From ~600 Cold to 770 (48Q 51V): Debrief of my Summer Journey

Brief Overview: My final score line read: 770, 48Q, 51V, 8IR, 6AWA. It was a long and difficult road that involved hundreds of hours of prep.

My Background
I'm a native english speaker but the child of immigrant parents and a first gen college student - that is to say, although I was native, there was no english spoken in my household and I honestly wasn't a particularly good english student as a result growing up. However, in high school, I started to read a lot just in my own time and my general verbal skills improved drastically. I was an engineering major and did very well in my courses, so I had solid quant foundations. Moreover, I graduated this past spring, so my GMAT preparation and test occurred while I was on break in between graduating school and starting full-time. Finally, this was the first standardized test I have ever taken.

Overview of Preparation


Starting Point

I actually never did a true cold diagnostic. However, after flipping through the basic lessons in the Official Guide to get a sense for what is tested on the GMAT, I worked through the short diagnostic test that the OG provides. I completed this without time pressure, and really took my time, so if anything, my results here would be an overstatement of my actual capability at this point.

Now, this cold diagnostic doesn't have a "true" score attached to it, but there are some references online that provide rough estimates for how your diagnostic score scales to an actual GMAT score. My diagnostic was estimated at approximately 600 (Q36 V35). That's based on the following diagnostic performance:

1) Problem Solving: 16/24

2) Data Sufficiency: 17/24

3) Reading Comprehension: 13/17

4) Critical Reasoning: 14/17

5) Sentence Correction: 13/18

I'll also note that, even for many questions I answered correctly (particularly on verbal), I essentially arrived at the answer via sheer luck. That is, I answered correctly for the wrong reasons. Suffice to say, I had a lot of prep to do.

Initial Preparation

I started my preparation in May. I already had access to the old Manhattan guides, so I started here by working through all of the quant books first, and then working through their SC and RC books as well. It took me about 80 hours or so to work through all of Manhattan in addition to slowly starting to work through some small OG problem sets (mostly easy questions).

At this point, I decided to take the official mock test #1 to see where I was at. Unfortunately, although I scored really well, it was a very poor simulation of the actual test. I had to pause multiple times due to distractions in the house (which gave me extra time to think about questions) and even paused to consult my notes for one question. In any case, I didn't feel good writing the test - for some questions, I ended up getting them right for the wrong reasons, I felt like I was scrambling the entire time, etc. I knew I needed a lot more preparation ahead of my late September test date.

TTP + OG

In mid July, I started TTP, and I planned to work through it over the course of the next 2 months leading up to my scheduled GMAT in late September.

I first went through the entire quant course (all lessons + examples) and about 30% of the chapter tests (mostly focusing on medium and hard). I was consistently above the target accuracy outside of a few hard tests on some topics (like combinatorics / probability). My medium tests were usually 90-100% while hard tests were 80-95%. Then, I went through the verbal content that was available (SC and CR) including all of the chapter tests (because there are very few of them currently available). I was certainly feeling more confident in my quant ability after all of this (and I mean....good grief, I BETTER be feeling confident after putting in all of this time!). In total, I estimate that I spent ~160 hours on TTP across both quant and verbal.

In August, I started working through increasingly larger OG problem sets using the online tool. I started with a mix across easy / medium / hard, but once I saw that I was at ~95% accuracy on easy, I started to focus exclusively on medium / hard. As I was getting close to my practice test phase, I started to work on larger problem set sizes so as to better simulate the test taking experience (i.e. 30 timed problems for quant and ~40 timed problems for verbal as a stamina challenge).

Practice Testing

Once I finished TTP, there was nothing left to do but actually work on OG problems and, of course, the actual OG tests. I tried to simulate these as realistically as possible, including:

• Taking these practice tests with a mask on (because I was taking an in-person exam)
• Using an erasable notepad (used the Manhattan simulation notepad & marker)
• Absolutely no pauses
• Timed breaks
• Taking the exam at the same time as my afternoon actual exam (also, going through the same breakfast and morning routine as I planned to do for my actual exam)

Here were my practice test results on official mocks (tests 2 - 6). Note that these were pretty close to one another in time - the largest gap between two tests was 1 week:

Test #2: 750, Q50 V42 8IR
Test #3: 770, Q50 V44 5IR
Test #4: 770, Q50 V44 5IR
Test #5: 770, Q50 V47 8IR
Test #6: 770, Q51 V44 8IR

Some quick observations / notes on my practice tests:

1) It was clear to me that at the upper end, verbal has a remarkably tight margin of error. Getting 2 vs. 5 verbal wrong is a pretty big difference in score. In comparison, I had as many as 8 wrong in quant at one point and still got Q50...and I had as few as 1 wrong on quant and...still got a Q50! With verbal, most of my few mistakes (typically 2-3 per test, mostly in SC) were from relative sloppiness and poor precision. Those are the key elements to score highly on verbal, IMO.

I also took one Manhattan practice test (the free one that is offered) and scored a 720 (this was right before doing official mock #3, in which I got a 770). Manhattan is definitely tough, so don't get discouraged by lower Manhattan scores. I also did two GMAT Club CATs (when they were free on Labour Day). Suffice to say, these are TOUGH. I did them at 11pm back to back (I remembered the free giveaway at the last second). I got Q49 on my first one and then Q48 on the second one.

Test Day

At the end of it all, all of your preparation means nothing if you don't execute on test day.

Ultimately, test taking psychology is so important and underrated. It's easy to tell people "just be confident" and whatnot. The best thing you can do mitigate that anxiety is just prepping as much as possible. Aside from that, simulating test day is a good idea. I had more confidence knowing that I had used the erasable notepad and used my mask. In general, you want to limit surprises on test day. In the week leading up to my exam, I tried to visualize taking the test at night time. I would imagine walking into the test centre and feeling confident through the exam. I would imagine seeing my target score flash on my screen at the end.

When I was driving there, I felt INCREDIBLY nervous. I wanted to barf! However, as soon as I walked into the Pearson test centre and sat in the lobby, I was amazed: I felt incredibly calm. I had looked up what the test centres looked like and had done these visualization exercises - perhaps that was the trick?

I went with verbal - quant - IR - AWA as my order. Verbal felt pretty good overall. It was in line with the difficulty of the official mocks, IMO, although some of the RC questions were more vague (and therefore more difficult) than what I see in the Official Guide and official mocks. After the break, I moved onto quant - this had always been my stronger section and my performance here in practice was remarkably steady.

However...I failed to execute properly on quant. There were 2 questions where I spent >4 minutes on them before giving up and guessing. As some of you know, this is a recipe for disaster. This prompted me to move quickly through the other questions, causing me to lose precision and miss on some medium level questions for sure.

Going into the final stretch, I told myself at this point that what's done was done. IMO, with IR and AWA, you mostly just want to avoid having a blemish on your score. From my prep, IR was honestly a wild card. There are some IR questions in general where I was just confused at what it was asking. However, the test IR's ended up feeling alright.

And then...right after submitting the AWA, the final score immediately appeared. In summary:

770, 48Q, 51V, 8IR

I immediately did two massive fist pumps at my desk before calming myself before catching the ire of the test proctors. I couldn't care less about my splits at this point - I saw the 770 and knew I was done. Interestingly, at this point, I didn't even feel happiness or enjoyment per se. It was more so a feeling of...relief.

Obviously, the relatively low quant was unexpected and it was disappointing for a bit...but I'm obviously thrilled with a V51. I was confident I had the ability to be perfect through the verbal section and in the end, I was able to tighten up my focus on verbal for test day (I believe the adrenaline helped in this regard).

List of Resources Used:
Happy to expand on any of this in the comments as I know this post is already getting very long!

1) Manhattan Guide - ultimately, these gave me a very strong foundation. I actually do think I could have potentially gotten to a 770 with just Manhattan + the full Official Guide

2) TTP Quant and Verbal. It's truly an excellent program and great at building strong fundamentals. There are tons of positive reviews here so I'll leave it there for quant but feel free to ask any follow up q's. Additionally, I was a fan of TTP verbal. Was it completely responsible for my V51? Impossible of course, since there isn't even an RC section yet. However, I will say that it helped me the most IMO in SC. It's pretty comprehensive and the tests do a good job at improving your ability to spot specific errors. The best aspect about TTP SC IMO is that it does a good job at getting you used to spotting meaning errors. However, there are times where the TTP questions focus on different aspects of sentences than the OG, so you can't just use TTP in isolation. Ultimately, you need to ensure you're learning how the test maker (GMAC) thinks.

3) Official Guide - Indispensable. Lots of test prep companies out there with good questions, but nothing can match the OG. I felt that although TTP quant questions were often harder in isolation, they were more "structured" (and therefore easier to tackle). In comparison, the OG had more..."weird" questions out of left field that make you think "what is this even testing??"

4) All 6 official GMAT tests. It's the only source of official questions with the actual GMAT algorithm. Worthy investment, IMO. Use them wisely and ALWAYS use them under realistic testing conditions.

5) Manhattan + GMAT Quant Club tests - these were pretty okay, especially if you want to use them for timing practice / additional problems. But for Manhattan, don't read too much into their scores and their explanations on verbal.

Section Tips / Commentary:

I'll keep this brief here because, but please do follow up with any questions you may have.

Quant in General

Don't take quant lightly, even if you're a quant major. I was an engineering major at a top school who got an A+ in university level probability and statistics. Guess what? I scored a 66% on my first TTP hard probability test and to this day, will still get some stats questions wrong. Maintaining precision on quant questions is key.

Verbal in General

RC: I don't think gimmicks work (at least for me). When I was doing my practice tests, RC was my strongest area on verbal (only got one RC wrong through tests 2 -6). I would actually read the entire passage (every word) AND take some brief notes throughout. I rarely referred back to my notes - they were just there to keep my mind engaged with the passage. One of the keys to RC is really sticking to the passage. On harder questions, there may be 3 to 4 options where your reaction is "well...that does kind of make sense, right?". But then one word or two will change the true meaning so you have to be precise.

CR: Likewise, precision is king. The most important skill I picked up was truly isolating what the EXACT conclusion was. This is tougher than it seems! A common wrong answer type is one that is relevant to the argument...but not truly addressing the core conclusion. There are other patterns in wrong answers as well. Moreover, it's essential to really put yourself in the author's shoes and understand the logic they're using.

SC: I started thinking I could get away with picking answers based on "sound". If you're aiming high on SC, this simply isn't viable. You need to know the basic grammar rules and understand proper sentence correction. Moreover, getting beyond the basic rules and towards interpreting the meaning of sentences is the true differentiator that takes you from an A- to an A+. Reading will help you a lot here. Throughout the summer, when I'd read publications like The Economist or the New York Times, I would actually note their sentence structures. I'd ask myself "what is this modifying?" or "cool, there's a present participle! Let's see how this is working in this sentence". If I ever noticed sentences that I thought were wrong or awkward, I'd read it again to understand why it was actually a good sentence.

Ultimately, the most important thing I can say is that verbal is learnable, even for international students. You can improve your verbal capacity as far as this test goes. I hope I stand as evidence of this fact!

Fire away with any questions you have! Also feel free to DM me as well