GMAT Practice Test

You should take an official practice test (never a company test) before you start, so you know what the real GMAT is about, so you can get a rough idea of how much time you'll need to reach your goal, and to determine how to apportion your time between Quant and Verbal study.

You'll find lots of suggestions about study plans if you search this or other GMAT forums. As long as you work from high quality materials (you should mainly use official questions for practice, but should find a good unofficial source for explanations) there are lots of different study plans that can work. You should work systematically through each topic until you feel comfortable with each, and once you feel confident in your foundation, be sure also to work on test-taking skills (pacing strategy especially).

You might want to deviate from a decent but generic study plan, depending on your background, current level, and target score, so with a bit more information experts here might be able to give you some guidance specifically catered to you.

Clayman,

The best thing you can do is to take a free Practice Test in an ONLINE environment, as this will better replicate the conditions and computer-adaptive nature of the Test-Day GMAT.

Kaplan offers a lot of Practice Test opportunities.

Hope this helps you!

Randy

Thank you for the resources GMATPillBill!

Do you have any resources to advance my studies in verbal? After taking your practice test, I noticed that verbal was the weakest among my test scores.

Sorry for the misunderstanding EMPOWERgmatRichC

My test is at the end of August. My goal score is 700+. My reasoning for taking the GMAT is not for business school at the moment. I currently attend a non-target school with a poor SAT score. I was hoping to use the GMAT to break into coveted positions in investment banking or management consulting. Do you think taking the GMAT would be the best approach?

Thank you IanStewart and RandyBeeler!

Taking a practice test def. helped me understand where I stand!

Hi theclayman,

Taking the GMAT as a means to get onto a career path is an interesting idea - to THAT end, you'd certainly want to lock down a high Quant Scaled Score (I'd imagine a Q50 or Q51 is what a Top Investment Banking position would 'require.' As to whether using the GMAT for that purpose is the 'best approach' or not, I can't tell you. I imagine the best source for that type of information would be the companies themselves - the HR departments or Hiring Head(s) (or equivalent).

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Hey theclayman,

Based on your practice test, it seems that CR and RC are your biggest areas of weakness.

For CR, we recommend a visual framework approach to help you understand the complex short passages and how each item relates to each other.

Here is a sample video explaining the framework approach: https://www.gmatpill.com/criticalreasoni ... Estate.mp4

To improve RC - you really need visual guidance. Don't read articles about how to improve reading. You improve by actually doing or watching someone else do.

That's why you might find these video walkthroughs helpful: https://www.gmatpill.com/practicequestio ... tions.html

Sounds good. Thank you EMPOWERgmatRichC and GMATPILLBILL !