched GMAT Ninja’s SC videos on YouTube. There is a set of 6-7 videos and they are really good.
- I had read 0 books before Jan 2020. I read around 12 books in 2020 and 2021. This improved my comprehension in reading.
- I skimmed through word power made easy but it is not really required. If you have time, give it a go. Even if it helps you solve a couple of questions that you might have marked wrong due to vocabulary issues, it’s worth it.