When I started on my GMAT journey, I was looking for the fabled 700+ score. I began working with Rich of EmpowerGMAT, and went through the entire EmpowerGMAT course. I learned some strategies, and saw some slight improvement in practice tests (my baseline score was 610). I got up to 660 in practice tests after a few months of dedicated study (at points up to 9 hrs. per day). After about 3-4 months, and having run through the EmpowerGMAT course, (and also at that point all of the ManhattanPrep books) I decided to go ahead and take the actual test. Much to my chagrin, I scored 610, basically right where had I landed on my very first practice test.
I was exceedingly embarrassed, to the point where I didn’t want to tell anyone about my score, and the few people I did tell told me to throw in the towel. All logic would have indicated that capitulation was the best option.
I took about a week off of studying, and then ended up browsing around a few different GMAT forums, looking for something, anything that would allow me to start moving in the right direction.
Enter Marty Murray.
I started talking to Marty after messaging him, and quickly I realized that something was very different about his approach. As down as I was at the time, our interactions reawakened some hope.
We started working, not just on strategies for answering GMAT questions, but also through the mental blocks I had that were actually preventing me from scoring at a higher level. After a few weeks of working together, I saw my practice test scores start to climb. As we continued to work, I felt my mind sort of "unlocking," and I felt my ability start to soar. Marty turned the GMAT into a game, and he turned it into a game that I could win.
Under Marty’s tutelage, I finally saw my first practice test score with a 7, a 700 on the dot. I told Marty that I had signed up to take the test about a week later.
When I got to the test center, I was incredibly nervous, to the point where I wanted to puke. However, I went through with it. During the test, I could have been thrown off course when I was pretty sure that I had missed the first question of the verbal section. All the same, I had in my mind something that Marty had told me. "To remain calm and score high, just focus on getting the correct answer to the question in front of you." To my disbelief, when I finished the test, I saw 710 pop up.
I had made more progress (100 points) in 1 month, than I thought was possible. Marty completely changed the way that I thought about the test, and also my beliefs in my ability.
I can’t thank Marty enough, and if you have any question as to where you should go to get the GMAT score that you desire, there is only one answer in my mind: Marty Murray.
Michael K. 710 Q45 V42