8 Months to 710

[WARNING LONG DETAILED POST]

I've always found everyone's unique GMAT journey to be fascinating, so I figured it was time to tell my own on the forum which has been invaluable to me throughout this process.

Upon embarking on my own GMAT journey I knew very little about what constituted a "good" or "spectacular" GMAT score. All I knew was that I was shooting for a top 15 b-school and that just about all of those schools attract applicants who boast GMAT scores of 700+. I decided early on to push myself into the 700+ range regardless of the time horizon.

Jan-21 through Mar-21
I started out by determining which test prep company to go with. I ultimately went with Manhattan based solely on online reviews. In hindsight, I don't think this decision was particularly pivotal. Looking back, the initial quant/verbal overview books and associated courses do a good job of getting you up to speed on the 5 subsections (Problem Solving, Data Sufficiency, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Correction, and Critical Reasoning), but alone they won't get you into the 700+ range. After taking roughly 3 months to get through the Manhattan quant/verbal books, I decided it was finally time to take a practice test. I put a lot of pressure on myself going into the first practice test. This was a mistake. I was drastically unprepared for the time pressure of the actual exam and was not privy to the skipping strategies I ended up leveraging later on. Throughout the exam I paused the test and took multiple screenshots of questions to save time. In short, I cheated myself big time on my first practice test. When it was all said and done, I ended up scoring a 610 (Q44/V29) and that score likely would've been closer to 550 or lower had I not paused the exam multiple times to save time. My first exam was eye opening to say the least. It made me completely re-evaluate my approach. I subsequently read many articles and ripped through GMAT forums in search of others who shared my experience. This is where the topic of skipping came to my attention and would prove to be an integral strategy for me on the quant and verbal sections going forward.

Apr-21 through Jul-21
After making significant improvements on each of the 5 exam subcomponents and grinding timed problem sets, I felt as though I had made the requisite improvements to improve my score heading into the next exam. It's important to note that my first exam was through GMAC whereas my second exam I'm about to overview was a Manhattan exam (MGMAT). I had heard that biggest difference between GMAC and MGMAT exams is the overall difficulty of the quant section. These preconceptions were spot on. Despite the significant headway I felt I had made in quant heading into the exam I found the questions to be incredibly difficult. That said, my strategy of skipping (guessing C every time and moving on) problems I knew would take 3+ minutes to solve ended up keeping my on-track time wise. As for the verbal section, I felt better but I still felt massive time pressure and skipping was tougher to execute. You can't skip reading comprehension passages/questions and RC was undoubtedly my largest time drainer. I reverted back to my old gross habit of pausing and taking screenshots of certain questions based solely on the pressure of the exam. I finished the second exam with 680 (Q44/V38), but I knew that score was not real based on my pausing. Even though I ended up scoring Q44, I felt as though my quant score on a GMAC exam would be higher and I knew my verbal woes far outweighed my quant shortcomings. Reading between the lines of my fake V38, I knew that my biggest issue in practice and throughout my practice exams resided in the sentence correction section. My confidence and overall ability with SC were abysmal. I decided that given my incredibly busy work schedule and limited time, outside help was necessary. I engaged a private tutor by the name of Seth Capron at TestCrackers. After reading a litany of positive reviews and speaking with the very personal and kind practitioners at the company, I was confident that TestCrackers and more specifically Seth (wrote the verbal curriculum for the company) would be able to help me make the necessary SC strides. I ended up working with Seth through four 2-hour one-on-one sessions focused entirely on SC. The sessions were exactly what I needed and ended up addressing some significant knowledge gaps. Heading into my third practice exam (GMAC), I had more confidence than ever before. My confidence manifested itself into a 710 (Q49/V38). I felt on top of the world and felt as though my target scores were within striking distance. The next month and a half stymied my confidence and served as one of the most humbling moments of my life.

From Jun-21 to mid Jul-21, I would end up taking 3 more GMAT tests and end up getting the same score of 660 on all 3 exams... This was absolutely devastating and led to some of the darker thoughts I've had as it relates to my internal confidence in my ability to put up a big number on test day. I couldn't believe that despite all of my hard work I had taken 6 exams and couldn't seem to consistently breach the mid-600s. After my 3rd 660 in a row, I took a big step back and asked the question, "what is my biggest weakness and how can I ensure that I address this heading into the exam". The answer was unfortunately unchanged from the answer to the same question 3 months ago...sentence correction. I made a promise to myself that I would refuse to take another practice test until I had done literally every single GMAT official guide question in the GMAT repository. I also made sure that after each question I got wrong or didn't really understand I would keep a detailed log and understand EXACTLY why I got a given question wrong. After many early mornings, weekends, and long hours, I was finally confident that at a minimum sentence correction would not be the reason my score stayed in the mid-600s. Heading into my 7th practice test (GMAC) all I cared about was my performance on sentence correction based on the work I had put in. By the end of the exam, I felt the best I'd ever felt. My feeling was immediately validated with a 720 (Q48/Q41) and more importantly I scored 10/13 on SC. My performance blew my confidence through the roof. I immediately registered for my real exam.

Aug-21 (Exam)
Leading up to my exam I ended up getting incredibly busy at work and my confidence partially faltered as a result. To make matters worse, the only weekend my brother was able to visit me from out of state, given his busy schedule, happened to be the weekend right before my GMAT exam on Monday. Prior to my actual exam I felt unprepared again and pessimism started to settle in. The night before I decided that I would likely not be able to score 700+ on exam day. I was resigned to the idea of a retake which actually ended up significantly easing the tension and overall pressure come exam day. During the actual exam, I was shocked to come out of the verbal section with time to spare! This had literally never happened to me in all of my 7 practice exams. I didn't skip a single question and felt great about my answers all things considered. I pushed through the quant section and wrapped up the IR/AWA sections to arrive at the unofficial score screen which displayed 710 (Q48/V40) IR 8. Given my headspace leading into the exam I was ecstatic! I thought surely a retake would be necessary to breach into the 700s. I was wrong. All of the hard work over the course of the past 7-8 months had finally paid off.

It's worth noting that prior to my round 2 application submissions for Booth, Kellogg, Tuck, Yale, and Stern, I ended up taking the GMAT twice more to try and achieve a higher mark. I was unsuccessful and attribute this primarily to the competing priorities of work + time required for the non-GMAT facets of each application. In hindsight I would have started my GMAT journey earlier and completely separated the GMAT piece from the other portions of the application. The GMAT is not a content based exam. Coming from someone who has taken and passed all 4 CPA exams and 2 of the CFA exams, the GMAT is drastically different. Raw quantity of hours is often rewarded on other exams (CPA/CFA for me). This is not the case with GMAT. The more hours you can spend in a small window of time, the more benefit you will realize. Being in the GMAT headspace and being privy to the little tricks and nuances of the exam is crucial and best accomplished with more of a cramming approach in my opinion (especially the closer you get to actually taking the real exam).


Closing Pieces of Advice

• Take a practice exam sooner rather than later and DO NOT read into your first score. You can absolutely score in the 400/500s and get a 700+ final score with adequate preparation.
• For the verbal section, I would highly recommend spending the majority of your time working through GMAT official guide practice problems and staying away from other sources. It is incredible difficult for test prep companies to replicate the exact nuances of RC/SC/CR and you want to be privy to GMAC's preferences. Leveraging GMAT Club's repository of GMAT official guide questions is what vaulted my verbal score into the 40s
• As you study for the GMAT, make sure to ask yourself "am I learning new content or am I honing my test taking abilities?" On one hand you may drill 5 practice problems and take 10 minutes learning exactly how to do each problem the right way so that when you encounter a similar problem in the future you can confidently execute. On the other hand, you are timing yourself on problem sets likely in the 10-20 question range in effort to simulate exam time pressure. I can't emphasize enough just how crucial this distinction is. My advice is to simply be aware of what you are practicing as you sit down for a session.

I know this was an incredibly long post, but for those of you who made it to the end I hope you found bits and pieces helpful that will aid you throughout your GMAT journey. I know similar stories played a crucial role for me throughout my GMAT journey, so I felt a duty to provide my own after all that GMAT Club has done for me.

Best of Luck!
Mike