750 - A story of Persistence and Focus

Amazing to have you here. If you are reading, we are probably sharing a love for cracking the GMAT. Trust me the process is worth it. I want to share with you a little about my story and hope this adds value to your preparation. Let’s start with some context.

I always knew I wanted to study an MBA. My mind is trained to think about businesses and my heart has always been towards seeing business as tool towards positive change.

I knew it as I studied my bachelors in mechanical engineering, that I will be doing the MBA route down the line. I did my masters in powertrain engineering in France because I am passionate about how mobility sector has been revolutionizing and impacting every other industry. I got involved into the tech sector and a product developer and it was not long before I could see the difference between my thought process and the 100 engineers in our group. Business viability to the future, its positioning and impact mattered to me. As I got busy learning about cultures, languages moving continuously across borders I realized the craving to expose myself to like minded people. I wanted to be among peers discussing the next big entrepreneurship idea and I chose to move to city that would give opportunity to head along the process.

This the beginning of my GMAT journey. Though I had played around with the GMAT idea back in 2018 it was December 2019 when I finally decided to go in for the exam. Little did I know it was going to be a year and a half before I would be prepared to take the exam. I started of my preparation doing some market research and getting in all the recommended books (GMAT Prep, Manhatten Prep). The Manhatten Prep guides were a joy and would recommend you to definitely read the Roadmap, because that prepares you mentally about GMAT. However till summer I was heading nowhere.

My first GMAT Preparation test I got a 670. I had tried to go through the Manhatten book and I was definitely not feeling confident about the verbal section. I made a decision at this point to go all in for the Exam and that was the mantra that carried me all along. I loved the interface, the explanation that experts global provided and I took several tests in the platform, focusing more on my test taking strategies and timing and I was plateauing in the 700 zone. I was there far too long and I was clueless how to go forward. Keen to go up, I persisted to look for solution and it was such a blessing that I found eGMAT. Initially I had planned to take my GMAT in a couple of week from the point I took the eGMAT course. I resonated so much with the approach I decided to postpone my exam and only focus on re inventing and building myself. I attended the webinars, watched their debriefs, went though the course structure, and just looking at their approach I had complete trust in the eGMAT process.

This debrief Is about eGMAT and why I think this is going to add value to your preparation. It was a huge value to me and I want to ensure that you can take value from this.

So what does eGMAT do that it gave me the right pedestal. Here are my 5 point synopsis based on the value I took from eGMAT.

1. Clearly SC: I will start with SC because that was the main reason why I signed up for eGMAT. I had no clue how, Why answers were wrong and WHY answers were right, I hated the approach to memorize and eliminate based on rules. And when I found about eGAMT meaning based approached I could so relate this to my own necessity to understand. I just gave me a lot of joy to finally understand. It gave me an appreciation for the test makers designing the exam. I started to love the SC problems. eGMATs approach Is systematic, clear, elaborate and through. You do have to trust the process and invest the time but the impeccable support from Rajat, Payal and team have that sorted having the approach customized for every single user who reaches out to the service team.

Hats off to the eGMAT team for pulling off such an excellent SC course. I would recommend you to do it just for fun, it will improve your appreciation for language.


2. Counter intuitively RC: When I started with eGMAT my RC was mediocre and I knew that to get a decent score that I needed to weed out why I was going wrong. Where was I making the mistake. The eGMATs Master comprehension course and clear structuring of the questions gave me a perspective that I missed out in my previous preparation. With the complete emphasis on understanding the meaning, I knew realized the key aress for me to improve on my RC was actually very counter intuitive. Not to worry about the timing as I read the passage. This is so hard to ingrain and trust this process but actually reading the passage thoroughly made me faster in completing the RC section with higher accuracy. I need to give huge credits to eGMAT to support me in driving this into me a habit. I picked this up from the eGMAT course and it has become a life skill.

3. Critically CR: I had always maintained CR to be one of my strong areas. Coming from a physics and engineering background I love CR. I enjoy this and have been so proud to answer CR questions. My own failures in the CR part of verbal I had related it to the lack of timing.

So it was a huge surprise for me when DJ from the e GMAT team reached to me and asked me to focus on CR because that was turning to be my weak area. While the data was telling me that my own conformity bias was not allowing me to see the real picture. I owe DJ a lot to ask me to go through the CR course completely. The pre thinking which was something that I was doing organically became something that I because conscious off and paid attention to how I was structuring it in my head with relevance to what was needed from the question. This helped me to get my accuracy in solving the Hard question correct high. The scholarinium at some point became very addictive to me. I cant wait for the upgraded version to with more analytics in it! This will be a huge plus to all the new test takers.

The second aspect on my CR that eGMAT added value was to look at my ‘takt time’ or my natural time that I was spending my time on getting the question correct. The video analytics which DJ provided me solidified my thesis that I needed a process improvement in approaching the question and also helped develop a sense of structuring.

4. Hard Quant: I am a natural math lover and I trust my process how I work with numbers so I did not take the math course even though DJ kept insisting me to take the newly launched quant program which I thought covered the basic in a well structured manner again focused on really understanding whats happening behind the numbers. Which is something I love about eGAMT. Where I took the most value from is the Quant scholarinium which can be timed and readily available solution to any question. I loved the way eGMAT structured Quant into 5 sections and I could use them individually to raise the difficulty level to hunt down my weaknesses and improve my speed. This was one of the key take-aways. I actually love the hard questions in eGMAT which tend to take a lot of time which I were I learnt he hard lesson to let go of questions that are taking a lot of time. Again this was a huge challenge to the ego when you pride yourself of your quant. This actually helped in my exam where I could pace myself and make a better decision with the exam.
5. The support : The one big value I took from eGAMT especially during the entire process is, there was always someone I could talk to during this whole journey. At time during the process you a bit by yourself and need that comforting understanding and analytical conversation which the eGMAT support team so excellently delivers. They supported me on weekends late hours and I always had the confidence that I would get a reply in the next 24 hours. This reliability is hard earned and as a business thinker I appreciate how well Rajat, Payal and team have developed this.

Other than the aforementioned points eGMAT turned out to be the only resource I started to use and the only thing that was necessary for me other than the GMAT Prep test to get the feel. I loved the SIGMA X mocks actually more and wished there were more than just the 5 available because they give you a detailed analysis as much as your ESR and give you a real visual of your performance. Also the Strategic review which eGMAT keeps repeating through the course was a game changer in my prep approach. This helped me shoot from a 670 in one of my first GMAT PREP mocks to 750.

I hope you take a lot of value from this analysis and good wishes in your preparation.