Hello,
Just took the first mock cold without any prep and scored a 595 (Q:79, V:82, DI:77). I have 3.5 months to when I take the test and can dedicate ~25hrs/week to prepare. Aiming for a 705+ and would love your advice on the best prep strategy.
I have enrolled myself in the
Manhattan Prep Live Complete Course. Wondering what other resources should I use to prepare, apart from the
Manhattan Prep books, videos, and the OG?
There are definitely some massive areas of improvement I can see, some being:
- Q: I come from a STEM background so picking up on Q should be natural (I assume?). Q was my first section and I got the first 5 questions wrong out of pressure of taking a test for the first time in 2yrs. Confident I can improve here quite a bit.
- CR: I didn't even know how to look out for premises/conclusions/background. So there's big learning potential there.
- RC: I never took notes & didn't follow any particular strategy. So I feel confident that I can improve my Verbal score with proper prep and strategies.
- DI: Had to guess the last 6 questions as I ran out of time (all were wrong

). Would benefit from time management in the DI section.
- Data Sufficiency - This is a big one, I didn't realize until after taking the test that statements can be sufficient even if the answer to the question in the prompt is a No.
Adding some performance stats below for review:
Quant: 79/90Performance by Content Domain:
- Algebra: 61st
- Arithmetic: 51st
Performance by Fundamental Skills:
- Counting/Sets/Series/Prop/Stats: Not enough data
- Equal/Unequal/ALG: 100th
- Rates/Ratios/Percent: 32nd
- Value/Order/Factors: 53rd
Performance by Question Type:
- Pure Contexts: 62nd
- Real Contexts: 45th
Verbal: 82/90Performance by Fundamental Skills:
- Analysis/Critique: 63rd
- Identify Inferred Ideas: 80th
- Plan/Construct: 77th
- Identify Stated Idea: 56th
Performance by Question Type:
- Critical Reasoning: 75th
- Reading Comprehension: 76th
Data Insights: 77/90Performance by Content Domain:
- Math Related: 52nd
- Non-Math Related: 52nd
Performance by Question Type:
- Data Sufficiency: 28th
- Graphs & Tables: 29th
- Two-part Analysis: 60th
- Multi-source reasoning: 82nd
Overall, I feel super confident that I can considerably improve my score, but would love some advice from the GMAT sages out here.
Thanks a ton in advance!