510 to 770 49Q 46V 6IR - What worked for me - 2 Years

*Disclosure: My original account was not "PeterHAllen" I changed it a few months back.
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I am writing this to help you avoid making the same mistakes I made. And also to help you narrow your focus and help you use the right material.

I spent a lot of time on the GMAT. For those of you who do not remember the area of a triangle, or even what a triangle looks like, with a good study plan, you only need 6 months max of dedicated daily study time. Spend 3 months mastering the basics. And the other 3 months mastering tougher material.


Below is a list of CATs I have taken. I took a few practice CATs that I haven't listed. After receiving the 710 I took 6 MGMAT CATs and 4 GMAT Prep CATs, before then I barely took practice CATs (dumb mistake).

510 28Q 32V - MGMAT CAT
620 35Q 39V - Actual GMAT 1
690 47Q 38V - Actual GMAT 2
640 42Q 36V IR7 - Actual GMAT 3
710 43Q 44V IR7 - Actual GMAT 4
770 49Q 46V IR6 - Actual GMAT 5


The advice below I only began to follow once I dropped from 690 to 640 on the actual GMAT. I began to religiously change my Verbal practice (outlined below) after the 640 and then I continued that verbal practice after the 710 but also added the quant practice. Prior to the 710 I pretty much just studied study guides and the Official Guide 13. What got me from the 510 to 620 was attending a live Manhattan GMAT course.


SENTENCE CORRECTION
First, as many have said before me, the Manhattan GMAT (MGMAT) Sentence Correction workbook is the only book you need for theory. I read it so many times that I lost count. I believe this is what got me to score in the 30's in Verbal.
Second, what got me from the 30's in verbal to the 40's was ONLY using official GMAT problems as test material and reading Ron Purewal's explanation to every answer. The GMAT writers have a unique way of writing problems and you only notice this when you begin to ONLY use their material. Ron Purewal is a Mahattan GMAT instructor and is legendary. If you don't know of him I am surprised, you should.
Third, I would study Sentence Correction under stressful conditions, i.e. on the train or trying to solve 5 problems at work in 7 minutes. I believe these scenarios tested my brain in stressful ways that helped me control my thoughts on test day.
Fourth, I said that I only used official material and the GMATClub was ridiculously helpful in supplying that material. there are some members that compiled a few documents that contain official problems that were essential to my prep. I have attached these documents. The first is called "GMATPREP COMP---- SC." This document contains a large amount of official questions from various sources, Official Guides, GMAT Prep CATs etc. The second document contains some overlap but is the most important set of questions I came across. It is called "GPSC." Why is it the most important? Because I believe these questions are very hard and very representative of the actual GMAT verbal. Once you get beyond the basics (master the basics first) these questions touch on 'meaning.' I couldnt solve many of them based off 'rules' alone. I had to ask myself 'what did the author mean to say.' (*Note: I believe I changed the name of these documents, the original downloads may have been named different. Also, in "GPSC" I often copied and pasted answer explanations under the question itself. I would delete these explanations and look them up yourself.)


CRITICAL REASONING
First, the ONLY prep book you need is the GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible by PowerScore. Do not open any other book. This is all you need. It does not teach you trick it teaches you GMAT logic.
Second, more so for Critical Reasoning that Sentence Correction, ONLY USE OFFICIAL Questions. Once again GMATClub and its users were essential here. I have attached 1 document "GMAT Prep CR" Beware that you may see some of these questions in a GMATPrep CAT. I actually practiced these so much that I began to memorize the questions. I believe this actually helped because it deeply ingrained the types of correct answers in my head. There is another CR question list somewhere on the GMATClub called GMATPREP COMP - CR. I cannot upload it for some reason so please Google it or PM me and I will email it to you. I found the link to the original post, download it here the-most-comprehensive-collection-of-everything-official-cr-140375.html
Third, buy the LSAT Logical Reasoning Question Type Training II by PowerScore. I practiced these in loud environments and stressful situations. These questions were often very tough and if you can do these the GMAT ones seem like a piece of cake.
Fourth, Ron Purewal explanations to critical reasoning questions are pure gold. He is a genius. Google his responses.

READING COMPREHENSION
First, I do not think you need a prep book for these. By studying Critical Reasoning you will get better at reading comprehension. My approach with Reading Comprehension was to spend A LOT of time reading the prompt (like 4 to 5 minutes which is not recommended--although I recommend it) and then by the time I got to the questions the answers were clear as day. This strategy suited me, it may not suit you. I found it easier this way then to skim the prompt and look at the question and then go back to the prompt and search for the answer. The only outlining I did was write down random things that stood out to me.

Quant
First, all you need is the Manhattan GMAT quant guides. I read these over and over and always found something new.
Second, once you get through the MGMAT guides solve all problems in the Offical Guide and the Official Guide workbooks. Make sure you can solve these very easily.
Third, GMAT Focus and GMAT Prep are mandatory. Be able to solve these problem with easy. Although, I only attempted about 1/4 of the Hard questions in GMAT Prep.
Fourth, GMATClub Tests, these are essential. Some of the best material out there. Make sure that you can solve the 500 and 600 level problems with ease.
Fifth, Manhattan GMAT Question Banks are great sources of tough questions.
Sixth, Manhattan GMAT CATs. I would only do the Quant section of these CATs. (Remember only use official questions for verbal.) I strongly believe that these CATs put got me from the low 40's in quant to the 49.
Seventh, once again GMATClub was essential. Many users supplied lists of questions that were very helpful. I strongly advocate solving problems at different times of the day and in different scenarios. I believe it puts you in the right state of mind to be able to tackle any problem. I have attached a question list called "198 Level 700 questions." This was provided by some other user whom I cannot remember. The problems are definitely not all 700 level but they are certainly mixed levels and I believe that practicing all different levels at the same time is essential.
Eight, I almost forgot. GMATQUANTUM.com and Dabral. This guy Dabral is a life saver. I highlight his name because I feel like he doesn't get enough credit on here. What helped me on the verbal section was learning how the testmakers think. For quant, Dabral has posted video solutions to all official questions. Listening to him and watching him solve problems totally changed my approach. HE taught me how to think when approaching quant problems. Whereas prior I would solve problems by picking numbers he taught me how to be more confident using algebra. He showed many different ways to solve the same problem. I loved his free solutions soo much that I purchased his course. It was well worth it, I didnt go through the course I just purchased the course so I would have access the the entire library of answer explanations. At the very least check out this guys site. Its free for official guide problems. He posts on GmatClub (I am following him).

IR
By studying Quant and Verbal you are studying for IR. You just have to be energized for the section and ready to dig deep and 'research' each answer. This section is only challenging because they throw so much info at you. I am very disappointed that I received an IR of 6 the last itme. I got 7 twice before. I contemplated retaking the GMAT because of it but think I wont. Any opinions on this?

I almost gave up many times. If it means that much to you then don't give up. You can get there. What changed for me after my 640 score was I got serious and I got pissed anytime I got any problem wrong. Before then I thought it was okay to get one or two or five wrong here and there. Once I decided I wanted to not let anything past me was when i started to make improvements. That being said--I never studied combinatorics or probability. I hated those and refused to spend time on it. I hoped that I would see those on test day, funny thing is I saw 4 of them, probably got them wrong.


I hope this will help some of you.

***EDIT: I used an admissions consultant and was super successful (the infamous Paul Bodine) Check out my post here:
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