Journey from 620 to 760 in 6 months with 12+ hours of work commitment

Hi everyone!

I’m coming here to share with you my journey from 620 to 760 on the GMAT! I hope you will be able to build on my learnings and leverage them to move forward on this very challenging (but ultimately rewarding!) path.

Preparing on my own: enough to grasp the basics

So I started preparing on my own with the Manhattan GMAT books. These books are really good at explaining the concepts and theory of each of the topics (both Quant and Verbal). I read them thoroughly, studied all the concepts in them and built summaries of the most important things.

Once I finished with that step, I moved into the practice stage. For that, I used the Official Guide, which has tons of exercises for each of the parts of the exam. I practiced one or two topics each day, pre-reading the summaries I had built during the previous phase, doing the exercises in time and later reviewing the ones I had gotten wrong.

After covering the full set of exercises on all topics and sections, I had managed to get ~80% accuracy in Quant and ~90% accuracy in Verbal overall. I figured “I am ready to take a few mocks and then I’ll be ready to sit for the actual exam”.

So I sat for a real mock, and much to my surprise, the results were not what I had expected: 620 (Q42, V34). I was shocked: where had I gone wrong? I had reviewed all the concepts, properly summarised all the relevant content, practiced each of the sections and achieved good accuracy, and reviewed all the questions where I had gone wrong. So I was really frustrated and did not quite know how to move forward. Preparing on my own had been enough to grasp the basics of the content, but it was clearly not enough for me to get to the score I wanted.

So it was clear that I needed to find a new approach.

eGMAT: an excellent way to structure and deepen my prep

I started looking for new resources I could leverage to enhance my prep, and I came across two eGMAT materials that I found tremendously useful: their Quant process skills series in YouTube and their free webinars to crack different topics (Number Properties was one of my weaknesses, so the webinars on this topic came in really handy). The two were great in showing me a consistent and thought approach to exam preparation, and I honestly found it much better than all other resources, so I got in contact and started preparing with them right away. This was around mid-April.

eGMAT really has a unique approach to exam preparation. There are three top things I highlight:

• Structure of the approach: eGMAT has a very structured and clear approach to prep. It’s not just about reviewing content and doing exercises until you eventually make it by art of magic. They have a fully-fledged approach consisting of three main stages of learning, through which you need to go in order to truly master the content. First you understand the content, then you master the process, and then you blend it all together to get ready for the exam. This sequenced approach gives you a lot of clarity of what you need to work on and what you need to prioritise, while making sure that you are building strong foundations as you progress through the content

• Quality of the content: just as their approach is structured, so is the content for studying. Each of the topics is structured with content files, which explain the main concepts you need to know, application files, which guide you through the application of that knowledge in actual questions following a structured process, and practice files, which allow you to practice on your own with exercises of varying difficulty followed by detailed explanations

• Power of the exercise platform: you may have already read about it in other posts, but it does not harm to mention it. Scholaranium, eGMAT’s platform, is probably the best question bank out there. It has +1000 really excellent questions, allows you to create custom quizzes that you may tailor to your needs and prep stage, and provides fantastic analytics with a lot of granularity. Of course, for each question there is a detailed explanation, and you may use the forums to post questions, which their experts will answer quickly. If you are thinking that you need a resource to practice more questions, this is it

But what really made the difference was their mentorship programme, which is brand new in the market and is a true value proposition to anyone who really wants to commit to their prep. I have already posted a detailed review of the mentorship programme in eGMAT's review page in the GMAT Club, but here is a summary of why this programme is great.

The programme provides you with personalised support from one of eGMAT’s mentors (who in my case happened to be Archit Bhargava - best you can get), who will guide you every step of the way to ensure that you keep up with your prep and that you have all it takes to crack the exam. They will assess where you are standing, create a personalised roadmap with specific daily milestones, and check in on you every week to ensure that you keep up, adjusting the plan as needed. Plus, they will organise sessions with other programme students to share best practices for your learning journey and to provide generalised support.

Let me tell you: at the time I was preparing for the GMAT, I was working 12-14 hours a day, so you may imagine my availability for studying was not infinite. The mentorship programme was great for me because it allowed me to make my study fit into a complicated work agenda. Archit, my mentor, created my personal roadmap and milestones that took into account the fact that the agenda was complicated, and every week, when we checked in, he would ask how work was coming along in order to calibrate the milestones for the following week. This was a great way of keeping up with my study, without ignoring the constraints of other areas in my life.

So back to the story, I went through eGMAT’s full prep offering. Firstly, I completed the Verbal prep, made sure I got those contents locked in, and then moved on to Quant. The stage-by-stage approach was the key for me to feel certain that I was not leaving any gaps, that the concepts were truly there, and that I was comfortable with higher-level questions.

The last mile: putting all the pieces of the puzzle together

So, after completing my prep on both Verbal and Quant, and having successfully gone through the initial stages of eGMAT’s learning process, it was time to put it all together in the final stage: test readiness. This stage is all about developing the mental agility and endurance to do a full 2+ hour long exam with 67 questions, jumping from one topic to the other, keeping up with the exam pace, and maintaining good accuracy in your responses. You know the concepts and you have mastered the topics separately – now it is time for you to be able to move comfortably and quickly among them.

In this final stage, eGMAT’s advise was priceless. They indicated me what things to pay attention to in this final stage, what to do, what not to do, etc. All was aimed at ensuring I was prepared for the test.

And this was really the point were all the parts of the puzzle started to come together. Over the course of my prep, I had sat for that official mock (the 620, remember?), and then another Sigma-X mock to baseline against before starting with eGMAT. But then, over the course of the whole prep, I had not sat for any more mocks. You may be thinking that is weird, but in reality, it makes a ton of sense: you spend a lot of time cementing the concepts, the process and the ability. You invest in getting the foundations right, and that takes up the bulk of your time. Then, once that is all covered and in place, you go for the mocks, and if you did the first stages properly, those go really smoothly, because they are just a moment in which you put all that you have learned together.

So, after finishing my prep, I sat for three mocks (two Sigma-X, one official), and then went for the real exam.

The great thing is that during the exam it all flowed naturally, because I felt confident that I had my bases covered. Of course, there is always that algebra question that you cannot crack, or that grammar rule you just don’t remember. That’s always going to happen, but if you have practiced enough and in the right settings, you are trained to sort those problems out.

In general, my exam experience was that I was going through the questions smoothly and that I was making good time, which was key in my keeping cool and not getting mind-blocked or anything. The whole thing actually felt easier that many of my previous preps!

Of course, even if I had had a positive exam experience, I did not expect the score I got. When I saw the 760 (Q49, V45), I was thrilled and happy, and really grateful that I had decided to go through such thorough and consistent preparation.

Wrap-up: my recommendations to you

So, overall, what are my recommendations to you? Let me try to wrap them up in three key things I discovered were really important.

Process. If you are going to start studying, draw up a plan and be organised about it. Find resources that allow you to study, apply, practice and review. You need to learn, then apply, and then correct, otherwise you will probably forget the content. Once you have done that, work on developing a good process to answer each type of question (it’s not the same to do SC than RC, or PS than DS – develop the most assertive approach for each of the types of questions you will get). Finally, put them all together by practicing in real-exam situations (if it is the Online GMAT you are going to take: 31 Q + 36 V, medium and hard only, non-stop).

Consistency. GMAT is a marathon, not a sprint. You will probably start with motivation, but then at some point get frustrated. Don’t give in, and don’t quit your prep for some weeks to then jump back at it. That’s the worse you can do: it will only increase your sense of frustration and make you feel like you are not moving forward. Consistency is the key. For that, a milestone-driven plan with very concrete, down to earth micro goals is the key – things you can achieve and that allow you to see that you are not in the same place as you were last week, all in the service of higher goals that add up to your acing the exam.

Support. It may be your family, your partner, your friends, or God. Who it is is up to you, but look for someone who you feel understands you and supports you along the way. There may come a time when you will sit for a mock and find yourself scoring below what you had expected, and you will need someone to share the burden. Or you will score much more than you had expected, in which case you will want someone to share the joy! One way or the other, make sure you feel supported along the way! Do not underestimate this, get someone who tells you: “keep pushing”.

Now, a very personal piece of advice: if you can invest ~350 USD and are prepared to be consistent on your prep, go for eGMAT – they really are the best out there. Doing well at the GMAT is 30% content, 30% process, 30% consistency in your prep, and 10% luck – eGMAT will help you with the first three.

I hope that you have a great learning journey and that you are truly able to ace the GMAT! More than happy to help you in any way I can ? All the best!