Hello all,
What a ride the GMAT was. Writing this I hope will help many others that are in my shoes. Also, I want to write this to help me grow as a future MBA student.
A little background- I am a military service member. As I arrived to my last duty station, I knew that I would pivot from there to business school. I started to research what steps I needed to take to make that a reality. After realizing that the GMAT was the largest hurdle to my goals I did a small amount of research (Bought
OG 2018
).
I signed up for
Magoosh which has several prep models (great to use but I was RUSTY) Rusty is not the right word; I was never a great student and to be honest some topics I just didn't know. I saw that
magoosh has a 3 month prep program which I thought was plenty of time (big mistake) I looked at the calendar and booked the test.
I worked hard to get through the lessons that
magoosh offered. However, I was more focused on turning the lessons into checkmarks vice actually learning. When I took the check on learning quizzes and didn't know the answer I was frustrated (I had just gone over these lessons). I never focused on mastery. I read somewhere that the mark of a good student is someone who never makes the same mistake twice, for a while I tried to hold myself to that standard. Newsflash you aren't as smart as you think. You need to go over those lessons 3 or 4 times to get to the level of mastery that is sufficient to excel on the GMAT.
I took the GMAT in May of 2018. 470 22Q 32V (something close to that). I was pretty shocked but considering I never took a real mock, I probably shouldn't have been. I studied haphazardly and sloppily. I wasn't ready.
I took several months off after that. I told people that I would start studying again soon but soon never came. In Jan of 2019 I started fresh and used the same terrible plan that I used the first time. In may of 2019 I scored a 500.
After that I realized i needed to do something drastic to change my fortunes. After several months off again, I started
Manhattan Prep Interact and it helped me grow my quant and verbal skills significantly. COVID Hit which threw my plans for a loop a bit eventually I took the GMAT online in July of 2020 and got a 590 40q/31v. This was a significant improvement but not where I wanted to be to have a chance at a top school.
I finally started to implement lessons I learned from other test takers. I started utilizing the forums heavily and creating a detailed
error log.
I created a detailed schedule and practiced 6 mocks in between my next test.
My mocks were around the 630-660 mark and I felt confident that I would be in that range.
I took the exam in person in august and got a 590 again! the exact same split 40q/31v.
Again, I had to reassess myself. What was I doing wrong? At this point I was running out of time and my seemingly infinite ramp was running out as I knew I would be going to school in the fall of 2021. Instead of feeling sorry for myself I immediately jumped back into studying, instead of going over the same problems again and again, I signed up for
Target Test Prep. The quant lessons and problems were invaluable in taking my understanding to the level of mastery that is required for the GMAT. I started to listen to GMAT Ninja SC/CR and RC lessons whenever I was driving to and from work.
I lived and breathed the GMAT.
My mocks improved to between 640-700. I was feeling confident. I tried to register for the GMAT but no slots were available until NOV 4th. I swore to my girlfriend and family that this would be my last attempt as they were all sick of my reclusive ways from studying. Luckily the GMAC opened up the second online test. I scheduled it so that I would take the online and the in person exactly as close as was allowed.
I scored a 650 in the second online test 46q/34v. I felt pretty good about this one, although it is not an elite score, it got me off the mat and built some confidence that I was actually beating this beast we call the GMAT.
This gave me the confidence that I had the baseline skills and I just needed to put it all together, I was no longer approaching the GMAT from a point of fear. I was genuinely excited to take it one last time.
I took one last mock and score a 690.
During the last test I was relaxed. It was the day after the election so unplugging for four hours sounded great to me. When a 720 flashed 49q/40v I was elated. I could barely keep my composure in the testing center. Pure Euphoria.
Through my journey I learned several key lessons that I hope sharing will prevent others from making the same mistakes I did:
Takeaways/Best Practices:
-You need to approach the GMAT as a conditions-based event, and not a timed base event. My biggest takeaway is to not schedule the test until you hit your goals on your mock, not vice versa. The 6
OG Mocks are invaluable, don't use them until you are ready (I used mine far to soon)
-You are not going to understand concepts to the level the GMAT requires the first, second or even third time you encounter them. Understand that, the 10th time is where you will start to recognize patterns and it will start to click for you.
Target Test Prep does an unbelievable job and weaving this into the easy medium and hard tests. (Don't focus on getting through the lessons and focus on understanding the material)
-Add all the questions from mocks into your
error log. Make sure that if you got a question right, it was for the right reason.
- Get creative. I had an hour drive to work, and I went through so many GMAT Club youtube videos that reinforced topics during that time. You can't put the GMAT studying in a box. Don't take extended breaks. You need to study consistently for an extended period of time to get to mastery.
Hope everyone enjoys reading this.