A 6 min read

This article is based on the success story of Mayank, a working professional who was out of touch with studies for 10 years, but with the right study plan, he scored GMAT 730 in his first attempt. He achieved this remarkable feat with just 3 months of dedicated prep time. He managed this with a full-time job and being a father of a 6-yr old. Let’s take a look at his journey:

GMAT Study Plan followed by Mayank to score GMAT 730

Time	Avg. Study Time (Daily)	Focus Area
Oct – Nov 2017	Irregular < 1 hour	Identifying the right set of resources and getting started
Dec 2017 – Mid Jan 2018	4 hours	Complete SC module Complete CR module Complete RC module
Rest of Jan 2018	4 hours	Verbal Practice tests from Scholaranium Revisit CR to improve ability from 40% to 80%
Feb 2018	5-6 hours	Complete Quant module Practice tests from GMAT Club and Scholaranium
Last week of Feb 2018	5-6 hours	Revision of Incorrect questions from Scholaranium
March 3	NA	GMAT 730 (Q49, V40)

Are you a working professional with a hectic schedule? Or are you retaking the GMAT too? Take a look at these articles on:

• Study plan for working professionals
• 5-step strategy for a successful GMAT retake

Rajat – How did you start your preparation for GMAT?

I started preparing for GMAT around Oct 2017. I started preparing by myself by solving Official Guide questions, but I was having a tough time understanding the solutions, and there came a time when I started believing that it is impossible for me to get a decent score on GMAT. Quant felt manageable early on to me. A friend of mine from Kellogg referred to have a look at e-GMAT for the content and GMAT study plan. I attended a free session on SC conducted by Payal. It was a game changer for me as it made me believe that I can ace GMAT by solving questions logically and preparing methodically. With the rejuvenated energy and hope, I subscribed to e-GMAT immediately and started preparing seriously after Thanksgiving.

Running behind your plan of GMAT Preparation? Attend our GMAT Strategy webinar. Mayank aced the GMAT and scored a GMAT 730 because he knew how to manage time and balance work with studies. Learn the best way to prepare for GMAT by taking a free trial of our online GMAT preparation resources. Feel free to write to us at acethegmat@e-gmat.com with your GMAT planning and strategy related queries.

Rajat – How did you plan your study schedule?

After some initial hiccups, I realized that it is very important to follow a study plan/schedule. One thing that worked in my favor was that I used to work from home, which helped me save commute time. I created a study plan where I used to get up at 5 am to study for at least 2 hours in the morning and another 2-3 hours in the evening. To start-off I booked my GMAT slot for March 3, thereby giving myself 3 months of study time. I planned to dedicate December and January for Verbal, and February for Quant as I felt I was good at Quant naturally. In December, I planned to complete all basic modules from the e-GMAT Verbal course, and then devote January to practice questions and fine tune my weaknesses.

All I had to do was follow the sequence suggested by e-GMAT. I diligently attended all Live sessions and ensured that I complete the pre-requisites before attending every session. To summarize, my approach was as follows:

1. Go through all video lessons pertinent to the upcoming e-GMAT session
2. Complete the practice quizzes for these video lessons and work on my mistakes
3. Solve the list of OG questions provided by e-GMAT after each section
4. Attend the live session
5. Move on to the next topic

I was scared of RC in the beginning, but once I attended RC webinars, I realized that it is all about understanding the meaning and practice.

You too can attend our RC Webinar and learn the reading strategies used by Mayank to ace the GMAT.

Most students spend a lot of time learning concepts and very little time solidifying their understanding of the newly learned topics by practicing pertinent questions. In the end, they are clueless about how to move forward. What Mayank did here followed a very scientific approach to learning, and hence he was able to achieve a GMAT 730 (Q49, V40) within 3 months of prep time.

Rajat – How did you go about practicing once you were done with all topics?

I used to practice questions from Scholaranium. I found it to be the best resource to practice as it not only gave me an idea about my accuracy but also moved a step forward to provide ability scores which turned out to be very close to my actual GMAT percentiles. One thing I made sure was to look at the wrong answer choices to learn about common mistakes even if I had answered the question correctly. After a while, I automatically started avoiding these mistakes. I used to take Ability quizzes in Scholaranium every day. Once I practiced 40 passages in RC, I was able to reduce the time taken to solve a passage by almost half. I ended up scoring 82 percentile in RC.

Feeling confused about how to interpret GMAT Percentile Scores? Read our article for a better understanding of GMAT scores and percentiles.

Learn more about how and why GMAT measures ability. We present insights into the GMAT – Computer Adaptive Testing Algorithm based on our analysis in this article.

Initially, when I learned CR, I didn’t focus on learning the pre-thinking approach taught by e-GMAT. It was very tempting to read the question, not do Pre-thinking and mark the answers quickly. However, after getting 40% ability in Scholaranium quizzes, I realized the importance of Pre-thinking. I decided to redo e-GMAT CR questions. This time I pushed myself to integrate Pre-thinking in my approach. Soon I started hitting 80% in CR. I ended up getting a 78 percentile in CR on GMAT.

Attend our pre-thinking webinar for GMAT CR an learn the approach used by Mayank to boost your GMAT CR ability.

Rajat – Did you face any other challenges while preparing and how did you go about overcoming them?

The biggest mistake in my preparation was taking Quant for granted. I thought one month would be enough as I do a lot of math on a day-to-day basis in my professional life. On Feb 1, I started preparing for Quant, and I was freaked out. I started devoting around 5-6 hours every day to make up for Quant. I told my family that I may not be able to give time to them for a few days.

I stayed calm and covered all topics in the Quant module, but I had very little time left for solving Scholaranium questions. Initially, I was scoring around Q38. I practiced primarily from GMAT Club tests and was able to hit around Q47 in these tests. In the end, I was able to score Q49 and V40 with an aggregate score of GMAT 730. With more time I could have done better on the Quant front, but I’m satisfied with my score.

Mayank’s Advice for other GMAT Aspirants & e-GMAT’s comparison with others

Every GMAT Aspirant should do the following things:

• Make sure you follow your study plan diligently
• If your mock scores are going down, analyze your weaknesses and work on them
• Speak to your family and friends about time commitment for GMAT. My wife and kids were very supportive, and that’s a big reason I was able to focus on studies.
• Revise incorrect questions and common mistakes in the last week before GMAT

About the course – The e-GMAT course was a game changer as it offered an ample amount of video tutorials with practice questions. The course is completely logic-driven, so you improve with time are score consistently. Scholaranium is an amazing quizzing platform to practice, identify your weaknesses and review your mistakes.