I am taking my gmat in 6 month's time and am absolutely terrified.

Good luck and God bless! nothing is impossible do your best!

Hi Rich!

Thanks for the information. To respond to your questions:

1) I plan to take it at a test facility
2) I can consistently put in 2-3 hours each weekday and 5 hours each weekend
3) I plan on applying for the fall intake in 2024. This is owing to 2 reasons: First, that I need at least 3 years work experience to apply to most of the programs which I will only achieve in February 2024. Second, that I want to dedicate 2023 to strengthening my holistic profile(eg., join an NGO or charity to do volunteer work, focus on my other hobbies, etc.). I already have a decent holistic profile but I feel that it could be improved more and updated.

Hi balthazar98,

I wouldn't worry too much about the OG diagnostic test "score" (ratings) if I were you. Take one of the official practice tests when you feel you're ready (you don't have to do this immediately). That'll give you a much more reliable score estimate.

Hi balthazar98,

I've sent you a PM with some additional notes and suggestions.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Contact Rich at: Rich.C@empowergmat.com

Hi balthazar98,

Do not take this score too seriously as it's just to assess your current level without any preparation. Generally speaking, it can take around 300 hours (give or take) to prepare from scratch. This includes everything from concepts to mock tests. Of course it depends on a number of things such as your target score, your strengths and weaknesses, your structure of preparation, the resources you use, your pace of learning etc.

I have a couple of articles for you which can help you understand the right way to prepare for GMAT.

How to start your GMAT Preparation?

How to effectively plan your studies for GMAT?

The 3 key skills you need to develop to score well on GMAT

I would suggest you to choose a resource that can help you:

• Learn the concepts
• Learn the methodology (Most important)
• Practice questions
• Analyze detailed solutions
• Follow a study plan
• Work on your weak areas

Make sure you choose a resource that can help you with the above factors. You can check out the below article to know more about the factors to consider while evaluating an online course.


Having said that, you would want to choose an online course which can help you with a study plan. Because if you are clear of what to study on any given day, it makes life easier for you. But a person who can spend 4 hours a day for studies cannot have the same study plan as a person who can spend just 2 hours a day. So, the study plan has to be personalized, that is, the study plan has to be according to the number of hours one can dedicate for studies.

As you have already signed up for the free trial of GMATWhiz, you must be experiencing the personalized study plan it provides along with a AI driven learning platform.
GMATWhiz rightly helps you with all these things as it follows a structured way of teaching things. We help you to apply concepts accurately & efficiently with our application-driven online GMAT course through progressive learning concepts and setting up clear milestones & deadlines i.e. easy achievable targets and regular reminders to keep you on track. Knowing how to reason through and analyze information is the key to a great GMAT score. Your process of working on your weak areas becomes a lot more effective with GMATWhiz, as the course analyses your performance after every topic and if your performance is not really great, it automatically suggests additional improvement modules for that topic. This way, you don’t have to spend additional time in identifying your weak areas and sorting them.

You can checkout how Hardik scored a GMAT 740 (Q48, V44) in 1st attempt in less than 90 days while working full time:


And if you wish to have a detailed discussion regarding the study strategy, you can get in touch with me using the below link:

Hi balthazar98,

Regarding how to go about your prep, here is a great article you can check out:

The Best Way to Study for the GMAT

Regarding resources, in addition to seeking advice in this thread, take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the best quant and verbal courses, and also read through some GMAT success stories to see what materials have worked well for other test-takers.

Dear balthazar98,
my started score was almost a few hundreds points less than yours:) if you are good at self-studying then reading the Manhattan guides is preferable option. In other case, you cat take the online course. There are variety of platforms from which you can choose the best one. I use the TTP service to ameliorate my verbal score, because its well structured study plan and unique approach already helped me to improve my quant score.
I have not consummated the Verbal module yet, but what do I say is that its curriculum not only covers all general topics but also provides step by step guide to cement the acquired knowledge.

If you have not read the Dala post yet, try
https://gmatclub.com/forum/530-point-gm ... 56872.html

Hi!

It is important to understand where you stand by taking a mock test on mba.com because it provides the closest experience to the real GMAT.

There are few good free resources available online like the Manhattan booklets, Powerscore which you could start with. For practice, you could solve OG qs, GMATClub Qs.

The major distraction for me has been selecting the right material. I did waste a lot of time going through a lot of average material online. Try to avoid doing that. Dedicate some hours to understand what could be good for you and follow that.

I wanted a more structured approach to my preparation and found it difficult to jump from one material to the other, so I signed up for Target Test Prep. They prepare the plan for you, all you have to do is religiously follow the study plan. The course is so detailed that all your concepts will be crystal clear once you are through the course. They offer the best value for your investment in terms of the content provided. You will not regret it.

All the best!