Hi all. I am new to GMAT and was wondering the best way to score 700 in 3 months.
A little bit information about my background. I am a recent accounting/finance graduate from a public university in the United States. I came to the States for the first time in 2011 from a country in Southeastern Asia. My first language is not English and I technically started learning English when I was in 10th grade. Although I knew some basic English words before 10th grade already, the first time I learned English grammar was in 10th grade. When I first came to the States as a college freshman, I really struggled with English. Since then I made tons of American friends and I felt my English, especially my listening and speaking skills, had significantly improved. I like watching movies and listening to music. I found out those two were the most effective ways to improve my English, especially with idioms and slang. By expanding my understandings, not only in formal English, but also in slang and idioms, I could communicate better with people on campus. However, I do not have good reading and writing habits since I describe myself as a visual learner. For example, I prefer watching movies than reading novels. Throughout college, I have never had any significant issues while writing papers or reading exam questions; however, I realized that GMAT is a completely different realm. I am worried that my so-so reading and writing skills may yield issues on GMAT. I recently started reading at least 10 different news from publications like USA Today and NY Times everyday and I hope this will improve my reading skills.
I plan to enroll in an MBA school in Fall 2017. Since I am currently on summer break and will not start my full time job until mid September, I would like to use my free time to study for GMAT. My goal is to schedule an exam in early September before I start working. I am thinking about signing up for an accelerated
MGMAT online course at the end of this month. Before signing up for the course, I would like to ask some GMAT experts whether my study plan makes sense. The questions I have are as follows:
1. Is it fine if I sign up for a 4-week accelerated course instead of a regular 9-week course based on my limited exposure to GMAT and my okay reading skills? FYI I plan to study for 6 hours per day everyday.
2. I would like to focus more on the verbal part since it seems I have quite strong math skills. My professor in school recommended me to buy Kaplan verbal books. I plan to buy some and read them before my
MGMAT online course starts. Which Kaplan verbal books do you recommend me to buy?(Workbook/Foundation/Premier 2017) I am looking for the best cost and benefit trade-off.
3. Are there any other free sources that I can utilize for now such as free verbal and quantitative materials or free simulations? I would like to know my current GMAT score so I can better monitor my progress later.
Thank you and I appreciate your help.