Hello friends,
I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I am beginning on my GMAT journey and feeling a bit overwhelmed with where to start.
I would appreciate some feedback and direction on how to plan out this journey.
Due to the current situation, my company is allowing us to work from home until early September and workload is usually light for our office during the summer months. So, I can devote a good amount of time to my GMAT Preparation. Even though I have been thinking about the GMAT at the back on my mind for a long time, I think that with my current work situation, this would be an ideal time to give this a shot.
I took the
MGMAT CAT 1 (free available online) and scored a 590 (Q38, V34, IR 2.4).
I took this attempt without any prior studying, except for reading the introduction to the GMAT chapters in a couple of prep books.
While taking this test, I felt a bit frustrated with some questions in Quant and SC as I had no clue on how to solve them. I have a science background and good verbal skills (native speaker) so this was a surprise to me.
Over the last two weeks, I have been reading through the
Manhattan Prep Quant Books, watching a variety of YouTube videos to brush up on concepts and reviewing some notes for SC. I also did a few RC passages from the OG (averaging about 9 minutes/passage and mostly struggled with history dense passages as there were too many details to sift through to do well on the questions).
Resources available to me (mostly borrowed from my colleagues and friends):
Official Guides Set 2020
Manhattan Prep Book Set
Kaplan Prep Plus 2020
Also downloaded a bunch of docs with notes and practice questions this forum

Goal Score: 730 or higher
Estimated Test Date: End of August (This would give me 3 months to prepare)
Concerns:
- I am on a tight budget so I am thinking of doing self preparation.
- I have not been good with standardized tests and have struggled with them in the past. So, the thought of the GMAT is raising a lot of anxiety and affecting my motivation level. I think that this is really holding me back (mentally).
How should I go about my preparation?
Here are my thoughts:
June - Complete review and readings of the prep books, do some practice questions daily on this forum
July - Take another mock test in week 1 and devote this month to doing lots of practice questions
August - Solidify any remaining weak concepts, take a couple of mocks/week and review results.
Is this sufficient? I am open to input on how best to optimize my study time.
Thanks!