Hyper Personalization leading to push through plateaued performance

My GMAT Journey began in April 2020. Like many others, I decided to make the most of the extra time on my hands to start preparing for the GMAT.

During the course of my preparations, I got married, moved to a different state in the US and settled into a new job and all through that process, e-GMAT helped ensure that I kept plugging away at my preparation to help me reach my target score.

Nearly 19 months later after taking the Enhanced GMAT online and scoring 710 (Q: 48 V: 38) I would like to pass on my learnings to future test takers in the hope that this helps streamline their preparations and reach their target scores.

Real-Life learnings from the GMAT:
The GMAT as a test fascinated me. Unlike many of the other standardized tests out there, the GMAT is a test that actually tests skills that you would need to apply in the long run to navigate a future career in business. For Example, Sentence correction is important to understand what effective communication looks like, wherein mistakes in sentence structure could convey a meaning different that what was intended. Critical reasoning is something that one would be expected to apply daily as a business leader to make key decisions, but also in your daily life as you navigate through difficult decisions. Reading Comprehension in my humble opinion is the skill that is the least talked about and probably the most important long term skill that preparing for the GMAT gives a test taker. The ability to process information however complex to understand, in a timed environment, is absolutely key in one’s development.

My Takeaways :
Hyper personalization
I was invited by Archit Bhargava to be part of the e-GMAT LMP (Last Mile Program) program, a program where he would support me as a mentor through my GMAT journey. Archit’s timely feedback and hyper personalized study plan based on my Scholaranium 2.0 quiz scores was invaluable. Whenever I had questions and/or needed to modify my study plan to better fit my schedule, Archit replied back with a plan to make the best use of the time I had available. Over the course of 2 months, Archit either sent me videos whenever I got stuck on certain key concepts or got me to connected to other members of the e-GMAT team for their insight to help me understand specific topics better.
At this time I would also like to give a shout out to Harsha, who provided me a comprehensive analysis of my CR performance that pushed me over a plateau of where I was stuck at the 65%ile all the way upto a consistent 90%ile and Atreya, who the weekend before my official GMAT provided a review of my performance of my last mock to give me target areas to focus my last reviews on, when Archit was unavailable.

The LMP program was exactly what I needed to cross the 700 barrier and I can’t thank the e-GMAT team enough for always being there to support me through my journey.

Approach
e-GMAT provides a structured curriculum, one that focuses on process and content in equal measure with special emphasis on test readiness and simulating section wise tests from Scholaranium 2.0 to ensure that students are ready to tackle the Sigma-X mocks that are also offered on their platform.
Their 3 step process of 1) Building conceptual knowledge ( core content) 2) Cementing test taking process and 3) developing GMAT skills helped me first understand and then apply the concepts in an organized manner.
One of the things e-GMAT does very well is offer structure. You can plan exactly what you need to do every day of your prep and account for how long your preparation could potentially take based on your current score and your target score and this helped me understand the scope of the task in front of me and the daily accountability that the schedule provided helped me stay on track with my preparations.

Platform
The Scholaranium 2.0 is by far the most powerful platform that I’ve seen out there for a few reasons. Firstly, The data gathered from the quizzes I took on the platform was translated into easy-to-understand actionable feedback that helped me identify any process flaws, timing issues and/or knowledge gaps that need to be worked on.
Secondly, the ability to design custom quizzes to ensure that I could simulate a real life test environment, where I would need to keep on their feet at all times, was a game changer for me and I believe strongly that this practice is what helped push me over my plateau.
Finally, The level of questions that I saw on my official GMAT was comparable to if not slightly easier than the ones that e-GMAT offers. Now, I know there is not substitute for OG content since the GMAC spends a lot of money developing each question, but I believe what the questions on e-GMAT taught me was “how to think”. This is an underestimated skill that I have not seen many platforms talk about. The quote that comes to mind that best explains this is : “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

Sigma X Mocks
The Sigma-X mocks were a real eye-opener. I had always perceived my Quant skills to be at a high enough level since I came from a Quant heavy engineering background. I quickly learned that although my math skills were where they needed to be, on the other hand my Quantitative reasoning was definitely not. This was a very important distinction to make and one I hope others reading this review pay attention to.
My scores on the last 3 Sigma-X mocks were 700 (Q46, V39), 710 (Q47, V40), 710 (Q49, V38) with my last 710 coming 3 days before my official GMAT on which I ended up with a 710 (Q48,V38). As you can see, the scores are highly representative of actual GMAT performances.
Going into my Official GMAT, I was confident that I had seen enough content and variations based on that content that tested in-depth understanding rather than superficial knowledge and having that peace of mind prevented me from stressing about if I knew enough and tackle each question confidently.

My study mentor: Archit Bhargava
My journey would not have been the same without Archit. He was there to answer my questions or direct me to other personnel at e-GMAT as I reached certain plateaus in my preparation. Close to the end he also gave me personal number so that the turnaround times to my questions would be quicker. Without the feedback and assistance he offered, I can confidently say that I do not think I could have broken the 700 barrier. Archit was the gamechanger I needed.