When your life becomes all about seeing that 750 on screen!!

[zcvbnm]

Among many other reasons for applying to b-schools, the foremost was my long held desire to study in one of the world’s best schools. When I see those LinkedIn profiles of people belonging to learning communities that offer such enriching experiences, I get deeply inspired to connect with talented minds from all over the world and learn from their experiences.

I casually took official GMAT mock on Jan 2017 and scored a 550(Q48 V19). I was not a regular reader and improving score in verbal was a big deal for me since reading skills develop over a time. I started with powerscore/manhattan CR, manhattan SC, RC and then practiced official questions. SC was comparatively my strongest section. In between, I kept giving mocks. Managing the balance between timing and precision was the hardest thing for me in Verbal. If I slipped, my score dropped steeply. If I was able to walk the line, I crossed 40. While I was confident on quant, I had to exercise extreme attentiveness on verbal. For quant, I used gmatclub tests and advanced quant worksets. After planned preparation for 6 months, in July, I got a 750(Q50, V41) in the official mock. To check whether the score was a fluke or reality, I took another official mock after a day and got a 750(Q50, V42) again. I booked the appointment for GMAT and in a strict examination environment a day before my exam, I got a 750(Q50, V41) in official mock. I believed there was still room for improvement and decided to target a 770 sometime in future.

August 2017: I took the GMAT in a non-Pearson center. I was calm and relaxed. I chose the order Verbal-Quant-IR&AWA (Its gets bit difficult towards the end to keep the focus and energies at the same level as towards the beginning). The place was a small closed cubicle with only two seats. Although I had checked the pens in the beginning, I did not know that they were going to dry out soon! Exam started. After 2-3 mins, I raised the concern and they gave me another set of pens which were drying out too! Further exchanges were useless. I decided to go ahead without the pens (that I needed for striking out wrong options and seldom note-making). After ~10 mins, a lady came inside to fix the other computer which was broken and started speaking to someone over phone, diagnosing the hardware. I immediately put on the noise cancelling earbuds, but her voice was loud enough to break my concentration. After trying for some time, I told her that I was getting troubled by her talks. She stopped for a while but again continued! Later a guy joined her and both started conversing on the matter. I interrupted them twice but then chose to continue because time was ticking away from me. By the time noise subdued, I had fallen off the track, and by the end of verbal, I had realized that the score was going to be a disaster. I decided to forget what had happened and to focus entirely on quant. In the break, I raised the concern about the disturbance and malfunctioned pens. I asked them for fresh set of pens for quant, and they kept giving me sets of pens which weren’t working well too. The Palm scanner didn't work, and they made me try for more than 20 times. Time was ticking faster than ever. I rushed inside, and I was already delayed by two minutes and half! After 2-3 mins, pens stopped working! I lost my patience and freaked out. I requested the staff to provide me new set of pens. After 2 more switches, they finally gave me new ones which worked! I could not do well in quant either. My score was 690 (Q49 V35 IR 7 AWA 6). I was devastated.

My husband made me write to Pearson Vue on this matter. I was offered a free retake, but I missed the Round 1 deadlines.

I was best prepared for GMAT at that time but with this failure, nervousness took a toll on me. What if it was really me? What if things go wrong again? This next attempt would be highly crucial otherwise I wouldn’t be able to apply to round 2 as well. I now badly wanted the score that I felt I was capable of achieving. It was my dream to make it to one of the top 10 B-schools. I know the level of competition that’s out there for an Indian applicant(Average GMAT score for an Indian applicant in top 20 B-Schools is 740-750). I have never met any Indian admit with a less than 730 in any of the top schools. I and my husband were applying together. He got a 760 in his first attempt in jan'17. But ordeals at my end and his constant efforts towards my goal were making his own application process suffer, filling me with constant guilt. I was cornered with pressure from every possible dimension.

September 2017 Pearson Vue Center – Verbal-Quant-IR&AWA - The center was perfect but this time I was nervous as hell. My heart was pounding fastest in history, and I could hear the beats out loud. I took long breaths in and out. Nothing worked. I think I had some kind of panic attack. I didn't do well in verbal. By the next section, I had calmed down. I did well in quant. Scored 710 - Q50 V35 IR6 AWA6. I was shattered by the failure of not being able to achieve that stellar score.

My husband decided to work on my GMAT first and pursue his dreams later. But I decided to help him on his applications for round 2 and pursue my dreams later. Both of us went stubborn in working on other’s goals and we went into deadlock, losing round 2 and first quarter of this year.

We weren’t sure whether we should apply this year, considering the fact that we would be 31 by the time we’d start our schools – age higher than the upper bracket for most schools. It took us time before we made our minds that we should give another shot at it.

Due to certain other reasons, it was not until August this year when I could take GMAT again. I now faced three major issues – a) I was completely disconnected with GMAT for a year during which I could not continue the reading habits required for an improvisation in verbal score or the practice needed to maintain the quant score c) I had exhausted all official material and mocks, leaving me with no official source to rely on for practice and evaluation!

I needed to hurry to catch up for round one. I booked the date in order to stay disciplined. With 15 days of revision, I scored a 740 on Veritas mock (Q49 V43) - a day before the exam. Night before the exam, I totally unexpectedly got my menstrual cramps and couldn’t sleep the whole night. In the morning, I took a 200mg Modafinil - a wakefulness drug. The pill kept my eyes wide open. When giving the GMAT, I felt that I was doing so well (even in the non-adaptive IR) that in the end, I couldn’t wait to finish AWA to see my score. I was expecting a 780. I was extremely sure of each and every option that I was selecting(never before happened to me that way). You are going to laugh at what I was expecting because to the greatest shock of my life, I got a 650 (Q48 V30 IR 4)!!! I always had pretty good idea of how good or bad I was performing. I don’t know what happened that day!

I believe in myself but this whole ordeal has made me question my abilities. I also don’t know how to overcome the anxiety. I want to take up the very last shot at GMAT before November. Otherwise, I will have to give up on my dreams and compromise with some other school. There are so many other stakes involved in personal front as well. I know how disastrous results can be if I take the exam so seriously. But how do I trick my mind into believing that it is not serious when it actually is for me!

Now, I don’t know how to recover the loss of a yearlong disconnect with GMAT and reading habits in a month. I don’t know what material to practice after consuming every bit of official stuff or what mocks to give after exhausting all official, manhattan, and veritas mocks. I want to figure out what’s going wrong and how to fix it!

My scores in official mocks:
Jan 2017 550 Q48 V19
March 2017 660 Q49 V30
May 2017 730 Q50 V38
July 2017 - 750 Q50 V42
July 2017 - 750 Q50 V41
Aug 2017 - 750 Q50 V41

I took official mock repeats in which I got 780,790 - which were obviously inflated.
(I had exhausted all manhattan CATS and gmatclub mocks very early in my preparation. Before second and third GMAT attempts, I used veritas mocks to gauge my performance)

Kindly help!

[StaceyKoprince]

I haven't read anything but the subject line of your post so far.

I'm thinking two things:
(1) I don't want anyone to have their life become all about anything related to the GMAT. So we'll have to see if we can do something about that.
(2) Nobody has to have a 750 on this test, even to get into the very top schools. Yes, Stanford's average is approaching 740, but that's still an average. Remind yourself what average means (since that's part of your studies!). A lot of people who are admitted to the score scored below the average. I see that you are coming from the Indian demographic so yes, it's important to stand out against a group that historically does very well on this test. But it still isn't the case that everyone from this group has to score a 750.

Okay, now I'm going to read your post.

in a strict examination environment a day before my [official] exam, I got a 750(Q50, V41)

I haven't read about your exam yet but this is making me wonder whether you tired yourself out right before the exam. The real test is very stressful, in a way that practice tests can never be (since you know they don't really count). If you go into the real test mentally drained in any way, it can have very negative consequences.

I'm sorry that you had such a negative experience at the first test. Yes, they should have provided you with a free retake and I'm glad that they did. Also: I notice that you still scored a 690, despite all of those disruptions. I know that's lower than your goal, but that's still a very good score, especially with all of the problems you were experiencing.

I was cornered with pressure from every possible dimension.

Okay, and now the stress is derailing your ability to perform on the test? Yes, the symptoms you're describing sound like a panic attack. It's impossible to think normally and clearly when you're having a panic attack.

You still scored a 710, even with that happening. What that tells me is that you are very likely capable of scoring 730+ if we can figure out how to manage the nerves. This is very good news. I speak to people all the time who have extreme stress when taking the test and their scores are much more severely affected than yours has been. You are still able to do an excellent job, even under the pressure of all of this stress.

Now I'm up to your third test. You couldn't tell how you were doing because you were under the influence of a drug that you normally didn't use when taking a test. (This is why I always tell people not to do anything differently for the real test. You don't know how your body is going to react to more caffeine or whatever you might take. Most of the time, your body reacts in a way that is Not Good for you.)

Okay, here's my takeaway from your story. You can score 730+. You don't need more practice tests to tell you that; you've already achieved that many times. We need to deal with the stress management.

Here's what you're going to do. Book another test soon, as soon as you can (you have to wait 16 days from your last official test). Do not tell ANYone—even your husband—when this test is. If you don't like the result, you're just going to cancel your score and never tell anyone about it. The only cost to you will be the test fee and three hours of your life.

Next: This test does not need to be your last attempt. It will be your 4th test. You're allowed to take it up to 8 times in your life and up to 5 times in any rolling 12-month period. Your first two official tests were more than a year ago, so you can take it multiple times this year. If, the first time, you're still too nervous, you're going to book another one and again not tell anyone about it.

Go to the testing center at least 3 times between now and when you take the test again. If you can, go at the same time you'll have to go for the real test. Pretend you're going for the real test—get everything together that you have to take with you. Go to the testing center in the same way you will for the real test. Walk in, say hello, tell them that you're taking the test soon and just want to get acclimated to the testing center. Sit in the waiting room for a few minutes and visualize the process of checking in, having them take your palm scan, going into the testing center. Everything. Take long deep breaths while you do this.

Then, leave the testing center, and as you leave the testing center, visualize yourself walking out with a piece of paper in your hand that has a 730+ score. (I'm focused on that as your goal since you said that everyone you know who has gotten in has scored 730+. So that has a concrete meaning for you.)

Do this over and over. Get your body physically used to the act of going into the testing center. The next time you go in for a real test, it's still just practice to get your body physically used to this environment. Your score doesn't matter. Nobody even knows that you're there taking a test that day! You're just practicing. When you come out, if you don't yet have the score you want, you're just going to book another test.

Also: Don't "study" for this test the way you have been. Don't take a million practice tests and study for hours and hours every day. You already know what you need to know. Do some light practice—that's all.

Instead, practice mindfulness every day, twice a day, from now until the test.

Read this: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/2013/05/09/stressed-out-meditate-to-lower-your-anxiety-and-boost-your-gmat-score/

That article links to some free mindfulness resources on the UCLA website. I've also had students try this program and like it:
http://www.10percenthappier.com/mindful ... he-basics/

There's a 1-week free trial (at least, there was when I tried it last year) and then it's a paid service after that.

Let me know if you have any questions on the above—but don't let me know what you're going to do. Don't tell even me when you're going to take this test.

You can do this!

[zcvbnm]

Thank you soooooo much !!!!
.............................................

[StaceyKoprince]

You are very welcome! Keep us posted and ask us more questions as you go. (But don't tell us when you're going to take the exam. )

[zcvbnm]

Sure!! I'll definitely keep you posted. Thank you for everything!!!

[StaceyKoprince]

You're welcome!