610 to 720 - 18 months, a baby and a city change later

My story certainly isn’t one of those 2 month study crams where I moved from 540 to 740. My path was a true grind of nearly 18months of stop-start study.

After deciding in 2015 that I wanted to get my MBA, I signed up for and attended Manhattan Prep in-person classes in mid-2015. With that, I got all of their books and materials too. I scored a 610 (Q37 V36) on my initial MGMAT CAT. This didn’t surprise me as I knew my strength lay with verbal (I have a legal education and was brought up an avid reader in an English speaking country), but I didn’t realise my quant abilities were actually that bad. The MGMAT books and materials laid a solid foundation for both the quant and the verbal and I was confident that if I just kept working through the instructions, things would start to improve. I continually tested in the 620-660 range and I just hoped that when I took the actual test, I’d pick up an extra 20 points and hit something respectable like a 680.

With that in mind, I took my first GMAT test in 12/2/15. Leading up to it, my quant scores were still weak, but I thought things would just start coming together. I reached out to MGMAT for advice and they said to just double down on verbal, that’s where people usually don’t do as well. And so I followed their advice. My crushing score of 610 (Q34 V39) indicated that it was the wrong option. How could I possibly pay over $1000, study for 6 months and not improve? I had read so many magical stories about “610 to 710 in 2 months study”, why didn’t this happen to me?

What I have also failed to mention to this point, was that my first son was born a couple of weeks after this GMAT test. I had essentially studied my whole way through my wife’s pregnancy with the mentality that I could get a 680-700 to set me up for a Top 20 school, and I’d have it in my back pocket for whenever I applied within the next few years. Now that I got a 610, I had to totally reevaluate.

With an infant in the house, I wasn’t going to put my wife through another 6 months of neglect to study more to resit. So I took a break. In that time, I quit my job, moved cities and became a stay-at-home dad. When things had regained some normalcy (8 months later), I decided it was time to start studying again. Snatching study time when my baby napped and then in the evenings when my wife got home, I really doubled down on quant with a goal of Q42-Q44. I pretty much ignored verbal. Each question that I got wrong I wrote out on it’s own sheet of paper, noting what I did, what different ways I could have answered it and specific “takeaways”. I did this for another few months.

I felt like I was “close”. Each time I reviewed an incorrect answer, and there were plenty of them, I immediately knew what I was doing wrong, but I just couldn’t make the corrections when I was doing the practice tests. My foundation was there, but that's just not enough. With R2 deadlines approaching for Fall 2017 start, and no essays written, I sat the GMAT again for what I hoped would be the last time, on 10/27/16. I had been scoring in the 630-660 range, so again I thought that if I picked up an extra 20 points in the test I could be sitting at 680. My actual score of 640 (Q39 V38) didn’t surprise me. It was within the range I had been scoring, so what else should I expect? I was pretty numb at that point, but this time around I had given myself another 4 weeks to take it one last time. As a number of people point out in different parts of these forums, some people study for the GMAT and just get it, and others like myself have to grind at and persevere. It’s just like life.

With 3-4 weeks before I took it ONE LAST TIME, I knew something had to change. I couldn’t repeat the same process and expect a different result. I was done with MGMAT at this point. And so I posted on GMATClub, and listened for advice. When Jeff from TargetTest Prep reached out to me, I was willing to try anything. I started with their free trial as I had nothing to lose. The layout of their website was clean and attractive, and was really easy to follow. I took their diagnostic test and it confirmed what I knew: where I was currently scoring and my weaknesses (algebra, exponents etc.).

They have a specific compressed study schedule for people like me who planned on taking it in a short amount of time. I dove into the areas that the diagnostic said I was weak in and started hammering away at them. Jeff was amazing at this time. Even though I had only signed up for the one-month flexible program, he still reached out to me and asked if I wanted to talk or needed any advice. I called him and he recommended that I not approach it too narrowly, that I should do some of their short practice test in all areas to make sure that I have everything covered. This was sage advice.

I dove into all of the tests to make sure I knew exactly where my weaknesses were. And this is where the strength of TargetTest Prep lies. It identifies where you’re weak, but it also dives into the sub-categories. What I didn’t realize, or didn’t focus in on enough, was that within each area, I had my strengths and weaknesses. TargetTest clearly indicated this on their dashboard. They not only showed how well I was doing in that subcategory, but they also linked to explanations on the theory being tested and other questions that I could practice. When I discovered that I was really weak in factorization, this was a surprise to me. But it made sense. And so I went through a bunch of their practice tests and questions, and read their clear explanations (and watched their videos too). I felt the improvement.

I sat the GMAT for the final time on 11/26/16, nearly 12 months since my first test and around 18 months since I started. I had it in my head that a 640 wasn’t the worst thing in the world and that I was just going to do my best. The AWA was actually the hardest one I had and I struggled with it more than I thought. Then when I got to IR I thought I had done really well! (it turns out I actually bombed it). Then Quant. I recognised the questions, I moved on from the ones I didn’t, the section flowed. When I finished, I was really unsure how well I did. Was it because I was that much better now? Or because I had failed? Regardless, when I moved on to verbal I totally went with my gut and relaxed. When my final score of 720 (Q48 V41) came up on the screen, I was in total disbelief. All of that work, it finally paid off.

I wouldn’t have got there without TargetTest Prep. It was my unifying force in those last few weeks. I had the base knowledge, but that wasn’t enough. By helping me to focus in on my weakness, providing clear explanations and have so many practice questions to choose from, it was the answer to my problems. I just can’t believe I didn’t find it 12 months earlier! It was such a journey and I'm so relieved that it's over. My advice to others is look for a study strategy that works for you. If you're following your strategy but you aren't seeing results, look for something else.