590 to 720 in two months: 130 point increase - The Debrief

(Apologies in advance for the dramatic title)

I wanted to write what turned out to be a kinda long account of my short but intense GMAT journey. When I started out, debriefs gave me loads of guidance on how to go about my study, so I hope I can help someone in return now (particularly those on a tight budget as I was) :

TL;DR:
Official Test Prep #1 (late November): 590 (39Q, 33V)
Official GMAT Exam, first and only (February 12, 2020): 720 (49Q, 39V, IR 6, AWA 6)

Okay, here's a bit of background first of all.

I had recently graduated university (July 2019) from a Modern Languages degree in the UK. While I'm not a native English speaker, I've been living here for 6 years, and my degree involved a LOT of social sciences journals and analytical essay writing. This meant that I was not massively worried about verbal, though I still wanted to score as high as possible in verbal.

I WAS worried about Quant. I had not done any kind of maths since high school (though I was pretty good at it back then). I didn't even remember how to do long division anymore. I knew I was going to have to invest a lot of time and effort into this section, to first relearn all the concepts and then be able to strategically apply them to questions.

I was working full-time at a scale-up in London, and I hadn't planned to apply to the Master's in Management program until another year from then. Plans changed. I decided I was going to apply for Round 3 (March 2020), so I needed to pass the GMAT in 2 months' time. Not only this, but I was applying to LBS, and I need a 700+ score to have a competitive chance at getting in. My job in London and the London life itself (i.e. 2h commute every day) were never going to be compatible with intense GMAT study, so I made the radical (thought through) decision to leave my position and study full-time (with the plan B of then finding a temporary position post-applications). I was fortunate enough to have a supportive family, and my partner behind me. My gratitude goes to them.
WARNING: I am NOT advising anyone to do just quit their jobs to apply to business school. It was a stressful decision. Late 2019 was intense as hell. I studied about 5-8h a day from December to January (while applying to other jobs). But I made it. And you can absolutely make it. But please, if you can, just allow longer than two months if you are following a similar study plan

The first week

Now, I'm not going to start this debrief by saying I'm an absolute idiot and cannot take tests to save my life. I don't believe that, for myself or for anyone. I have always believed you can do ANYTHING, as long as you have the right motivation AND the right system/method - study-smart-not-hard kinda thing. And anyway, motivation is fickle, talent is left to chance, so I'm mostly just going to focus on system here.

I spent probably a whole week just researching the test itself, reading up on study strategies, courses, AWA whatever the heck that was... I was overwhelmed to say the least. I'm a pretty go-with-the-flow person, and I have a tendency to procrastinate things. My time frame was absolutely NOT going to allow any messing about or any retakes (neither was my wallet), so I knew I had to have a plan and (sort of) stick to it. As a recent graduate living in London (fellow Londoners will sympathise), my budget wasn't massive, but I knew I was going to need to invest in a course to add structure to my studies (and to my life lol).

After a LOT of research, reading up on reviews, and budgeting I went for the Target Test Prep Quant course and the eGMAT Verbal course (more on those below).

I opened up Evernote and planned out, week by week, day by day what my study sessions were going to look like. YOU NEED TO BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND. I knew I wanted to take the GMAT by late Jan/early Feb, I knew I wanted to score 720 (that was my target), I knew Quant was easily going to take me at least a month, and that left me about a couple weeks in the end for verbal and then another couple weeks for practice tests. It was going to be tight, but I had a plan (please have one too). Did I always stick to it? No, I had to adapt as I went. But had I not had one, time would have just slipped away and I would have been in a very sticky situation right now.

The first month - Quant with Target Test Prep

I wanted to start with Quant because it was where I felt I absolutely could not improvise, and it was going to take the longest. Remember, I couldn't even do long division (sorry mum I hope you're not reading this). I had originally scored 39 in my mock, with no previous study, so it could have been worse, but it needed to be better.

I'm going to summarise my quant study in a very simple manner: if you want a high quant score GET THE TTP COURSE.

Okay, you don't have to. But like, you should. It just gave me all I needed for Quant.

It started with the basics, number properties, all that jazz, and each lesson built on the previous one. So you start with a strong foundation and keep using previous modules whilst moving on to subsequent ones - because Math is never isolated and you're always going to have exercises that mix different concepts. It was important to me to be well-rounded and confident, so this helped. Regardless of whether you get the course, I advise a similar method.

Each module also came with loads of exercises, from easy to hard difficulty. So my study sessions would look like this:

• Read through the whole lesson, taking my own notes and doing the example exercises (and reviewing the solutions)
• Take all the tests, from easy to hard (nothing is too easy on GMAT. If you don't have the basics down, how are you ever going to score 700+?)
• Review the tests, and (most importantly) review EVERY SINGLE WRONG QUESTION, and truly understand WHY it was wrong

I didn't skip any topic, no matter how easy it was for me (quadratics, idk why but I love you, we're meant to be ). I completed all 3000 exercises that came with the course (a bit hardcore, but that's how motivated I was).

TTP also had a neat little thing where I could custom build tests with questions that I was getting wrong a lot (if I needed an extra confidence crusher haha).

I like to think of practising for the GMAT as if I'm practising the piano. You're only going to improve if you pick apart the things you're doing wrong, understand why they're wrong and practice them AGAIN AND AGAIN until it gets drilled into you (with method of course).

By the time I finished my TTP course, and once I took my second official practice test I was scoring 47 in quant. Awesome progress for someone who hadn't done maths in 6 years!

Seriously, I need to just say the folks at Target Test Prep did a fantastic job with this course - it's structured, easy to follow and the explanations are fantastic. My gratitude goes out to you guys at TTP.

From here on, it came down to practice tests (more on that later). I did supplement this part of my study with GMAT Club Tests. I was aiming for 700+ after all, and I didn't want to be tripped up by hard or tricky questions. These were a great complement to my TTP course, which, after all those 3000 exercises, had turned me into a quant machine for pretty much all questions up to 700 level (and beyond).

Note: You've probably noticed by now that I didn't use any OG question banks for quant (besides the official practice tests). Why? Well, I just found that the official practice tests were enough tbh. I felt that OG questions were more important for verbal - and it worked.

The following two weeks - Verbal and eGMAT

You know how life is all about balance, yin yang, good bad, la la la? Well. I loved TPP. I didn't love eGMAT so much - sorry folks, but debriefs are about honesty.

I get it. The course is sort of structured and easy to follow. I bought it because of all the raving reviews on here but I really didn't like it. I only ended up finishing the Sentence Correction module - which fair enough taught me the very basics of sentence correction. But honestly my progress in verbal came from just working on the OG Verbal 2020 and analysing explanations here on the forum. That's it.

I found the eGMAT platform buggy and hard to use. I was extremely put off by the spelling mistakes throughout the course (I mean it's a verbal course, come on) - and I know I'm not the only one. The exercises are never going to get you to a strong level in verbal. As a matter of fact, as I quickly learned, no exercises other than official GMAT ones are. I can't remember where I read it anymore, but GMAC spends a ridiculous amount of $$$ on crafting every single question - use them.

Here's what did help for verbal!:

• Anything by GMATNinja . Honestly, man if you're reading this, your explanations are gold. I watched loads of his YouTube videos, and read all the beginner guides to RC, SC and CR. Pretty sure they're the foundations of my GMAT verbal skills.
• Understanding what CR was all about. While SC was more mathematical to me in a way (grammar and that), I was a bit confused by CR at first. I was getting 6-10 CR questions wrong on practice tests - which is probably all the CR questions I came across . What really helped was the method proposed by GMATNinja: truly understand the passage, understand the role each sentence is playing and, finally, understand what the question is asking - AND ANSWER IT (easier said than done). I didn't memorise question types or strategies, besides the "Negate the answer choice" strategy for tricky assumption questions. I also read a few resources on this forum and articles. That was it. After understanding what CR was all about, it came down to practice practice practice and going over the answers and reasoning behind them.
• Seriously, you're never going to get good at verbal by just reading stuff. You need to ACTIVELY practice, under real time pressure conditions. Go look at all the yummy free content on this amazing forum (particularly that by GMATNinja ) and then devour the OG Verbal Questions.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to improve at Verbal. It takes the same consistent study approach as quant does. It might just be unfamiliar, or a bit intimidating at first. Go crush it and keep practising intentionally

The last two weeks - Official Practice Tests


Now we got down to business. I took my first (err.. second) official practice test, after doing my base quant and verbal study, and scored 710 with 47Q and 40V. Yey! We were on track. This was when I booked my test, for two weeks after. But I knew I could do better, especially at quant.

Please take your practice tests seriously. They're expensive. And they're the best indicator of your progress - IF YOU TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY.

How do you take them seriously?

• Allocate the appropriate amount of time to them.
• Do not pause them, and take the timer as seriously as you would on test day.
• Do not be looking at your notes throughout - no cheating.
• Review, review, review. This is the most important part. Don't just take the score and go ah okay . Review every single exercise you got wrong, and every single exercise you got lucky on.

This phase is all about reviewing and filling gaps. Your goal with the practice tests is to understand where you're failing, and consolidate your knowledge. It isn't to get a pat on the back or to depress you.

The way I did this was by making a list of questions I got wrong or wasn't confident in and reviewing different solutions offered here on the forum. My favourite quant solutions came from Bunuel and of course the TTP tutors ScottTargetTestPrep and JeffTargetTestPrep . Their explanations were always simple, clear and to the point - my style (albeit not my style for this debrief ). For verbal, I always prayed GMATNinja had answered the question because really, they are the best.

With each practice test I focused on not making the same mistakes as the previous, and consistently improving. Here are my scores:
#2 (Jan 24): 710, 47Q, 40V
#3 (Jan 31): 740, 48Q, 44V
#4 (Feb 03): 760, 50Q, 42V
#5 (Feb 06): 760, 50Q, 42V
#6 (Feb 09): 750, 50Q, 41V

You'll notice my mocks were substantially better than my final score. This was down to verbal. Either my actual exam was hard as heck, or stress got to me a little bit. I wasn't seeing clearly and honestly did not score as well as I could have - my verbal was strong and I wanted to rock it. I still think I could have gotten a 750 if I had gotten a verbal score consistent with my practice ones (40-44). But I'm content with what I achieved regardless.

Also, I'm not recommending you do more than a test a week, but my situation was... semi-desperate. I knew I could handle the pressure, but don't push yourself too much. Learning takes time, and lots of good sleep.

Exam day


It went smoothly and according to plan. I did it in the early afternoon, so I got enough sleep before. I did a few flashcards in the car on the way to the test centre, but not much. It was just going to distract and overwhelm me. I was confident after my mocks, and I knew I could do it.

I did everything by the book, took a banana and a couple protein bars (I was on a no-sugar diet - because why not make things harder for myself when studying for the GMAT ) and ate them during the breaks to keep my brain energised even if I wasn't hungry.

The test itself was stressful. Seriously, I thought I was bombing it. I had to guess a handful of questions on quant because I was running out of time, and I was not in control of verbal AT ALL. I guessed a fair bit, and rushed a few questions. But I knew I had to pick my battles (thanks to the Target Prep Test course and their test taking strategy section), and didn't have to answer every single question right. Every time this happened, every time I lost focus or started feeling my heartbeat go up, I would just tell myself to breathe, to calm down, to focus on the question in front of me and carry on - it would all be over soon.

Panic is a hard thing to control, but it will trip you up more than inequalities and absolute modulus (or is that just me?).

Walking out of the test centre with a 720, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was over. I was slightly disappointed by my verbal performance but refused to beat myself up over it - I did the best with what I had. Negative self talk is never, EVER going to help you.

A note on IR and AWA

I didn't really bother with IR. I knew it was just a combination of verbal and quant, and I trusted my mocks (in which I scored consistently between 6 and 8). As long as I got 6+ that was fine. I felt like the mocks were sufficient practice for these.

For the AWA, I did not write a single mock essay. I know, I know... But I just couldn't be bothered, and after reading chineseburned 's AWA 6.0 guide I knew it was just a matter of getting the basic structure right to score 4+. No matter how much you want to have an impressive AWA score, at the end of the day it's not going to determine whether or not you get into business school - so dedicate your time accordingly (and honestly, do you really need a 6.0?). I'm not saying you shouldn't practice - in fact, you probably should do at least one. But I did so many essays at university that I trusted my ability to bs most of it. I felt like CR also helped a lot here, as at its core AWA is just a long form of CR analysis.

Mindset

I already mentioned how you should cut negative self-talk. Well, while you're at it, cut negative GMAT talk. Stop making it the enemy. The GMAT isn't some boss level fight in a super mario game (unless it helps you to think about it like that). It is a simple computer adaptive test that will meet you where you're at. That's it. Notice how you phrase your thoughts regarding the GMAT and try to slowly change them towards neutral or positive ones. TTP had a beautiful section on this.

Let your ability and your power drive your actions, not fear. Know that you are capable. No one is born a genius (okay, maybe 0.001% of people, but that's statistically irrelevant). Anyone who ever scored 800 on the GMAT did so after months or years of learning the content and adapting their strategies to the test. Practice makes... good. Forget perfection because you don't need an 800 anyway.

Do not let impostor syndrome get the best of you (fellow ladies going into business school, you know it's a real thing) - it's easier said than done, but once you've achieved 700+ on over 6 practice tests and done thousands of exercises you KNOW you can go out and smash it. There is no reason to believe otherwise. On that note, practice makes confidence! The more you practice, the more confident you'll feel, because you know what you can do and you know what to expect. Fear comes from not knowing - so get knowing (and accept that which you don't know, or some zen thing like that).

Sorry I get a bit carried away on this topic, I'll stop here

On flashcards and error logs

I made flashcards for quant but honestly, I think I learnt the most by making them rather than using them. Things really got drilled into my memory when I had to actually recall them in order to do exercises - again, practice practice practice.

I kept notes on the questions I got wrong, but it was mostly to analyse them and to write out my observations of them. I didn't typically come back to them, unless I noticed myself falling into patterns. But I do think the process of noting them down and analysing helped a lot.

That's all folks!

I hope this helps. I wanted to be totally honest about what worked and what didn't. Most of all, I want everyone to believe that they absolutely can score 700+ - you just need the right method and the right mindset.

Let me know if you have any questions, always happy to help. I want to give back to this fantastic community, as much as it gave me (though I was just lurking before but hey I'm here now!)

Helena.