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Apr 2212:30 AM EDT
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At one point, she believed GMAT wasn’t for her. After scoring 595, self-doubt crept in and she questioned her potential. But instead of quitting, she made the right strategic changes. The result? A remarkable comeback to 695. Check out how Saakshi did it.
Apr 2301:30 AM EDT
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Struggling with GMAT Verbal as a non-native speaker? Harsh improved his score from 595 to 695 in just 45 days—and scored a 99 %ile in Verbal (V88)! Learn how smart strategy, clarity, and guided prep helped him gain 100 points.
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Apr 2610:00 AM EDT
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The Target Test Prep course represents a quantum leap forward in GMAT preparation, a radical reinterpretation of the way that students should study. Try before you buy with a 5-day, full-access trial of the course for FREE!
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
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Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
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Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
03 Oct 2024, 15:30
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Hey everyone,
I'm a long time lurker here and I finished my GMAT journey last weekend. I wanted to share my experience for anyone who feels like they are under-performing, especially in Quant/DI. For some background, I began prepping to take the GMAT FE in June 2024 balancing work and studying around 10 hours a week. I scheduled my exam for the end of August 2024, and took 2 weeks off of work for dedicated studying at the beginning of August. I used the 2024-2025 edition of GMAT OG, Manhattan Prep books, went through all the OG questions, completed each official practice exam twice, and with about 2 weeks before the exam, I started going through the GMATclub question bank.
My initial mock score was 575 around early July and my later mock scores were consistently in the range of 615-665 with about a week to go before my exam at the end of August 2024. For some background, the verbal section has always come more naturally to me as I have a lot of experience with reading comprehension and critical thinking on standardized exams as I am a medical doctor in the U.S., and have taken all the licensing exams which were chock-full of these types of questions. Quant and DI, on the other hand, is another story.
My issues with quant (and by extension the math-related portions of DI) were not so much the ability to solve problems, but more so the inability to distill a question stem down to its basic components and find a simpler method of solving it. In other words, I have always used "brute force" when solving math problems which meant a ton of excessive arithmetic as well as double and triple checking each calculation because I never trusted myself doing mental math. Although, my quant scores were around the average on my mock exams, I greatly struggled with time management, and often either guessed or didn't even answer the last 1-3 questions on quant (and DI). My scores were being propped up by my verbal section, and I would regular score in the 45th to 55th percentile in quant. For DI, I feel that you must have a good, fundamental grasp of the basic concepts of quant in order to get a decent score, so, as a result, the math-related portions of DI for me suffered as well.
My target score was at least a 655, so I was disappointed when my first official score came out as 605 (Q79 - 57th percentile, V83 - 84th percentile, DI78 - 70th percentile). Reflecting back on that test, I realize that I entered the exam extremely nervous and with very low confidence in my ability to accurately calculate basic math in a timely manner. I barely finished the quant section on time with just 20 seconds to do the last question (I guessed on two word problem questions after spending way too much time on them and becoming flustered). The same thing happened with Data Insights, I spent way too much time trying to calculate, check, and double-check my math, and I had to guess on the last 4 questions. Somehow. I got lucky and guessed correctly on two of those questions, so I attribute luck as the reason for my DI score.
After getting a 605, I knew I wanted to retake the exam, but in terms of MBA application deadlines, I had very little time to work with. I scheduled another GMAT FE exam for the end of September last week. I knew that the way I was studying quant was not working because my score was not improving, so I reanalyzed the way I went about solving problems. "Brute-force" was not a viable strategy, and I also realized that I didn't truly understand the basic concepts behind quant categories such as "remainders, word problems, work/ratio problems, absolute value/inequalities," just to name a few. I found that the GMAT OG book did a very poor job in its explanations which is why I turned to the Manhattan Prep books in the first place, however, the Manhattan prep books (in my opinion) provided too basic of an explanation that would work for extremely simple, straight-forward questions, but not for the more complex problems found on the actual GMAT FE.
This is when I changed my strategy from "quantity" to "quality." Previously, I thought that doing as many questions as possible would improve my quant skills, but this proved incorrect. I searched for different strategies in approaching the quant section, and, fortunately, I came across a thread here on GMATclub which recommended Ian Stewart's GMAT quant books and problem sets. I read that his books emphasized a more logical and strategic approach to quant and also offered well thought-out and easily-understood explanations on quant topics. I took a gamble and bought his books. He is an extremely generous and kind person. I emailed him about my quant issues and he gave me a basic explanation tailored to my needs about what to study and how to apply what I learned. He also offered his assistance and guidance if I needed help without me asking. I've also read that his tutoring services are very helpful as well.
Professor Stewart's books gave me the foundational knowledge and conceptual understanding that I needed which was in stark contrast to the formulaic, unintuitive, and sometimes downright puzzling explanations given by other GMAT study resources. He also provides very practical and efficient strategies to critically think and "logic" your way through a math problem using the question stem and the answer choices. After all, the GMAT is meant to test your critical thinking and time management skills, not just your ability to accurately calculate math. He places a focus on thorough understanding rather than just rote memorization of formulas and endless calculation. His book on "Number Theory" was especially helpful for me, and I have to say that Mr. Stewart does a brilliant job in explaining how to understand "remainders" better than any other source I have ever read going all the way back through grade school. His breakdown of the basics helped me employ a more strategic and logical approach.
After about 3 weeks of "quality" studying which meant practicing pattern recognition and using logic in order to simplify problems, I retook the GMAT and scored a 665 (Q84, V85, DI80). This time, I was able to simplify the "long calculation" problems into much more manageable chunks, and I had 5 minutes to review questions on both quant and DI which helped me correct a mistake on the quant section. I am extremely satisfied with this result.
I apologize for the extremely long post, I tend to write a lot. But to distill my post down to a few bits of advice for those struggling with quant/DI and/or time management, here is what I found:
If you're interested in Professor Stewart's books, you can find them here on his website: ianstewartgmat(dot)com/#gmat-books (I cannot post a URL on here because this is my first post lol). In my opinion, they provide the best breakdown of quant foundational concepts among any other GMAT resource, but that's just me, and everyone is different!
If you're reading this to the end, thank you for your attention, and I wish you the very best of luck! I'd also like to thank Professor Ian Stewart for his generosity as well as the GMATclub community as a whole as I've found a lot of useful tips on here!
I'm a long time lurker here and I finished my GMAT journey last weekend. I wanted to share my experience for anyone who feels like they are under-performing, especially in Quant/DI. For some background, I began prepping to take the GMAT FE in June 2024 balancing work and studying around 10 hours a week. I scheduled my exam for the end of August 2024, and took 2 weeks off of work for dedicated studying at the beginning of August. I used the 2024-2025 edition of GMAT OG, Manhattan Prep books, went through all the OG questions, completed each official practice exam twice, and with about 2 weeks before the exam, I started going through the GMATclub question bank.
My initial mock score was 575 around early July and my later mock scores were consistently in the range of 615-665 with about a week to go before my exam at the end of August 2024. For some background, the verbal section has always come more naturally to me as I have a lot of experience with reading comprehension and critical thinking on standardized exams as I am a medical doctor in the U.S., and have taken all the licensing exams which were chock-full of these types of questions. Quant and DI, on the other hand, is another story.
My issues with quant (and by extension the math-related portions of DI) were not so much the ability to solve problems, but more so the inability to distill a question stem down to its basic components and find a simpler method of solving it. In other words, I have always used "brute force" when solving math problems which meant a ton of excessive arithmetic as well as double and triple checking each calculation because I never trusted myself doing mental math. Although, my quant scores were around the average on my mock exams, I greatly struggled with time management, and often either guessed or didn't even answer the last 1-3 questions on quant (and DI). My scores were being propped up by my verbal section, and I would regular score in the 45th to 55th percentile in quant. For DI, I feel that you must have a good, fundamental grasp of the basic concepts of quant in order to get a decent score, so, as a result, the math-related portions of DI for me suffered as well.
My target score was at least a 655, so I was disappointed when my first official score came out as 605 (Q79 - 57th percentile, V83 - 84th percentile, DI78 - 70th percentile). Reflecting back on that test, I realize that I entered the exam extremely nervous and with very low confidence in my ability to accurately calculate basic math in a timely manner. I barely finished the quant section on time with just 20 seconds to do the last question (I guessed on two word problem questions after spending way too much time on them and becoming flustered). The same thing happened with Data Insights, I spent way too much time trying to calculate, check, and double-check my math, and I had to guess on the last 4 questions. Somehow. I got lucky and guessed correctly on two of those questions, so I attribute luck as the reason for my DI score.
After getting a 605, I knew I wanted to retake the exam, but in terms of MBA application deadlines, I had very little time to work with. I scheduled another GMAT FE exam for the end of September last week. I knew that the way I was studying quant was not working because my score was not improving, so I reanalyzed the way I went about solving problems. "Brute-force" was not a viable strategy, and I also realized that I didn't truly understand the basic concepts behind quant categories such as "remainders, word problems, work/ratio problems, absolute value/inequalities," just to name a few. I found that the GMAT OG book did a very poor job in its explanations which is why I turned to the Manhattan Prep books in the first place, however, the Manhattan prep books (in my opinion) provided too basic of an explanation that would work for extremely simple, straight-forward questions, but not for the more complex problems found on the actual GMAT FE.
This is when I changed my strategy from "quantity" to "quality." Previously, I thought that doing as many questions as possible would improve my quant skills, but this proved incorrect. I searched for different strategies in approaching the quant section, and, fortunately, I came across a thread here on GMATclub which recommended Ian Stewart's GMAT quant books and problem sets. I read that his books emphasized a more logical and strategic approach to quant and also offered well thought-out and easily-understood explanations on quant topics. I took a gamble and bought his books. He is an extremely generous and kind person. I emailed him about my quant issues and he gave me a basic explanation tailored to my needs about what to study and how to apply what I learned. He also offered his assistance and guidance if I needed help without me asking. I've also read that his tutoring services are very helpful as well.
Professor Stewart's books gave me the foundational knowledge and conceptual understanding that I needed which was in stark contrast to the formulaic, unintuitive, and sometimes downright puzzling explanations given by other GMAT study resources. He also provides very practical and efficient strategies to critically think and "logic" your way through a math problem using the question stem and the answer choices. After all, the GMAT is meant to test your critical thinking and time management skills, not just your ability to accurately calculate math. He places a focus on thorough understanding rather than just rote memorization of formulas and endless calculation. His book on "Number Theory" was especially helpful for me, and I have to say that Mr. Stewart does a brilliant job in explaining how to understand "remainders" better than any other source I have ever read going all the way back through grade school. His breakdown of the basics helped me employ a more strategic and logical approach.
After about 3 weeks of "quality" studying which meant practicing pattern recognition and using logic in order to simplify problems, I retook the GMAT and scored a 665 (Q84, V85, DI80). This time, I was able to simplify the "long calculation" problems into much more manageable chunks, and I had 5 minutes to review questions on both quant and DI which helped me correct a mistake on the quant section. I am extremely satisfied with this result.
I apologize for the extremely long post, I tend to write a lot. But to distill my post down to a few bits of advice for those struggling with quant/DI and/or time management, here is what I found:
- Study intelligently: quality over quantity when studying, make sure you completely understand the foundational, basic quant concepts. Find intuitive ways of studying rather than doing as many questions as possible.
- Critical thinking is as important as knowing how to solve/calculate throughout the entire GMAT. It can make the math-related portions much easier and less time-intensive.
- Truly analyze your weaknesses and find resources that will help you strengthen those specific weaknesses.
- Trust yourself on the exam if you know you've done your very best studying. Anxiety is normal, but don't let it cause you to lose focus. You got this!
If you're interested in Professor Stewart's books, you can find them here on his website: ianstewartgmat(dot)com/#gmat-books (I cannot post a URL on here because this is my first post lol). In my opinion, they provide the best breakdown of quant foundational concepts among any other GMAT resource, but that's just me, and everyone is different!
If you're reading this to the end, thank you for your attention, and I wish you the very best of luck! I'd also like to thank Professor Ian Stewart for his generosity as well as the GMATclub community as a whole as I've found a lot of useful tips on here!
03 Oct 2024, 19:06
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Congrats
All the best for applications
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All the best for applications
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