How I went from 650 to 780 (Q49 V51) in 2 months FOR FREE

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Overview: I went from 650 practice test to 780 official test in less than two months for free and I'll be going over exacly what strategies and resources helped me make that improvement. Feel free to PM or respond with questions if you have any. Just hoping to share my experience and help others looking to improve.

Resources: GMATclub question bank, GMATninja verbal and VeritasPrep youtube series, misc youtube vids (that's it!)

Strategy: First, I took a diagnostic exam to see where my weaknesses were - pretty standard stuff. Scored 650 (42Q 37V) and knew I needed to increase both. I'll breakdown quant and verbal strategies below because I approached them each a little differently.

Quant: I used GMATclub question bank and just started doing questions. For every question I got wrong, I would find the underlying topic it was testing, look up a youtube video and learn that skill inside-out (khanacademy is your friend). I repeated this process, working my way up in difficulty, until I rarely saw a question that was testing something I had not seen before. Repetition is key here but even more important is understanding the underlying concepts and reasons you got a question wrong. I guess you could call it calculated repetition.

Verbal: I would estimate 80% of my time spent practicing was directed towards verbal. Seeing as the GMAT composite score weighs heavily on verbal, I knew I had to be bulletproof on this section. (Side note: perfect quant + 50th percentile verbal = 640 composite, whereas perfect verbal + 50th percentile quant = 740 composite)
I approached verbal differently than quant in that I didn't go straight for practice questions. I binge watched the aforementioned youtube series. After watching these, following along on the questions, and taking note of the rules that GMAT likes to test, I was ready to begin practicing. It's crucial to practice only OG questions for verbal. Test prep companies just can't replicate the nuances that the GMAT looks for, and by studying with these other sources, you're essentially training the wrong skillset. I took some free practice verbal sections from a couple different test companies and scored anywhere from -4 to -7 because the questions test things that the GMAT just doesn't look for. Stick to OG for verbal.

Now I am going to say something seemingly contradictory. LSAT is a tremendous verbal study tool. It is the closest thing to what actual GMAT questions are testing and it is much harder. If you're aiming for perfection or close to it, it's not enough to just study right at the level you want to attain, you have to study above it. (Think athletes training with resistance bands) After doing about 300 LSAT RC questions, I was able to breeze through GMAT passages and questions. But again, it's not enough just to do 300 questions, you have to know why you got them wrong, and right for that matter, for the questions to really be beneficial. Do keep in mind that LSAT logical reasoning is more logic-based and strict regarding argument structure, whereas GMAT CR is more focused on applied reasoning and "outside the box" thinking. Do LSAT to drill logic skills, then use GMAT OG questions to integrate logic and creativity together for CR.

That's a very high level overview of the past two months for me. If you have any questions or want me to go more in depth about a specific area, just comment or shoot me a PM. I'd love to connect and help out! Also want to say thank you to GMATNinja Bunuel and all the other experts that provide fantastic explanations on this site.

Best,
got730butwant760


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Hear more about Colton's GMAT journey in the following podcast.