70 Point Improvement in a month

I studied for the GMAT for more than 3 months and gave the exam for the first time on Oct 17th, 2021. I was scoring an average of 710 in my official mocks and I simulated the experience almost perfectly. So I expected somewhere around that range.

During the exam, the verbal section was way harder than I had imagined. I remember rushing through the last 7-8 questions and ended up guessing about 3 questions towards the end. Even the quant was way harder than what the official mock prepared me for. I was devastated to see a Q47, V31.

I came back and took a few weeks off to figure out where I was going wrong. I knew all the Grammar rules, I had read the MGMAT SC book, I knew the basics of argument structures and attacking an argument. I realized I wasn't conceptually challenged but something was wrong in the process approach. I was getting my answer but it was taking too long and certain question types always threw me off.

I took a consulting call from one of the strategy consultants at e-GMAT and they pointed out that my approach needs some honing and what I could do about it (I was really impressed that they didn't even try to sell the product and focussed more on me). A few weeks later I signed up for their 2 month program. But literally the next day I had to travel for an on-site project. After I was back, I had a month to go through the material and give the test again.

Their SC module changed the way I looked at SC questions. I knew all the grammar rules and I was initially solving questions solely based on grammar. Their 3 step process for Sentence correction forced me to rewire my way of thinking about SC questions. After a few cementing quizes, my SC accuracy was higher than ever before and I was feeling very comfortable.

I didn't have the time to go over the complete CR or RC modules (I probably wish I could) but I quickly gleaned a few approach strategies from a few modules and modified the way I approached verbal questions. Eg: I started making summary notes for RC passages and I started tabulating my CR arguments and derived an answer even before looking at the answer choices.

I solidified my approach through quite a few practice quizzes and official mocks. The verbal question caliber was very high and indeed prepared me better for the real GMAT.

For quant, I kept giving the GMAT Club tests and that helped a lot! I used to spend about 30 mins analyzing each Quant mock and made notes on every single strategy I missed.

I gave the exam again just after recovering from the third wave hit. This time quant was quite seamless (I expected a Q50 but got a Q49) and I could complete the verbal section with a minute to spare.

My verbal score jumped from a V31 to a V38 and I knew what exactly had changed during that month of prep and it was the approach. Not concepts. I highly recommend everyone to spend at least a month solidifying the approach and the timing (mocks, question banks) before giving the final exam. That small step boosted my score by 60 points. I do plan on giving the exam again to get to the 740 range.

All the best for your test! Let's all nail it!