Imagine scoring a whopping 333 with a perfect quant score of 170 on your first try in GRE. Wild, right?
Well Kanishq Chhabra just accomplished this commendable feat while still in his last year of graduation at DU in just under 3 months!
He shared with us how he went about his preparation, what materials he referred to, what were his challenge areas and what he did in order to improve.
He started his preparation journey by giving a mock exam. Right off the bat, he knew his quant was pretty decent and he’ll have to put in more effort in the verbal portion of the exam. For his verbal prep, he knew he would have to start from scratch and it won’t be possible to build the level of aptitude it takes to sail well in a matter of days or overnight but it would take a long time to get clarity with the concepts and then to learn how to apply the techniques well.
1. He started reading literature and politics to get better at reading in general and made it a habit of reading every-day that he says helped him a lot in the reading comprehension part.
2. He started using OCTAVE actively. The application of OCTAVE took him some time but his accuracy improved as soon as he started using it and left his reliance of intuition. It also gave him clarity on what part of the passage is more important to focus on among the lot.
3. He possesses a decent vocabulary but during the course of his preparation whenever he used to come across a new word, he used to write the meaning and the purpose of it down and remember well for further use.
Though he was good at quant he shares what issue he had and what he did to improve till got even better:
1. After understanding topics, applying the techniques well under a clock with time pressure was difficult for him.
2. To get faster, he used to write all the questions and the answers simultaneously and practicing a lots and lots of questions. He also built his own notes that helped him immensely.
For both the sections, he used to focus on every single question individually not focusing on the end goal but always on the question at hand that helped him calm his nerves, something that’s absolutely critical.
The material he shares was way more than enough to build the concepts and practice through.
For mocks, he gave one right at the beginning and then after his practice he used to give one mock every 3-4 days. Giving the mock gave him a feel of the real exam and getting acquainted with the pressure. By the end he was almost scoring the same marks and as he actually did in the exam.
In the actual exam, he says, he had nothing unusual to tackle and the up-to-date material had covered everything already.
He gave some advice to all those who are preparing: 1. Focus on consistency. Losing even one day can be a taxing thing to recover from. Don’t lax.
2. Conceptual clarity takes precedence over the number of questions especially in quant.
3. Techniques are everything in verbal and must be utilised over intuition all the time.
Lastly he says that attitude in the exam is actually everything and is over aptitude.
Sandeep Sir usually says in his sessions never to lose even a single mark in the quant section and Kanishq says he took this line seriously enough to actually achieve and these little lines here and there kept motivating him in his preparation.
Start your GRE journey soon!
Best of luck!
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