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19 Jul 2024, 23:26
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Long time lurker and first time poster, just wanted to share my experiences with y'all. My relatively lengthy story and mock test results are at the bottom for those interested in reading it.
Key Takeaways
Prep Products Used/review:
Target Test Prep: Overall very good for building a solid foundation for Quant for someone who is new, and has an amazing database of questions and analytics function.
Cons:
To supplement your TTP quant foundation, what I found to be most helpful were:
GMATClub forums.
First Choice Admissions Youtube
OG guide, OG guide for Quant, OG Guide for DI (and GMATQuantum for video explanations)
My story + mock exam scores.
I was the kid in college who would skip half his lectures, and spend the last week or so of the semester chasing down shots of 5 hour energy with cans of redbull in an attempt to pass the final exam, so take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt. I’m not sure if my experiences will be of help to any of you - heck it might be detrimental to some - but I’m here to share it anyways on the off chance it can aid even one person.
The idea of applying for business school was always on the back of my mind, but the dreaded GMAT exam always stood in my way. I first took the 10th edition exam in January 2022, after 2 months of casual studying on TTP for about 80 hours combined (when the subscription was much cheaper) and got a score of 700 (86th percentile, which translates to roughly 645 on the FE) , not good not bad, I was happy with my score at time but I knew there was a lot of room for improvement. 2 years of procrastinating goes by, it’s January 2024, I decided to give it another shot, and was pleasantly surprised to find out the format changed since I regularly read financial journals - WSG, the economist…etc - for work, so DI and Verbal came quite naturally to me. I renewed my subscription to TTP and casually studied for 2 weeks, but ultimately life got in the way. Fast forward to June - I get laid off from my job, the wake up call I needed to bunker down and really study.
Up to this point, I have about 100 hours logged on TTP, all of the lessons read, and only a few of the Quant chapter tests completed (roughly 3 chapters). Admittedly, I didn’t follow the study plan laid out by TTP, but I no longer had the luxury of time and I didn’t want to continue paying for the steep monthly subscription now that I’m unemployed, so I book an exam for July 3rd, roughly 1 month out, and spend the next 3 weeks completing every single chapter test in TTP Quant and DI - averaging about 15 chapter tests a day, taking only a half day to rest on Sundays. Once I finished TTP (Avg ~95% accuracy on Easy/Med, and 70% on Hard tests), I spent the week leading up to the exam practicing OG questions, completing all of the Official Guide, OG Quant Review, and OG Data Insights review (shout out to GMATQuantum for thorough explanations), and doing 2 mock tests a day for the remaining 2 days (2 attempts each on the free mocks). And my results were as such:
Mock 1 Attempt 1: 635 - Q79, DI80, V85 (didn’t finish quant due to time) (6/30/2024)
Mock 1 Attempt 2: 695 - Q83, DI84, V86 (6/30/2024)
Mock 2 Attempt 1: 695 - Q86, DI83, V84 (7/1)
Mock 2 Attempt 2: 675 - Q82, DI84, V84 (7/1)
Official exam score: 675 - Q80, DI85, V85 (7/3)
Although I knew it would have been wise to take additional mock exams, I set an ambitious deadline to hold myself accountable, and I didn’t want to spend money purchasing mocks. Although my initial exam score was within the boundaries of my expectation, I walked out of the exam quite disappointed knowing I made quant errors due to simple calculation mistakes, which caused me to panic even more when I was already super anxious, and waste a ton of time. With the experience of taking the official exam in a proctored setting, and a reasonable fallback score of 675, I decided to book an exam for 7/19 - roughly 2 weeks after.
I spent the next two weeks fine tuning my quant skills, practicing on GMAT Club forums (taking advantage of the free forum tests on independence day) and taking additional mock exams 3-6. The forum exams, although completely shattering my confidence in quant, were invaluable towards exposing gaps in my knowledge. The results of my additional mocks, taken between 7/14 and 7/19 (the morning before the test) were as such:
Mock 3 Attempt 1: 675 - Q84, DI81, V87 (7/14)
Mock 3 Attempt 2: 685 - Q86, DI81, V83 (7/14)
Test Strategy Change - Q,DI,V to V,DI,Q
Mock 4 Attempt 1: 675 - Q84, DI82, V84 (7/15)
Mock 5 Attempt 1: 705 - Q84, DI87, V84 (7/17)
Mock 6 Attempt 1: 685 - Q84, DI83, V85 (7/18)
Mock 5 Attempt 2: 695 - Q82, DI85, V86 (7/19)
After Mock 3, I changed the order in which I took the exam, from Q - DI - V to V - DI - Q, after reading a forum post advising you to start with your strongest section. My initial logic was to start with your worst section since you’re fresh, and finish with your strongest as kind of a “ride off into the sunset” moment. But, starting with your strongest section was probably singularly the most valuable piece of advice (at least for me), since the majority of my quant errors were due to my making simple/silly mistakes.
By this point you’re probably wondering, how the heck did this guy get Q90 when he’s never scored that high on any of his mock tests? Did he get lucky? Absolutely, but as the famous quote goes, “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” During my last few mocks, I consistently made only 1-3 errors on quant, and having a fallback score allowed me to go into the exam with far less anxiety, which destroyed me during my first exam. Also, I learned some very valuable lessons and shortcuts during my last two weeks of prep (posted above).
Was it right for me to cram 80 hours a week for a month and a half leading up to the exam? Probably not. Would I advise anyone to do it? Also, no. But it worked for me and I hope, for the unfortunate individuals placed in similar situations, that it works for you.
Happy to answer any questions.
Key Takeaways
- 1: Start with your strongest section - although this was quite unnerving at first because I was met with relatively more difficult quant questions in the beginning of the section, I realized I was penalized less when I missed them.
- 2: Be comfortable with estimation - I had the habit of chasing precise answers, and would make long division calculations that cost a lot of time. Learning to estimate was probably my biggest time saver in quant.
- 2a. Side point, become REALLY comfortable with manipulating the denominators of fractions into powers of 10, ex.: 127/295 -> roughly 13/30 -> multiple top and bottom by 3.3 and you get 42.9/99.9 -> which is roughly 43%. It’s much faster to multiply 13 by 3.3 than it is to divide 127 by 295.
- 2b. I also found that arithmetic questions involving sqrt(2,3,5,6,7…etc) could almost all be solved in a more timely fashion through estimation.
- 3. Learning when to backsolve and plug numbers when you’re met with a lot of variables,
- ex. The price of an item increased by, a%, decreased by b%, increased by c%, decreased by V, did a backflip and landed as Z , solve for one of the variables- sometimes it’s just best to plug in numbers, while this approach is far less elegant when compared to the approach some quant geniuses might take, it works - especially when you’re bad at quant like me.
- 4. I noticed that towards the end of the quant section, ~Q19-21, there always seems to be one or two 705+ level questions that “reward” you for having a lot of time left over. Which is to say, some questions that can be brute forced through back solving or plugging in numbers, i.e. solving absolute value inequalities using a modulus, or an overlapping set that can be solved using a venn diagram. Granted some people might be able to solve these problems with haste, I found these types of questions to be rather time consuming.
- 5. If you’re short on time, and on the last problem (or the final 2-3) of the section, just click an answer and use the review function to revise your answer, it’s much more punishing to leave a question blank than to get it wrong, and if you’re running low on time, chances are you won’t be able to review/edit 3 answers anyways. Why not burn a review or two just to guarantee nothing is left blank?
- 6. Being able to gauge relative difficulty of the questions may help at times - I say this with a caveat since being preoccupied with how hard the questions being presented are may waste precious mental resources but during my last exam, after a string of moderately challenging 705ish questions I was suddenly presented with a sub-505 level algebra question which made me promptly bookmark, and review/change my answer to the question prior. This only happened to me once however but it was on the actual exam.
- 7. It doesn’t hurt to take the exam more than once, maybe you’ll get lucky like me
Prep Products Used/review:
Target Test Prep: Overall very good for building a solid foundation for Quant for someone who is new, and has an amazing database of questions and analytics function.
Cons:
- Relatively expensive, and extremely lengthy.
- Quant: Absolute value/inequalities section could be improved
- DI: helps build a strong foundation for DS through its quant course, but as of the time of this review, could use a guide for verbal logic based DS.
- Verbal: could create more subcategories for RC questions. Admittedly, this might be a difficult task as some question stems seem to touch upon other question types (i.e. inference and strength) and vice versa.
To supplement your TTP quant foundation, what I found to be most helpful were:
GMATClub forums.
- Inequalities/abv
- Modulus + graphical solves
- Binomial theorem for remainders
- Arithmetic shortcuts
- Multiplying two 2-digit numbers “the rainbow method”
- Squaring 2-digit numbers that end in 5
- Forum tests
- Destroys your confidence but helps expose weaknesses
First Choice Admissions Youtube
- Shortcut for solving work/rate problems
OG guide, OG guide for Quant, OG Guide for DI (and GMATQuantum for video explanations)
- Obviously to get a feel for real exam questions.
My story + mock exam scores.
I was the kid in college who would skip half his lectures, and spend the last week or so of the semester chasing down shots of 5 hour energy with cans of redbull in an attempt to pass the final exam, so take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt. I’m not sure if my experiences will be of help to any of you - heck it might be detrimental to some - but I’m here to share it anyways on the off chance it can aid even one person.
The idea of applying for business school was always on the back of my mind, but the dreaded GMAT exam always stood in my way. I first took the 10th edition exam in January 2022, after 2 months of casual studying on TTP for about 80 hours combined (when the subscription was much cheaper) and got a score of 700 (86th percentile, which translates to roughly 645 on the FE) , not good not bad, I was happy with my score at time but I knew there was a lot of room for improvement. 2 years of procrastinating goes by, it’s January 2024, I decided to give it another shot, and was pleasantly surprised to find out the format changed since I regularly read financial journals - WSG, the economist…etc - for work, so DI and Verbal came quite naturally to me. I renewed my subscription to TTP and casually studied for 2 weeks, but ultimately life got in the way. Fast forward to June - I get laid off from my job, the wake up call I needed to bunker down and really study.
Up to this point, I have about 100 hours logged on TTP, all of the lessons read, and only a few of the Quant chapter tests completed (roughly 3 chapters). Admittedly, I didn’t follow the study plan laid out by TTP, but I no longer had the luxury of time and I didn’t want to continue paying for the steep monthly subscription now that I’m unemployed, so I book an exam for July 3rd, roughly 1 month out, and spend the next 3 weeks completing every single chapter test in TTP Quant and DI - averaging about 15 chapter tests a day, taking only a half day to rest on Sundays. Once I finished TTP (Avg ~95% accuracy on Easy/Med, and 70% on Hard tests), I spent the week leading up to the exam practicing OG questions, completing all of the Official Guide, OG Quant Review, and OG Data Insights review (shout out to GMATQuantum for thorough explanations), and doing 2 mock tests a day for the remaining 2 days (2 attempts each on the free mocks). And my results were as such:
Mock 1 Attempt 1: 635 - Q79, DI80, V85 (didn’t finish quant due to time) (6/30/2024)
Mock 1 Attempt 2: 695 - Q83, DI84, V86 (6/30/2024)
Mock 2 Attempt 1: 695 - Q86, DI83, V84 (7/1)
Mock 2 Attempt 2: 675 - Q82, DI84, V84 (7/1)
Official exam score: 675 - Q80, DI85, V85 (7/3)
Although I knew it would have been wise to take additional mock exams, I set an ambitious deadline to hold myself accountable, and I didn’t want to spend money purchasing mocks. Although my initial exam score was within the boundaries of my expectation, I walked out of the exam quite disappointed knowing I made quant errors due to simple calculation mistakes, which caused me to panic even more when I was already super anxious, and waste a ton of time. With the experience of taking the official exam in a proctored setting, and a reasonable fallback score of 675, I decided to book an exam for 7/19 - roughly 2 weeks after.
I spent the next two weeks fine tuning my quant skills, practicing on GMAT Club forums (taking advantage of the free forum tests on independence day) and taking additional mock exams 3-6. The forum exams, although completely shattering my confidence in quant, were invaluable towards exposing gaps in my knowledge. The results of my additional mocks, taken between 7/14 and 7/19 (the morning before the test) were as such:
Mock 3 Attempt 1: 675 - Q84, DI81, V87 (7/14)
Mock 3 Attempt 2: 685 - Q86, DI81, V83 (7/14)
Test Strategy Change - Q,DI,V to V,DI,Q
Mock 4 Attempt 1: 675 - Q84, DI82, V84 (7/15)
Mock 5 Attempt 1: 705 - Q84, DI87, V84 (7/17)
Mock 6 Attempt 1: 685 - Q84, DI83, V85 (7/18)
Mock 5 Attempt 2: 695 - Q82, DI85, V86 (7/19)
After Mock 3, I changed the order in which I took the exam, from Q - DI - V to V - DI - Q, after reading a forum post advising you to start with your strongest section. My initial logic was to start with your worst section since you’re fresh, and finish with your strongest as kind of a “ride off into the sunset” moment. But, starting with your strongest section was probably singularly the most valuable piece of advice (at least for me), since the majority of my quant errors were due to my making simple/silly mistakes.
By this point you’re probably wondering, how the heck did this guy get Q90 when he’s never scored that high on any of his mock tests? Did he get lucky? Absolutely, but as the famous quote goes, “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” During my last few mocks, I consistently made only 1-3 errors on quant, and having a fallback score allowed me to go into the exam with far less anxiety, which destroyed me during my first exam. Also, I learned some very valuable lessons and shortcuts during my last two weeks of prep (posted above).
Was it right for me to cram 80 hours a week for a month and a half leading up to the exam? Probably not. Would I advise anyone to do it? Also, no. But it worked for me and I hope, for the unfortunate individuals placed in similar situations, that it works for you.
Happy to answer any questions.
poojaarora1818
Joined: 30 Jul 2019
Last visit: 27 Apr 2026
Posts: 1,625
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Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Economics
Schools: Duke '27 Haas '27 Kelley '27 Kellogg '27 McDonough '27
GPA: 3
WE:Human Resources (Real Estate)
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19 Jul 2024, 23:49
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Hi,
Wow! 735 is such an amazing score. Thank you very much for sharing such a detailed debrief. I am sure it would be helpful to all my fellow aspirants during their prep. I wish you all the best in the application process.
Good luck!
Wow! 735 is such an amazing score. Thank you very much for sharing such a detailed debrief. I am sure it would be helpful to all my fellow aspirants during their prep. I wish you all the best in the application process.
Good luck!
20 Jul 2024, 11:57
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That inspiring story of your is a must read for the GMAT takers who have their exam in the next 30 days or so.
