770 first attempt. Thank you E-GMAT!

I discovered e-gmat through GMAT Club.

During April 2020, I took about 7-8 free tests (2 tests every weekend) from various portals and scored between 580-640. Then I decided that if I wanted to improve my score, I needed to get serious and commit my time for a solid preparation. After using the free trial from e-gmat for about a month, I registered for its full online course during the first week of May 2020.

Meanwhile, I had been reading/watching several success and failure stories on the GMAT Club’s forum. The last time I gave any “competitive exam” was over 10 years ago and I was running low on confidence and high on insecurity of failing to score above 700 in the first attempt.

I studied about 3-5 hrs every day and completed the verbal and the quant section within 3 weeks. On May 20, I took my second Sigma-Mock test and scored 740. I was happy with the progress and continued to practice questions in Scholaranium. However, after 2 weeks, I took the 3rd Sigma test and managed to score only 690. This got me worried and for the first time I contacted e-gmat. They responded quickly and told me how to use Scholarinium efficiently for better results.

Ten days later, I gave the 4th test and scored 700. I had solved almost all the questions in Scholarinium and even after over a month of preparation, I felt stuck. I wrote to e-gmat again and they gave me the much-needed encouragement to keep practicing. They told me that if I could score 700 in their tests, I could comfortably score above 700 in the final exam.

I realized that I was good with my concepts but I would usually experience a fatigue midway during the verbal section. The first time I scored 740 in the practice test, I answered the Verbal section first and then Quant. But because of the new rules of GMAT Online, I had to take Quant first and then Verbal. This resulted in me making mistakes in the Verbal section. Sometimes, I would mess up SC and then sometimes CR. I needed something to do to improve my consistency.

6 weeks into the preparation, I started solving GMAT OG questions through e-gmat. I felt that I needed more practice sitting for 3 hrs and giving the exam in one go. So, I bought a 7-test package from Veritas and 4 tests from official GMAT website. For the next 2 weeks, I took practice tests almost every day. Though my results did not improve a lot, since the score moved between 690-730, it definitely improved my test taking stamina.

Finally, I gave my final Sigma mock test on June 22 and scored 760. After 7-8 weeks of preparation and taking over 25 practice tests, I felt I was ready and booked the exam on 2nd July.

Everything was going well but when the examiner was about to release the exam, my laptop screen froze. I got a call from GMAT but my phone was in the other room and I couldn’t receive it. I restarted my laptop and did the whole verification process again. Finally, after 20 mins delay, I started the exam. I was really pissed at my luck and was definitely not in an “ideal” state to give the exam. But somehow, all my practice paid off. All I remember is that I had a sharp focus and I was in “the zone”. I finished the exam but I was so focused that I didn’t realize if it went good or bad. I felt that I gave my best and was satisfied with the effort.

After 19 days of delay, I received the score in the morning. During the whole preparation phase, my target was 740 and sometimes I would dare and dream of scoring 760. But when I saw 770 on the screen, it was something unexpected. I thanked God and went out for a morning walk.

I would like to thank e-gmat for their support and their excellent study material. I was good in Quant but e-gmat made it possible for me to consistently score Q50 in the practice tests and the final exam. I was not too good with the Verbal section. I would score around V27-28 for the first month of my prep. I struggled with SC the most but e-gmat’s SC study material is amazing. After going through their material, I improved enough to love solving SC questions. CR was the hardest for me to improve. Even until the final exam, I was not feeling too good about CR. E-gmat talks about “pre-thinking” to solve CR questions, but honestly, it never clicked for me until the very end. 3-4 days before the final exam, I went through all the practice tests that I had taken and that is when it all came together. I started seeing a pattern with CR questions. I did not practice much for RC. Overall, e-gmat has an excellent collection of quality questions and if one takes time to practice all of them, I am confident that one can face GMAT questions better.

Once again, I would like to thank e-gmat and I would recommend e-gmat to anyone looking for a good preparation course. They have easy to understand study material and they make it very easy to follow your progress. They are quick to respond to your query. Once I did not agree with their solution for a CR question and I wrote them a little angry post about how their “pre-thinking” was kinda BS and it only worked if you already knew the answer (I guess I was not in a good mood after failing to get any right answers that evening). The last post on that question was made over a year ago and I was not expecting any reply to a rather rude post. But to my surprise and delight, I got a response the next day and it was very helpful.

Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that GMAT is an interesting exam. It doesn’t take a lot of book-knowledge to score over 740. A few wrong answers can make a difference between a 770 and a 700. One needs to have complete focus and composure during the final exam and it can be achieved through honest practice and a little bit of faith.

Faith is a powerful tool that can get you through anything. Keep faith and trust God.

This week I received the admission letter from my desired MS Finance program and I feel happy. I have much more to talk about but for now I will end here. Maybe next year when I start my studies, I will revisit this post and write about the importance of faith when preparing for GMAT!