600 to 760 NOT in 15 days !!!!

Spoiler : Just take the subscription !!!

Background:
My first dig at the GMAT exam was an e-gmat mock (sigma-X) where I scored a 600 (Q46, V26).

I moved onto OG, concept books, etc. and could see myself enhancing my knowledge significantly in SC and CR. I saw the improvement in my GMATPrep mock attempts too, wherein I scored ranges between 700 and 740 consistently.

Looking at the mock scores, I was certain that I was empowered with the skills needed to clear the 700-mark. I unfortunately couldn’t cross the barrier in the 1st attempt. Due to my higher mock scores in GMATPrep, I was certain that there was nothing wrong with my preparation methods and perhaps it was a one-off scenario. But, after analyzing the ESR of my 2nd failed attempt and noticing a below average performance across the whole of verbal section, I realized that there definitely were conceptual gaps which I’d needed to cover up.

E-GMAT:
Based on recommendations of my friends, I quickly moved onto e-gmat. The first thing one could notice immediately is how comprehensive the course is. As suggested in the course, I started off with SC -> CR -> RC.

SC modules are definitely the beast in the course. They are elaborately explained using really simple terms such as verb-ing, verb-ed etc. instead of terms such as gerunds, transitive verbs, etc. For somebody who isn’t a grammarian, these usages are alone a massive time saver. Probably the biggest eye opener for me was focusing on the meaning of the sentence and making sure that the sentence made sense rather than just relying on grammar rules to solve the questions. Towards the end of my preparation, I could easily spot the correct answer choice within a couple of seconds and was hardly stuck between two answer choices, simply because of relying on the meaning-based approach. My simplest recommendation to everyone would be not to follow any form of shortcuts to solve SC questions. I have experimented such strategies in my attempts, and found failure for most parts. There is absolutely no point saving time when you can’t get the question right.

The most critical aspect of CR was the art of pre-thinking. Going through the range of answers in the mind is exactly what saves one from selecting the incorrect answer choices. A tough but effective strategy, pre-thinking has been taught exhaustively throughout the CR course. I had reached a stage where I didn’t even need to go through all the options during my final attempt - the moment the correct option came up, I was confident it was the right one! That’s the power of pre-thinking. I also tried out PowerScore CR Bible, although the contents are pretty much in similar lines as in e-gmat’s CR course.

RC course is great for someone trying it out for the 1st time. I had gone through a very similar process of understanding main theme of passage and watching out for the transition/key words (but, however, nevertheless, etc.) to solve the passages effectively during CAT prep. One aspect that I did notice across my attempts (GMAT exam and GMATprep mocks) was that the passages were seldom difficult to comprehend. It’s perhaps the exam pressure at times that might get to us, but one calm and well-paced reading is enough to nail the RC questions that follow the passage. Sufficient practice would enable you to easily identify what the “well-paced” definition might look like for you.

During my 1st GMAT attempt I had scored a Q49 in quants, a score that sounded great since it was just 2 points below the maximum (51). However, only when I looked at the percentile column next to the scorecard, did I realize that it was a 74th percentile, making me feel that I need to up my ante in quants too. I had relied on my CAT material for majority of the preparations for Quants, but used e-GMAT’s quant time and again to fine tune my skills in topics I wasn’t completely comfortable with such as number systems and modulus (algebra). The structure of the course was well laid out wherein I needed to just do the concepts I was not familiar with, and the algorithm did well to identify such areas and helped me speed up my quant prep significantly.

Over time, I kept taking up sectional tests in verbal and quant repeatedly to figure out patterns in my mistakes and took actions to correct them.

The support provided through emails, general queries, etc. was great too. I was once asked to use the error-log for my verbal section and noticed that there were many aspects of analysis which I had missed out on. While I didn’t maintain an error log throughout my preparation, my analysis methodology changed and I could see myself doing more than simply going through the solutions of the questions.

Scholoronium provided me a massive question bank and was more than sufficient in terms of quantity to help solve a variety of quality questions. The most impressive part of scholoronium was its detailed explanation. I had spent a significantly longer duration analyzing my attempts in scholoronium compared to my attempts on any other platform.

I would definitely recommend e-gmat based on my experience.