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10 May 2019, 08:37
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Timeline: December 1st, 2018 to May 9th, 2019 (approx. 5 months with breaks for holidays)
Diagnostics/Real Exams:
Dec 1: GMAC Official Pratice #1: 650 (Q38/V40)
Jan 6: MGMAT 1: 710 (Q41/V45)
Feb 22: MGMAT 2: 670 (Q44/V37)
Mar 17: MGMAT 3: 690 (Q47/V37)
Mar 26: Real #1: 730 (Q47/V45)
Apr 27: MGMAT 4: 690 (Q45/V38)
May 7: GMAC Official Practice #2: 760 (Q49/V45)
May 9: Real #2: 760 (Q49/V46)
Soapbox: Enjoy the ride and challenge of studying and self-improvement. If you can enjoy the daily studies, the stress of a good score drops away and you’ll focus on what will actually get you a better score anyways: the grind! To me there was a bit of a self-discovery in the process in that I truly enjoy the discipline and improvements that studying brings. It’s like when work hours drop off and all of a sudden, you miss seeing everyone at work who you thought you were sick of. With studying, there’s always the desire to do something else other than study until you reach a time in your life where there’s nothing to study and then you realize you miss it. Sure, there’s video games for a bit and alcohol can be fun, until you figure out what really makes you happy is having a great reason to wake up early on a Saturday and get after your goals. There’s nothing better than earning your recreational time. This was a general thought process for me as well to transform my view of work. Previously, stress and desire to succeed were drivers for studying. Now, I’ve accomplished a bit in my career/academics so far and I want to start enjoying the ride (late-20s). If I really hated studying for the GMAT, it would have sent up a red flag for me to question if I really want to go to business school as well.
Materials Used: Manhattan Interact. Trust the system. Use it and some advice off of these forums. For an example of good advice of the forums: focus on weaknesses. I spent about 125 hours on math studying and about 25 hours on verbal. I started studying by using just the 2019 OG, because I’ve done well with previous standardized test and I was hoping to save $1000. As stated many times on these forums, that’s a bad idea. I spent about two weeks doing that and noticed I wasn’t improving.
I decided on MGMAT because they’re a trusted name in test prep. I didn’t want to waste time with spending even five hours on a program that was iffy. Their curriculum was great, I didn’t want to spend time deciding what to study. I wanted to spend time studying and MGMAT provided that. I specifically did not want an online/in-person class as I wanted to study at my own pace and I know I have the discipline to sit down and study on my own. I’ll leave a review for them on here when I can get my online score verified.
MGMAT app: I used this between studying the basics of math and studying OG questions. This was a great method for me. I don’t recommend touching the Advanced Quant questions unless you’re confident you’re going to reach Q50/51.
I utilized GMATClub forums for bigger questions on getting from Q45-49 and should I retake the GMAT. I did not use it much for questions answers and techniques. Some cool ideas on there, but I was happy blindly following manhattan’s approaches.
Manhattan Interact provides you with “GMAT Navigator” which is their version of the much talked about error-log. This tool was amazing. Time is money, or for me time is better spent with my wife so I didn’t want to play around with excel logs. I didn’t know manhattan provided this when I bought interact but it was fantastic. Picture attached below for one of the pieces of analysis it provides (I’m bad at geometry!). It also provides their explanation for how MGMAT approaches questions vs. the OG solution.
Length of study: I kept a decent log of my hours spent studying daily (perusing GMATclub forums and reading about business schools doesn’t count as studying!). This helped motivate me and assisted in knowing when to call it quits for trying to get a better score. (Again, as advice on these forums has provided in “should I retake the GMAT?” Answer: have you used up your resources and spent an adequate time studying). I’m not applying for business school for two years, so luckily, I didn’t have time pressure, but this also makes it more of an intentional decision when to start and stop studying.
December: ? cause that was poor studying and I was hoping to pull a 710+ without effort
Jan: 19 hours
Feb: 36 hours
Mar: 53 hours
Apr: 35 hours
May: 14 hours
Total: 157 hours
Quant: I spent the vast majority of my time studying this. Getting into the zone (someone needs to publish Zen and the Art of GMAT Math) with step by step improvement in math through MGMAT was enjoyable. Best GMATClub advice I read is not to worry about the Q50-51 questions, cause I wasn’t getting to those in the first place and they took a lot of time to work through with little understanding by me.
Verbal: I’ve been an avid reader since growing up. Even with studying, I don’t think I improved at this at all. SC still boggles my mind and, in the end, I just used my ear. I consider myself lucky and have no advice other than to become a bookworm for a few years.
Background info: engineering bachelor’s degree, 3.7 GPA at a top public school. Current career in aviation. Thankfully, I’ve had a great education background and, in my job, I’ve pursued many additional tasks that had me writing more in a technical job than many others. I empathize with those whose first language is not English. This is a hard task and similar to my soapbox, I can only advise that you make this goal part of what you enjoy doing. Read literature for fun. Some of my favorite books are: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, and Dracula (original book and I don’t like any of the movies/pop culture related to vampires today (other than Witcher…GOAT), so give the book a chance.). These books are free on Gutenberg press as they are out of copyright. Again, hats off to non-native English speakers, very impressive task you’re undertaking.
GMAT Experience: First GMAT I took was organized by a local university and provided at a very substandard station. I had issues with having to use a half dry fat tip marker and felt as if I was annoying the proctor from her phone calls when I went on break or asked to be let back into the test. I took my second test through Pearson and they were incredibly professional. They have some great anti-cheating measure in place as well. Again, I’m impressed. No one likes cheaters. They provided me with two super fine tip markers and they were instantly responsive for letting me in and out of the testing room.
Test Day Techniques: I ate a med-large meal of a chicken breast and potatoes about an hour before the exam. I drank half a 5 hour energy before the first section (Quant as it’s my weakest – I don’t believe in a mental warmup, but I do believe in mental fatigue). Drank the second half of the 5 hour energy before verbal, along with a banana and half a cliff bar. Another banana and half a cliff bar before the IR/Essay.
Deciding when to take the test: If you have the resources to spend the $250 a few times, take it before you think you’re ready but within 50 of your goal. I knew I wasn’t trying hard on the verbal sections of the practice exams because I got a V45 and I hadn’t studied for it at all followed by V38s, so be aware of your effort levels and judge your practice scores as accurate or not. Taking it early gets a score on the board and takes stress away. You never know when you or a loved one may become sick or injured, job stress soars, or other unforeseen circumstances occur. Scoring a 730 put the control in my hands and I could make sure that I prioritized family in my life and I would be happy walking away with a 730 after trying again. This also makes the next test (if the first went decent) into a victory lap. Nothing better than a victory lap for a challenging accomplishment.
Resources: I listen to epic music while studying math as it keeps me energized (+coffee or monsters) and assists in my focus. I have listened to these two youtube compilations countless times. After 50-60 minutes of the playlist, I would take a ten-minute break and come back. The images are a little cheesy, but I hope they help can help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OG9Q9Lz4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYeR9nQJw50
Thank you to GMATClub’s founders, contributors, and managers: I decided to use MGMAT through this website and the forums were a great help. I hope this post can assist others and it wasn’t just a mass of jumbled confusion that provided me a cathartic way to release the GMAT and move on in life.
Diagnostics/Real Exams:
Dec 1: GMAC Official Pratice #1: 650 (Q38/V40)
Jan 6: MGMAT 1: 710 (Q41/V45)
Feb 22: MGMAT 2: 670 (Q44/V37)
Mar 17: MGMAT 3: 690 (Q47/V37)
Mar 26: Real #1: 730 (Q47/V45)
Apr 27: MGMAT 4: 690 (Q45/V38)
May 7: GMAC Official Practice #2: 760 (Q49/V45)
May 9: Real #2: 760 (Q49/V46)
Soapbox: Enjoy the ride and challenge of studying and self-improvement. If you can enjoy the daily studies, the stress of a good score drops away and you’ll focus on what will actually get you a better score anyways: the grind! To me there was a bit of a self-discovery in the process in that I truly enjoy the discipline and improvements that studying brings. It’s like when work hours drop off and all of a sudden, you miss seeing everyone at work who you thought you were sick of. With studying, there’s always the desire to do something else other than study until you reach a time in your life where there’s nothing to study and then you realize you miss it. Sure, there’s video games for a bit and alcohol can be fun, until you figure out what really makes you happy is having a great reason to wake up early on a Saturday and get after your goals. There’s nothing better than earning your recreational time. This was a general thought process for me as well to transform my view of work. Previously, stress and desire to succeed were drivers for studying. Now, I’ve accomplished a bit in my career/academics so far and I want to start enjoying the ride (late-20s). If I really hated studying for the GMAT, it would have sent up a red flag for me to question if I really want to go to business school as well.
Materials Used: Manhattan Interact. Trust the system. Use it and some advice off of these forums. For an example of good advice of the forums: focus on weaknesses. I spent about 125 hours on math studying and about 25 hours on verbal. I started studying by using just the 2019 OG, because I’ve done well with previous standardized test and I was hoping to save $1000. As stated many times on these forums, that’s a bad idea. I spent about two weeks doing that and noticed I wasn’t improving.
I decided on MGMAT because they’re a trusted name in test prep. I didn’t want to waste time with spending even five hours on a program that was iffy. Their curriculum was great, I didn’t want to spend time deciding what to study. I wanted to spend time studying and MGMAT provided that. I specifically did not want an online/in-person class as I wanted to study at my own pace and I know I have the discipline to sit down and study on my own. I’ll leave a review for them on here when I can get my online score verified.
MGMAT app: I used this between studying the basics of math and studying OG questions. This was a great method for me. I don’t recommend touching the Advanced Quant questions unless you’re confident you’re going to reach Q50/51.
I utilized GMATClub forums for bigger questions on getting from Q45-49 and should I retake the GMAT. I did not use it much for questions answers and techniques. Some cool ideas on there, but I was happy blindly following manhattan’s approaches.
Manhattan Interact provides you with “GMAT Navigator” which is their version of the much talked about error-log. This tool was amazing. Time is money, or for me time is better spent with my wife so I didn’t want to play around with excel logs. I didn’t know manhattan provided this when I bought interact but it was fantastic. Picture attached below for one of the pieces of analysis it provides (I’m bad at geometry!). It also provides their explanation for how MGMAT approaches questions vs. the OG solution.
Length of study: I kept a decent log of my hours spent studying daily (perusing GMATclub forums and reading about business schools doesn’t count as studying!). This helped motivate me and assisted in knowing when to call it quits for trying to get a better score. (Again, as advice on these forums has provided in “should I retake the GMAT?” Answer: have you used up your resources and spent an adequate time studying). I’m not applying for business school for two years, so luckily, I didn’t have time pressure, but this also makes it more of an intentional decision when to start and stop studying.
December: ? cause that was poor studying and I was hoping to pull a 710+ without effort
Jan: 19 hours
Feb: 36 hours
Mar: 53 hours
Apr: 35 hours
May: 14 hours
Total: 157 hours
Quant: I spent the vast majority of my time studying this. Getting into the zone (someone needs to publish Zen and the Art of GMAT Math) with step by step improvement in math through MGMAT was enjoyable. Best GMATClub advice I read is not to worry about the Q50-51 questions, cause I wasn’t getting to those in the first place and they took a lot of time to work through with little understanding by me.
Verbal: I’ve been an avid reader since growing up. Even with studying, I don’t think I improved at this at all. SC still boggles my mind and, in the end, I just used my ear. I consider myself lucky and have no advice other than to become a bookworm for a few years.
Background info: engineering bachelor’s degree, 3.7 GPA at a top public school. Current career in aviation. Thankfully, I’ve had a great education background and, in my job, I’ve pursued many additional tasks that had me writing more in a technical job than many others. I empathize with those whose first language is not English. This is a hard task and similar to my soapbox, I can only advise that you make this goal part of what you enjoy doing. Read literature for fun. Some of my favorite books are: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, and Dracula (original book and I don’t like any of the movies/pop culture related to vampires today (other than Witcher…GOAT), so give the book a chance.). These books are free on Gutenberg press as they are out of copyright. Again, hats off to non-native English speakers, very impressive task you’re undertaking.
GMAT Experience: First GMAT I took was organized by a local university and provided at a very substandard station. I had issues with having to use a half dry fat tip marker and felt as if I was annoying the proctor from her phone calls when I went on break or asked to be let back into the test. I took my second test through Pearson and they were incredibly professional. They have some great anti-cheating measure in place as well. Again, I’m impressed. No one likes cheaters. They provided me with two super fine tip markers and they were instantly responsive for letting me in and out of the testing room.
Test Day Techniques: I ate a med-large meal of a chicken breast and potatoes about an hour before the exam. I drank half a 5 hour energy before the first section (Quant as it’s my weakest – I don’t believe in a mental warmup, but I do believe in mental fatigue). Drank the second half of the 5 hour energy before verbal, along with a banana and half a cliff bar. Another banana and half a cliff bar before the IR/Essay.
Deciding when to take the test: If you have the resources to spend the $250 a few times, take it before you think you’re ready but within 50 of your goal. I knew I wasn’t trying hard on the verbal sections of the practice exams because I got a V45 and I hadn’t studied for it at all followed by V38s, so be aware of your effort levels and judge your practice scores as accurate or not. Taking it early gets a score on the board and takes stress away. You never know when you or a loved one may become sick or injured, job stress soars, or other unforeseen circumstances occur. Scoring a 730 put the control in my hands and I could make sure that I prioritized family in my life and I would be happy walking away with a 730 after trying again. This also makes the next test (if the first went decent) into a victory lap. Nothing better than a victory lap for a challenging accomplishment.
Resources: I listen to epic music while studying math as it keeps me energized (+coffee or monsters) and assists in my focus. I have listened to these two youtube compilations countless times. After 50-60 minutes of the playlist, I would take a ten-minute break and come back. The images are a little cheesy, but I hope they help can help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OG9Q9Lz4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYeR9nQJw50
Thank you to GMATClub’s founders, contributors, and managers: I decided to use MGMAT through this website and the forums were a great help. I hope this post can assist others and it wasn’t just a mass of jumbled confusion that provided me a cathartic way to release the GMAT and move on in life.
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File comment: MGMAT Navigator Analysis
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udaypratapsingh99
Joined: 12 Jan 2019
Last visit: 11 Nov 2025
Posts: 395
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 372
Location: India
Concentration: Strategy, Leadership
Schools: Fuqua '24 Harvard '24 LBS '24 NTU NUS Said '23 Ross '24 Sloan '24 Stanford '24 Tepper '24 Tuck '24 Wharton '24 Yale '24
GMAT 1: 660 Q47 V34
Products:
Schools: Fuqua '24 Harvard '24 LBS '24 NTU NUS Said '23 Ross '24 Sloan '24 Stanford '24 Tepper '24 Tuck '24 Wharton '24 Yale '24
GMAT 1: 660 Q47 V34
Posts: 395
Kudos:
241
14 May 2019, 03:30
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HelloNewman
Still suggest something for verbal. It will be a big help for many here; we will be very thankful.
15 May 2019, 04:05
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Quote:
Hello UdayPratapSingh99,
It is good to see that you scored 670 on your last GMAT attempt. If you can be more open about what you are looking for specifically in Verbal, then I can be of better help to you
To know your target areas of improvement, it is good to analyze your previous mock tests. Also, if you have the ESR for your latest official GMAT attempt, then you can scrutinize it for better clarity.
I was in the same situation a year ago, when my quant score was around 50 and verbal was stuck at around 30. With a thorough analysis of my previous mocks, I was able to push my overall Verbal score to 35, pushing the overall score to 720. You can sign up for trial courses initially and see which one works the best for you.
Please feel free to get back for any specific query. More than happy to help you
