Back in 2017, after experiencing the horrible side of Big 4 Consulting (in terms of work life balance, meagre pay, pathetic management and crappy office politics), I planned to get an MBA. Main aim of getting an MBA is to get international exposure and get out of a rut which was nowhere in sight in my stuck up job. Started the GMAT journey and in a span of 3 years, gave 5 unsuccessful GMAT attempts, never crossing 660 (Might have been the darkest phase in my life. More on this in another post). When I had almost accepted my fate, I made the decision to give one final shot - the GRE. Did some research and understood that GRE Quant was definitely easier than GMAT - so this aspect was not an issue. However, vocab was definitely a challenge, but I was ready to spend couple of months to build and polish vocab.

May 2020 :

Started with Magoosh word list and tried to memorize 100 words each day. However, I noticed that I couldn't retain the meanings beyond a week or so. For quant, went through the general topics and Manhattan books.

June/July/August/September 2020 :

Continued with the prep in a cursory manner. Never had the heart to give a mock as an unexpectedly low score would have put a stop to the prep. Went through the OG, Verbal and Quant Review.

October 2020 :

After much persuasion from family and my dear God-send, angelic husband, decided to give GRE a full throttle effort. Sometime in mid October, I came across Gregmat and how I thank God for creating such an amazing human!! After going through few of his Verbal Strategy videos, I subscribed to GregMat+ and followed the 1 month study plan.

November/December 2020 :

Started on Big Book tests and worked on weakness areas. For Verbal it was mostly not understanding the big picture and Quant was mainly silly mistakes. Went through all of Greg's strategy videos for TC and RC and practiced these strategies forcibly in practice questions. Guys - this might sound lame or repetitive or even obvious, but as Greg mentions in his videos, it is imperative to force your brain to come out of old habits while solving questions and meaningfully apply the strategies.

January 2021 :

I started seeing increase in accuracy in RC and TC questions post applying Greg's strategies. After a month of deliberate practice, it had become second nature to catch the transition words in an RC or TC or to 'REASON' with quant questions instead of jumping into solving them.

Diagnostic test (October 2020)
PP1 - 313 (V153 Q160)

December 2020
PP2 - 317 (V155 Q 162)

January 2021
PPP1 - 313 (V154 Q 159)

PPP3 - 320 (V156 Q 164)

Booked my at home GRE for 2/2/2021 as I had already spent more than 6 months thinking and loosing my sleep over this goddamn exam. Went with the attitude of whatever happens - happens.

Test Day :

I had the exam booked for 1 PM IST as I'm not a morning person and my brain works at peak in the afternoon. Faced issues with mic (inspite of passing the system requirements check) and the proctor asked me to either get another laptop or reschedule the exam. Luckily, I had my amazing superhero brother at home who lended his laptop. This took about 30-35 minutes and after passing all system requirements, the proctor asked me show the room, table, chair and whiteboard. We started the exam around 1.45 and had no hiccups for the next 2 hours. The issue and argument essays were quite straightforward and I managed to put in 550-600 words with strong 4-5 paragraphs. I had QVQVQ (thank the Lord!! ) which immediately boosted my confidence (being a non native speaker and an Indian engineer, Quant has been my strong suite). I did not try to figure which Quant was experimental. Verbal was very similar to the Paid PowerPrep tests (bit harder than the free ETS tests). Did not find mind boggling vocabulary - the GRE tests usage of a specific word in context to the whole sentence. Hence, usually one needs to understand the nuances instead of extremely hard vocabulary. However, I had gone through GregMat's 28 vocab videos and revised them once every week. Quant was on par with the Paid tests. However, as I already had GMAT quant practice, I'm really not sure how reflective my opinion would be. (Had consistently been scoring 49-51 in GMAT).

The test did stop abruptly atleast 5 times due to network issues and 3 more times by the proctor to perform a random room check. I was aware of these issues previously, but was more comfortable to give the GRE at home, to be in a familiar environment to give my nerves some peace.

Fast forward 5 hours and the score displayed on screen was

326 - V160 Q166

For a second, I thought I was hallucinating and tried to focus my dazed out eyes on the screen. But it was there as clear as day - a score that exceeded my expectations.

A piece of advice to those who are loosing their lives after these anachronistic standardized tests - please DON'T. These exams are not reflective of your personality and acumen. These tests DON'T guarantee success in life. I understood this very late, but please don't give up your social life and mental health behind a specific score.

GREGMAT you are a boon to us earthly creatures!

Peace out.

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