Lnstnbass4 wrote:
I have been studying since January and my scores have not seen much improvement. I took my first official in may and received a 390 (Q17/V25 , IR 1, AWA 3.0) , i took a two months off during the summer and started again studying about 3-4 hours per day. I have been using
Magoosh (which I LOVE), Foundations of Math and the
Manhattan Prep books. In October I took another practice test and scored a 450. At that time I decided to get a tutor which did help a little bit. I took another pre-test on Thanksgiving and received a 440. At that time i had already scheduled another official test for the following week and couldn't reschedule. My second official test ended up at 440 (Q24/V26 , IR 4, AWA 3.5) so there was some improvement but definitely not enough to be competitive let alone get into my top school choices (currently looking at Indiana, Michigan, Dartmouth , Maryland and Manchester). I was hoping to apply during the January round of the Consortium but have now decided to wait until next year to apply. I need advice on how to study/attack the process of this GMAT. My overall profile i believe is very strong, 7 years of experience, 3.81 GPA work in marketing and sales for a event management company. i do work with math in my company but based on my GMAT scores it definitely doesn't prove. it. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Hi
Please do not be disheartened as GMAT is all about high commitment. It’s a good thing you have taken your exams. You can now know your weaknesses and work on them. If you are willing to study dedicatedly for that period, you are sure to achieve your goal.
Kindly go through the concepts first and solidify your base in quant. Your choice of the Foundation of GMAT Math by
MGMAT and
MGMAT Strategy guides is great as they are phenomenal and cover the entire syllabus really well. After going through these guides one more time, I must add that if you are particularly looking to discover and improve on your weak areas in Quant; a subscription to
GMATCLUB tests is the best way to do that. They are indeed phenomenal and will not only pinpoint your weak areas but also help you improve on them.
Also for verbal, I would highly encourage you to consider
e-gmat verbal online or the
e-gmat verbal live course. They are both amazing courses especially designed for non-natives. They offer almost 25% of their courses for free so you can try out their free trial to decide which one you want to go for. Plus the
e-gmat Scholaranium which is included in both the courses is one of the best verbal practice tools in the market.
Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP,
Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have a good verbal and Quant section and will certainly help you point out and improve your weak areas.
Further another advantage of taking many mocks is to build up your stamina. Apart from the GMATPREP tests, taking practise tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that.
Lastly I would also encourage you to purchase the latest version of
OG and the Verbal and Quant review for some great additional practice.
Hope this helps. All the best.