From 0 to 650 in 42 days

Hello All,

I am pretty new to this GMAT thing, truth be told I think it is a money grab but sometimes you have to play by other peoples rules to get to where you want to in life. A bit about myself, I am a 27 year old self-employed coin dealer with a Dual Masters degree in Advanced International Business Management from Newcastle Business School and the University of Groningen. My GPA is 3.67 and I have 4 stints Abroad on my cv (9 months in The Netherlands, 6 months in Sweden and 3 months in Germany). I also achieved a 4.0 for my master thesis which not only redefined the topic but also laid down new theories...which I want to take further.

My aim is to apply for the phd program at the University of Mannheim. I won't kid myself I absolutely suck at the GMAT, If I am honest I am so bad that the first time I did a practice test I realised why small children lay down in a dark corner and suck their thumb . There is a saving grace, I am pretty decent at the verbal except the SC. I got a 13/17 on both RC and CR, it went downhill for everything else. All the other sections I got 5 or below. Whilst I am confident about my application as a whole, I know that the GMAT can break my application and I feel that a 600 will win me a place so naturally I will be aiming for a 650.

I feel that if I can improve on SC I should aim for a 40. I am really worried about the Math, I haven't done it for the best part of a decade. Thankfully for me I hate myself, so I have the motivation to bang my head against a brick wall enough until it makes sense. I hope to update this as I go along, to share the times when I feel like throwing the towel in and the times where I am in the mood to punch out my weight class

I look forward to reading other peoples stories

Shaun