A tryst with the devil

A devil? Yes, anybody who has tasted GMAT for real will agree when I say that. There could be exceptions of course; like people with talent who did not have to work hard or people with no talent who worked real hard! I am still trying to figure out which one of these am I!

It was June 2012 and after a fairly good diagnostic test performance, I schedule a test just within a month time. Don't know why just a month. Predominantly I would blame my blatant vanity. "Study, why, I don't need that, I am too good for practice." By the end of first week of registering, I finished skimming through the Indian B-schools who would not mind accepting me. The GMAT score trend in schools like ISB and IIM A (EMBA) was around 690. For a person with an automotive background it should not be a big deal even if they were to score 40 points less. I was high on confidence, my practice CATs will indicate scores at par with the set trend. The task that lay ahead of me was just to practice my game plan. By game plan I mean strategy to attack each GMAT question viz, which ones to guess, where to give an extra 30 second to a problem, etc. So head bent as I was I kept practicing the strategies on consecutive full length CATs without bothering what it would be like playing at the topmost level.

Next day I was at the test center after a full night out and a complete day cramming last minute quant short-cuts and IR question types. After all those game plans, I thought I would be able to work on my little weak areas. That was my stupidest folly. The test starts and by the time I am into the quant section, my mind is already tired after an okie-dokie AWA and a satisfactory IR sections. I felt brain dead and my top floor simply refused to admit further quant challenges. Soon I realized, the CAT was testing me on simple basics. My heart sank further when I stopped spotting tough questions. And before I knew, verbal too showered a similar wash-over. I read about the 1994 human vs computer chess games, Kasparov's lose, Anand's win over the supercomputer. I always wondered what it would be the experience like - to win over a computer. Believe me, after a wash-over like that, I felt freakishly stupid. After all it was a victory of regular artificial intelligence (not a super computer) over the real thing; poor me! However, after this dismal performance, I did manage to interest ISB and SPJMIR but nothing further. The story behind it? Maybe sometime later.

If I were to summarize what went wrong, in order of significance, it would go like this:

1. Never take a full length CAT before test. You must put your last CAT at least a week ahead of the Devil. This gives your brain ample time to breath and be ready for the real game.
2. Develop a game plan to attack the CAT at least 2 weeks prior the D Day. Spend last seven days fine tuning them over smaller sets of questions.
3. Stop cramming anything new those two weeks; this will not have a positive impact on your scores. Rather relax and work on points 1 and 2.
4. A night out before the date (or a real Date!) is absolutely forbidden. If you ever have a craving to practice anything new, just remember they would take your pictures(with those puffy eyes) and wire them to the prospective B-school along with your scores. CATs are real test of mental stamina. Don't let the last minute work eat out your opportunity when you can actually give your best.
5. Stop procrastinating, act now.

I learnt the truth the tough way. Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard. Every practice problem and every minute is an opportunity, the challenge is to make it count.