Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. – John Quincy Adams
After scoring a 700 GMAT score in his first attempt, Raghav chose to change the approach and resources he used for his GMAT preparation. His persistence and perseverance helped him score a GMAT 760 in the third attempt.
In his video interview, he shares how he managed to prepare and score a GMAT 760 while working full-time. Read the transcript or watch the video interview below.
Rajat: Congratulations on scoring a GMAT 760. Give us a walkthrough of your GMAT preparation.
I started my preparation in the first week of March. I knew early on that though I would have to work on quant, I would be able to manage. However, I knew that verbal would have to be a significant focal point of my GMAT preparation.
Preparing for the 1st Attempt
I used the OG exclusively for my first attempt for both Verbal and Quant. I had to completely change my approach while preparing for the GMAT, especially for the verbal section as compared to the other competitive examinations that I had taken earlier. In preparing for the GMAT, I focused on aspects of accuracy and timing.
I ended up scoring a 700 (Q49 V36) in my first GMAT attempt. I wasn’t exactly surprised by my score as it was in line with my mock tests. However, I realized that verbal was a weakness and I could do better.
Change of Strategy for the 2nd Attempt
For my second attempt, I changed my strategy comprehensively. I focused on applying a process-based approach to solving questions as much as I could.
Rajat: How did you prepare for Sentence Correction using e-GMAT?
While researching options available for GMAT preparation, I came across numerous instances of people praising the e-GMAT sentence correction module. The structure of the course, i.e., how it starts from the basic concepts and progresses to build upon them with the help of application files is remarkable.
How I used Scholaranium for Practice
I completed going through the SC module in about one week. After completing the concept files and application files, I proceeded to solve questions on Scholaranium. One issue that I became aware of after my first GMAT attempt was that in the Verbal section I used to lose steam after doing well on the first ten questions.
To tackle this problem, I used to create custom quizzes of 20 questions and solve them in one go. Thus, the ability to design and take custom length quizzes helped me build the stamina to tackle the verbal section.
How I prepared for RC
Another weakness that I realized after my first GMAT attempt was in reading comprehension. The strategies covered in the e-GMAT course helped me immensely. An example would be the main-point type questions where the given paragraph should represent the entire passage and not just a couple of paragraphs.
How I prepared for CR
For CR, initially, I used the Power score CR Bible for preparation. However, since the e-GMAT sentence correction and reading comprehension course modules were really helpful in my GMAT preparation, I decided to go through the CR course module.
I remember completing the CR module in a day. The falsification strategy and the variation analysis strategies that were taught in the CR module stuck with me throughout my 2nd and 3rd attempt. So much so that when I was preparing for my 3rd attempt, I did not have to go through the course content again.
Rajat: How was your 2nd attempt?
In my second attempt, I was able to improve my Verbal score by 5 points from a V36 to a V41. However, I did not perform as well on Quant and ended up scoring a GMAT 720 (Q48 V41) overall. For a minute after I got my test score, I thought that I would not retake the GMAT. But that thought was short-lived, and I knew that I could do much better in quant and score higher overall.
Thus, I took a 15-day break to focus on a few other things. However, I resumed my GMAT preparation in August. I did not book my GMAT date immediately; rather, I told myself that I would schedule the test date as and when I felt I was ready.
How did you prepare for your 3rd attempt?
For my third attempt, I took a week to revise all my quant concepts and then proceeded to practice the application of these concepts to solve 700 level questions. For verbal I went through all the summary articles posted by the verbal team on GMATClub. The summaries were all collated together in a single post, and thus it was convenient for revising all the verbal concepts.
Practicing Using Scholaranium
Once I was done revising the concepts, I used Scholaranium for practicing and getting a feel of solving the different types of questions in the verbal section. After that, I took a GMAT prep mock test in which I scored a 760. However, I didn’t pay much attention to the score as I had exhausted all of the 6 GMAT Prep mock tests in preparing for my second attempt. Due to this, some of the questions were repeated from earlier.
I decided against taking any further mock tests and took the GMAT. I ended up scoring a 760 (Q50 V41) in my third attempt.
If you want to try out the e-GMAT course that helped Raghav make the jump from 700 to 760, sign up for our Free Trial. We can also help you with a personalized study plan and give you access to quality online content to prepare. Write to us at acethegmat@e-gmat.com. We are the most reviewed GMAT prep company on GMATClub with more than 1950 reviews (as on Sep 7, 2020).
Rajat: Congratulations once again on scoring a GMAT 760. I want to make a note of 2 things that I think you tackled extremely well during your GMAT preparation:
- Focusing on improving consistency after the first ten questions in verbal
- Tackled one subsection at a time during GMAT preparation
1) Focusing on improving consistency in Verbal
Since you noticed that your consistency was dropping after the first ten questions, you decided to take custom quizzes in Scholaranium to build your test-taking stamina. This was an excellent strategy to improve consistency in the verbal section.
2) Focusing on one subsection at a time
You also focused on tackling one subsection at a time. You took a week to go through the CR module and get done with the concepts before moving on to CR and RC. Thus, you concentrated on acing one subsection at a time.
Raghav’s focus on acing one subsection at a time helped him score a GMAT 760. Using the Personalised Study Plan tool you too can create your GMAT study plan and ace the GMAT with a 700+ score. Read this article to learn more.
Raghav: I would also like to add that increasing the number of questions that you solve at a time gradually helps the most in the RC subsection. As you still need to maintain consistency and your comprehension abilities after going through a difficult RC passage.
We hope this article helps in your GMAT preparation. In case of any questions please write to us at acethegmat@e-gmat.com.
