Your goal is certainly achievable. I am writing from personal experience.
I went from 590 to above 700.
First of all "30 days" is a broad term. Do you have no job, or could take off time? I mean: You certainly don't have
"30 days". I am planning to post my entire experience in due course. But a few quick take-aways since I am sure
you don't want to wait:
1. Discipline is important. This is why I ask if you have 30 days. I doubt you do. I studied EVERY night I came home
from work. And I can tell you I was super exhausted. At some nights it was hard to concentrate. At the end of the
week I would get a good night sleep. And then study 7-8hrs every weekend day (with appropriate breaks).
2. Best is to make a plan. Make a plan by subjects. This web site has pretty much done that for you and in the
different forums you can get an idea how to structure your studies.
3. Learn your weaknesses. This is something everyone says. And I don't know how to advise you. For me, my
weakness was the quant section. Ironic. Cause I have read tons and tons of posts here and on other sites.
And people start with a Q score of 48-51 ...and a poor V score. And then the Q score remains kind of the same,
but they improve their verbal.
...mostly engineering backgrounds
....and non-native English speakers. So English is the initial burden.
My issues was quant. So again this applies only to that. I am not a native English speaker (officially) but I grew
up and worked in English speaking environments. Believe it or not, my verbal score was above the 90 percentile
without any serious preparation. All I did was practicing a couple of time with the official GMAT software
taking their mock tests.
GMAT claims it doesn't test English. It tests your logical thinking.
GMAT claims it doesn't test maths. It tests your logical thinking.
I went into the exam with that idiotic premise. And I can tell you both are WRONG! There are two cases in my view:
A) You are not made for an MBA and no matter what you do, it is hard for your to succeed (I doubt many people are in this
category).
B) You are a smart individual and you are planning your career.
If you belong to the second category, and I am sure you do, just by seeing you here on this forum, researching, trying to
get more insights.... then: Why did you not succeed on the GMAT? Cause the GMAT does not test logic, IQ or "aptitude".
It is this entire illusion the GMAC company and business schools like to maintain to keep the prestige of this degree.
At least at the top schools.
I had a quant score below 35 percentile. And after preparation, I scored above the 80 percentile. How? If I don't have
the aptitude then I should improve to a 50 percentile. But not above 80. ....and if I had the aptitude from the beginning,
then why did I score so low?
This made me think a lot! ....btw. I blew away over $4,000 on a course (online tutoring) that didn't help me at all. My GMAT
score went further down after that (believe it or not!). So then, I started with the premise B) above (I am a smart person)
and tried to understand why I fail.
I realized the following: The GMAT tests two things: ...your language skills ...and mathematics! That's it. Of course, it
tests these things in a way you can demonstrate you can apply "logic". But substance over form! It is given that you
can think logically (belonging to the B group). ....If you take CR for example. The easy questions are written in a simple
way. So you can easily understand them. And the reasoning of your logic flows naturally. The "hard" questions ask the
same stuff. Your logic doesn't change. They just mess it up with English language you are unfamiliar with.
As for the quant: It is the same. I realized I knew the rules roughly. But did I know them COLD? Did I know them within
5 seconds, using the rest of 115 seconds to answer a question under 2 minutes? No! I did not. So understanding the
maths, memorizing, practicing. All this is important. ....does this have anything to do with IQ or aptitude? No!
Now let me get back. I said you need a plan. Study hard. Memorize a lot. ...you CAN deduce things under a normal situation,
but the GMAT gives you on average 2 minutes per question. You don't have time to deduce. I memorized by heart and cold,
backward and forward all perfect squares from 1 to 30 for example. I memorized the values of fractions. That for fractions of
2, 3, 4, 5, ....9. So when you see a number, you immediately know what fraction it is. I learned that 27*37 = 999.
This all sounds stupid to all those who studied maths at university, had computer science, physics, economics or engineering
as their majors. But someone who has been years out of high school and doesn't remember the difference between a
parallelogram and rhombus, it is important to study this way. There is no other alternative. You need to become perfect.
....this web site, is an excellent start. It has so much materials by explaining questions. The theory section is superb. I wasted
so much money on professional advice and it go me nowhere cause they are not structured to your needs and the just preach
basic materials.
A few points: In addition to these forums, I found by far the best books to be the ones by
Manhattan GMAT. Buy them now.
You can buy them online. ...they cover deep theories on mathematical and verbal subjects. I bought the entire pack. But I
never used the verbal. Glanced at them though and they seem good.
As for Kaplan....no comment. Just do a bit research and you will find out. I did subscribe to them as well though (wasted more
money). They are in my view not realistic.
The greatest tool was the following: The official GMAT prep software. It comes with a bit of questions. But for comparably low
amount of money you can buy additional exams and about 300-400 questions. .....this is what I did. And this was the cornerstone
of practicing for me. .....their practice exams come with solution only (no explanation) and this is where this web site comes
into play.
On average, without exception, I studied from 8pm to 1am every day. Plus the weekends I told you. I used the book GMAT Club
published (PDF file and free) as a starting point. But I made my own notes from that and other notes people post here. It got to
25 pages. ....I memorized EVERYTHING that was written in there. Cause most of it are formula. The lats week before my exam,
I cut down on the night shift. But I woke up early before going to work, I memorized the entire book again, wrote down on paper
again and again the important formulas and relationships. And I repeated that before starting the night shift again.
Again the engineering majors may laugh at me. But I did it. And I know it is possible.
All the best. If you find your way to study (this was just my way), I am sure you WILL succeed.