Well, the journey is finally over. Just took the GMAT for the 5th and final time, scoring a 690 (Q46/V38/IR6/AWA6.0). Nothing in life worth having comes easy – and this is a hell of an understatement. This was one of the most frustrating hurdles I have ever had to overcome and it feels damn good to be done. There are a ton of great debriefs in extreme detail on this forum so I am going to keep it short and to the point.
Before I dive in, I would like to give a disclaimer and the #1 most important factor when determining which products to use.
Find out what works best FOR YOU! There are a ton of courses out there and all of them are good. I tried most of them and a lot of them didn’t work for me –
this doesn’t mean they won’t for you. Figure out your learning style and match that with a program. Do you do better doing a deep dive into concepts? Do you need a MASSIVE volume of problems and repetition (that’s me)? Do you do better using algebra or testing numbers? Figure this out first and you will save yourself a ton of time and effort.
Special thanks to
ScottTargetTestPrep and Jeff from
Target Test Prep and
EMPOWERgmatRichCScores:GMAT 1: 460
GMAT 2: 610
GMAT 3: 650
GMAT 4: 660
GMAT 5: 690
Books/Programs used:GMAT 1 - I started off studying with
Magoosh and the Manhattan guides. I went through all of the videos and did the books. The beginning was basically a complete relearn of math and getting familiar with verbal. I studied for 3 months, about 15 hours per week.
GMAT 2 – Obviously I was shocked that my score was so bad so I knew that I needed to change some things up. I started doing only official problems and I started using GMAT Club, Beat the GMAT, and other online resources.
GMAT 3/4 – Improvement but not there yet. This is when I first talked to Rich and got the EMPOWER program. It started clicking with me and I really enjoyed the course. The tactics helped me improve my score and I started doing better on the practice tests. I took the GMAT twice and scored 650/660 (1 month between tests). There was still something missing.
GMAT 5 – It took almost a year to discover the key to my studies –
A massive amount of practice problems. Jeff from
Target Test Prep got in touch with me and recommended I give
TTP a try. I signed up and everything just immediately fell into place. Their quant program goes really deep into quant theory – something I needed. The way the entire course is laid out totally fits with what I needed. I stopped doing official problems (had gone through everything twice) and I did 1,500+ practice problems on
TTP. My practice test scores immediately jumped and I scored a 670 and 700 on GMAT Prep #5 and #6.
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Official Guide 15
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Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review
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Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review
- Powerscore CR bible – you must have this book
I did the
MGMAT tests and thought they were way too hard and not similar to GMAT Prep. Now that there are 6 full GMAT Prep exams, that is all you need to study.
Tips:- Only use official material for verbal. After you do enough questions, you will recognize patterns and similar language that will help you “decode” GMAT verbal.
- When looking around the forum to see what study programs worked for other people, don’t assume it will work for you. Error logs work for a lot of people; they didn’t help me one bit. Again, find out what works for you and stick to it.
- Review, review, review. Never go any significant length of time without revisiting old topics.
- If you can’t figure out a rare concept, find a few questions and memorize them – the question, the numbers, the answer, everything. I could never figure out Comb/Perm mixed with probability. I found a few questions in the
OG and memorized them. I did this with several concepts including some 600-700 problems in Work Rate, Speed, Probability, Mixtures, Word problems. In all, I memorized about 25 questions and exactly how to solve them. On the actual exam, I used these problems 3-4 times to get answers.
Closing thoughtsI hope this post and my experience provides motivation for anyone who is struggling. Learn from my mistakes. When I saw 460 pop up on the screen after studying for 3 months, I thought I was hallucinating. I got my ESR and I'm fairly certain I got every single DS and CR problem wrong. Don't let a few bad scores get you down.