560 (mock) to 750 (1st test) in 3,5 months without spending a penny

750: Verbal 44, Quant 48, IR 5

Materials used

I pretty much used GMAT club exclusively. While I did some questions online, most of the time I exported the questions to pdf files. All together I created 36 such files.

GMAT Club Math Handbook was a great help. I read it 2 times. First time I read it I did not concentrated on the hard topics enough and later realized I lack the important details and formulas. So I re-read it, this time making notes on sheets of A4 paper. I would fold these sheets twice so that I could carry them with me easily.

I also used some questions from free official GMAT prep software and some from two free weeks of Economist prep but those probably didn't even amount to 10% of questions I did.

Prep strategy (or lack of thereof)

For a really long time I just did GMAT Club questions, every 2-3 weeks I would do a free prep test. I would try to solve them and check the answer but I would mostly plan to correct my errors later. At least half time I would forget to correct the errors but at least I would know my weak areas. I didn't really have problems with verbal once I understood how SC works but I found some topics from quant quite challenging. Mostly I struggled with reminders/divisibility and probability questions.

Most of the time I would not time myself when practising questions, and when I would time I somehow mistakenly (until very late) assumed I have 2,5 minutes per question. Only 2-3 weeks before the test I started to be more conscious about time.

Here are my mock tests results (day/month):

Veritas Prep 23/09 - 560
Gmat Prep1 17/10 - 700 - This nice score probably gave more confidence in my skills than I needed at this time
Manhattan Prep 7/11 - Started but realised in the middle of the test that I was too tired to continue. I stupidly wasted this free test.
GMAT Pill ?/? 500 - Lower than my first mock test ever - I was really tired when I took this one and felt devastated afterwards.
Gmat Prep2 05/12 - 660
Kaplan 12/12 - 680
Real GMAT 16/12 - 750

As I couldn't access public library easily (it would close at 6pm and my work finishes at 5pm) I did the tests sitting on my bed, in my room, in a flat shared with 2 noisy flatmates. I also took multiple breaks and left questions unanswered. In general, my mock tests environment was not very similar to the one of the real test.

Breakthrough in my approach to GMAT

At some point I realised I really need to start timing myself. And when I started I learned that my quant timing is not really good. At this point I focused on getting the right answer in the quickest way, not necessarily in the cleanest or most elegant method. I realised those questions have been designed to be solved within 2-minute limit and most definitely not 10 minutes.

Test day

The day came and I felt really unprepared but it was too late to resign now. I really really wanted to score 700 but it looked like I should prepare to score about 650-670.

I had not practised essays until 3 days beforehand, but it went ok. IR came afterwards and I had trouble to concentrate. When I finished the last question I felt something "click" in my mind and somehow felt ready to tackle the rest. I got into the zone somehow. I skipped the break and started right away with quant. Luckily, no probability or divisibility questions. I run out of time and had to guess about 7 questions. Took break. Did verbal and finished with few minutes left. Saw my score .