640 to 760! (Q50 V42 IR8) what to do and what not to do

Hey all, I thought I would share my journey over the past 12 months or so. After reading this I reckon you will have a very good idea of what you need to do in order to get the score you’re capable of… and also what I did that you should AVOID doing!

Back to winter last year.. I set myself a target of getting somewhere in the 700s with the vague idea of applying to US MBAs. I did engineering at undergrad… how hard can a multiple choice test be?? (Answer: very)

I read somewhere that 100 hours of prep might be enough, so I decided to take a week off work, practice loads of random questions using gmat club, take a mock a day, and then take the test. This is probably the stupidest strategy one could think of. I got my head around the basics of how the test works, and then managed a 690 on my first official mock (I am quite lucky to have a base level at 690, but my advice in this post is universal). The next day I got a 650. A few days later I got a 710. Then I took the real thing and got 640. What a waste of 3 mocks! Also, when the first quant question came on the screen, I spent maybe 4 minutes and still couldn’t work it out. One reason was that I was going in ‘cold’ having not done any gmat that morning or on the day before (more on that later). Yes it helps to relax before the test and get good sleep etc but don’t let that make you complacent.

I then spent ages reading gmat stories and realised how much work I needed to put in to get a competitive score for M7s. (EDIT: I also looked at my ESR in detail.) I stopped prep until the summer, and then I put my plan into action… and this time it was a good plan.

The GMAT is skewed towards verbal, so I probably devoted 75% of my time to verbal. (Great verbal + mediocre quant can give >700. Mediocre verbal and your score is basically capped at <700. https://gmat.targettestprep.com/score_chart)

Materials:
TTP: quant (chapters only)
GMAT NINJA YouTube: all verbal videos and also the 24 hour marathon video (Charles you are a legend)
SC: Manhattan guide
CR: Powerscore bible
Official guide: all verbal questions
Official verbal review: all verbal questions
Official quant review: some questions, focussing on data sufficiency
Official advanced questions: used some and saved the rest for later.
(Also got the Manhattan yellow scratch pad thing to get used to it)

It took several months to go through all this, as I set myself a target of getting 90% CORRECT regardless of how long they took me. Towards the end I took some time off work, and practised every day. I took one Manhattan mock and got in the 600s.. quant was crazy hard and verbal was sort of like the real thing. I didn’t take any more Manhattan mocks because a/ quant is unrealistic and b/ OFFICIAL VERBAL questions are the best prep.

Now for some unconventional advice: I took my 4th official mock the day before the test. This meant that all the small things I noticed that I needed to tweak for the real thing were fresh in my mind on test day. Also, on test day in the morning, I did 5 quant, 5 SC, 5 CR and 5 RC (in that order - reasoning being that quant is more natural to me given my background so I always do Q-V-IR-AWA. Then I got my mind into gear for verbal starting with sentences then paragraphs then passages). Then when I got to the test centre and the first question popped on the screen, I was ready to GO!

(Note on timing strategy: question number / minutes left on the clock: for verbal: 6/55, 12/45, 20/30, 28/15; for quant: 5/55, 10/45, 18/30, 25/15. If you’re good at quant the questions get harder -> leave more time for the later questions. Be vigilant on guessing answers once you feel yourself reaching the 3 minute mark)

This time I managed 740, having got 760 on the mock the day before (although I recognised a few questions from gmat ninja vids). Now I realised that my ceiling was high 700s, I decided to do MORE prep until I exhausted most of the good material out there.

More materials:
OG: All the questions I got wrong. I saved them. A bit of IR.
TTP: verbal (just the chapters). Pretty good tbh
LSAT: reading comprehension and logical reasoning questions, which are basically unlimited. Books with past exams are on Amazon. I did maybe 200 questions.
Official advanced questions: did the rest.
Official practice questions 1 & 2 and also the 100 or so questions that come free with official mocks 1 + 2): did most of the verbal and some quant
All other material: ignored (although if quant doesn’t come naturally for you there are good materials out there e.g. google Ian Stewart gmat. Emphasis should be on solving all questions in an EFFICIENT and CREATIVE way)

This took another few months and it is now December. One more mock the day before and I got 710. Oops! 12 verbal questions wrong. That’s no good! Went through them carefully.

Test day (at test center): 760
Q50 V42 IR8
AWA TBC (used chineseburned)
Lucozade sport: one bottle (think it helped lol.. sugar is good for the brain?)

Now I think I’ll call it a day and focus on the rest of my profile. Good luck everyone still trying - you’ll get there (:

EDIT 2: Happy to answer any questions people have.

Posted from my mobile device