I planned a 3 month preparation time only after realizing my initial potential after taking one of the free official mocks given by GMAC. I scored a daunting 630 in that very first mock. There I realized the gravity of the efforts needed and hence I decided for a 3 month study plan.
BTW, key take away from the first mock should be your strong and weak areas at microscopic level. For example- I could see that in VA I was extremely bad with sentence correction and fairly bad with RCs. So, I knew in which direction to sail the boat. Similarly, for QA I realized that geometry was my weakness and Arithmetic, Probability and PnC were strong areas.
Now was the time to make a proper strategy. I decided to study the basics of my weak areas and practice the questions from OG for 1.5 hrs every day after office (from 11 PM to 12:30 PM). Then for another half an hour, I used to practice my strong areas also (this some aspirants miss and end up making little to no use of strengths). After a month of such preparation, it was time to put myself to test and for that, I bought Manhattan’s test series of 6 mocks (after much contemplation). I decided to take the mocks in real test environment type setup and for that, I used to drive to my office on Sundays.
More crucial than taking mocks is analyzing them and for that, I used to keep whole Sunday and tracked my performance in every mock compared to the last one. That helped me a lot in refining my strategy with every mock.
2 weeks prior to my scheduled test date (August), I took last Manhattan mock and could manage to score only a 700. A week before I took the second official mock and scored 720. Though not much satisfied with my score in mock, I got ready for the big day. However, destiny had some other plans and a night before the exam I got cancellation mail. I thought it’s not a good omen as I was at the peak of my preparation but then I calmed myself down and thought of utilizing this to my best. I rescheduled the exam a month later and re-took all the mocks after resetting them and instead of analyzing the mocks I tried understanding the GMAC scoring algorithm. At times, I could notice bizzare patterns in the scoring method, which I made use of while further refining my strategy for exam. Finally, on the D-day, I could manage to keep myself braced and put all my learning and strategies to good use. However, I did stumble a bit in RC section and that I think led to a 740 instead of a 760 or so.
Key Takeaway:
- Gauge your current level by taking official mock only.
- Understand your weak and strong areas and formulate a plan accordingly. Do keep in mind your own learning curve and pace.
- Do not underplay on your strengths, for you are going to gain the maximum out of them only.
- Last, but my favourite part, take good chocolates with you on the exam day and enjoy munching in breaks.
All the best!
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