610 Baseline Score. Plan from here?

Hi dthomp35,

Welcome to GMATCLUB. Around 2 months is good enough to achieve your target score. It's a good thing that you have taken your GMAT mock once. You now know your weaknesses and can work on them. If you are willing to study dedicatedly for that period, you are sure to achieve your goal. I think you need to solidify you base and adopt a proper technique to answer the questions. I believe you may benefit from taking a GMATPREP course. If you are willing, there are some great GMAT prep companies that can help you with your preparation.

In order to make an informed decision I would highly encourage you to go to their websites and try on their free trial and decide for yourself which one do you like better. You try out free access to EmpowerGMAT, Magoosh and TTP as they have great reviews on GMATCLUB.

If you are looking for a good course in 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. You can easily track your progress in that you can identify your strengths and analyze and improve on your weak areas.

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.

Further taking multiple mocks might help. Apart from the GMATPREP, Manhattan GMAT tests and Veritas Prep Tests in my experience have 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 practice tests of any major GMATPREP company ought to do that.

I would also encourage you to purchase GMATPREP QP 1 for some great additional practice.

Lastly, you can check out a very interesting article by Mike McGarry from Magoosh detailing a 3 month study plan

https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/3-month-g ... -students/. You will find it very helpful as it gives out a study plan as per your needs.

Hope this helps. All the best.

Hi dthomp35,

A 610 is a strong initial CAT Score (the average Score on the Official GMAT hovers around 550 most years). You could also potentially improve a great deal with 11 weeks of study time. Raising a 610 to the point that you can consistently score 700+ will require that you make significant improvements to how you handle BOTH the Quant and Verbal sections. Thankfully, the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. That having been said, you're interested in a Score that almost 90% of Test Takers never achieve (regardless of how long they study or the number of times that they take the GMAT), so you would likely find it beneficial to work through a structured, organized Study Plan that puts an emphasis on Tactics.

Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on your timeline and your goals:

1) What Schools are you planning to apply to?
2) When you say that you'll study about 15 hours/week, how are you planning to break those 15 hours down? Are you going to spend most of that time studying on the weekends?

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

Hi rohan2345 thanks for your response! I actually was looking at the 3 month study plan from Magoosh as well. It looks to be something that is exactly what I am looking for.

EMPOWERgmatRichC thanks for the detailed response! I agree that I will get the most benefit from a structured, detailed study plan. I was recommended the 3 month study plan by Magoosh from a user above. I see Magoosh is having a sale for their service that ends today. I have had multiple people recommend this to me over the past few days. I think I will take their advice.

1) I am an American who has worked/lived overseas and I am itching to get back. Right now the two schools that I have the most interest in are IESE and LBS. I am looking for a longer than one year program, thus not including INSEAD. As I do more research on schools, Im sure a few more will come up. If you have any recommendations, Im happy to look into the schools! If I do not get accepted to any of the European schools I am interested in I will probably apply to Booth & Kellogg part time MBA as I live in Chicago.

2) My current plan is 2-3 hours per weekday and 4 hours on the weekend with one day off. On weeks where I do a practice exam, my weekends would change to taking a practice exam on Saturday and using Sunday to review it. Weekdays would stay the same. I travel weekly for work, so on travel days there is plenty of flight time for additional studying.

Hi dthomp35,

Are you looking for general advice on how to improve your quant and verbal skills as well as advice regarding resources?

Hi! Welcome to GMATCLUB!

I feel you have a solid plan and you have got a solid start with 610. Since you have mentioned that you made some silly mistakes in quant and ran out of time, you have lots of scope to improve your quant score with just practicing lots of quant questions in the coming few weeks.

With regards to prep material give maximum importance to official questions and official mocks.

If you are good at self prep then there is no need to join classes.

All the very best in your prep and do post in case if you have further questions or need specific guidance.

Hi dthomp35,

From what you describe, I think that you have the right mindset to achieve your Score Goal. Since you are interested in some highly-competitive Schools, you would likely find it beneficial to speak with an Admissions Expert about your overall profile and plans. There's a Forum full of those Experts here:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/ask-admissio ... tants-124/

When it comes to studying for the GMAT, there are a variety of different study materials that you might use. Most GMAT Companies offer some type of free materials (practice problems, Trial Accounts, videos, etc.) that you can use to 'test out' a product before you buy it. We have a variety of those resources at our website (www.empowergmat.com). I suggest that you take advantage of all of them then choose the ones that best match your personality, timeline and budget.

If you have any additional questions, then just let me know.

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