620 to 710 in 16 weeks

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620 to 710 in 16 weeks

by cmcgrath07 » Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:58 am
Hi All -

I wanted to share my experience with everyone. The first time I took the GMAT was in April, 2015 and while I felt pretty well prepared, I only pulled off a 620. My biggest weakness was my verbal score. I did some research and some price comparing and after a few days coming up with a new strategy, I decided to go with EmpowerGmat (which only costs $99 per month as of 7.20.15) and it made a huge difference.

My Quant skills were already pretty decent but I decided to go through as much of the program as I could in 16 weeks. I was doing about an hour of review each night and doing at 20 problems every day. I'd circle the ones I got wrong and return to them a few weeks later.

Anyway, the first 2 months were really difficult and I actually regressed a little bit. I went from scoring 620s and 640s on my practice exams to only getting scores in the 580's and 590s! I was really troubled by this but decided to double down my efforts my last 6 weeks and try to not only learn the material more but also learn what mistakes I was making. Finally, about 3 weeks before my test date my practice scores started to climb dramatically. I got 660, 690, and 680 and felt ready for my test. On test day everything felt like it came together and even when I had to guess my guesses were more educated than they were before.

I really do owe most my success to EmpowerGmat. Learning the traps, tricks, and monitoring my time were all such important pieces in pulling my score up 90 points and now some of the schools that I thought would never accept me may now be within my grasp! Good luck to everyone on their future tests!

Cheers,
Conor

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by thelionsgate » Thu Jul 23, 2015 10:51 am
Conor, thanks for the advice! I've been stuck. You mentioned: "about 3 weeks before my test date my practice scores started to climb dramatically."

What do you think brought about the shift? I'm curious if you have any advice that could be replicable.