I just Beat The GMAT!

Ok, so I'm an international student from South Africa looking to do an MBA in the US and I had never heard of the GMAT until just a couple months ago. When first doing research I figured that a couple of months would be more than enough time to learn to study for the exam, and I enlisted the help of ManhattenPrep initially to get in as many hours as possible. Unfortunately I ended up with a 560 (not close enough to get me into my desired MBA program) after having spend approx. 100+ hours studying on practice examples and online lectures.

Having to work and study for CFA II began taking its toll so I eventually decided to take a month off from both of these in order to fully immerse myself in my studies. What really bothered me was how much I struggled with the quant section. I always felt relatively confident in my math skills (if anything I thought it would be my verbal component which would be lacking!) so I was pretty surprised when I saw how low my quant score was. I decided to adapt and try something new, so I went out on a limb and signed up for Target Test Prep (after going through almost all their free youtube videos). This helped boost my quant score from a 38 to a 47, and laid out the topics and chapters really easily and progressively (great for someone like me who has a very logical way of thinking and enjoys "ticking the boxes"). Most importantly it helped boost my confidence, which is essential on test day because if you feel comfortable and confident you are bound to get a higher score.

All in all I ended up with a 680 (which I am pretty happy with) - it may not be the 700+ which I was initially aiming for but I still feel stoked with the score and satisfied with the result.

Good luck to everyone still studying - practice makes perfect!

Thanks for the encouragement!

Matthewdeklerk wrote:Ok, so I'm an international student from South Africa looking to do an MBA in the US and I had never heard of the GMAT until just a couple months ago. When first doing research I figured that a couple of months would be more than enough time to learn to study for the exam, and I enlisted the help of ManhattenPrep initially to get in as many hours as possible. Unfortunately I ended up with a 560 (not close enough to get me into my desired MBA program) after having spend approx. 100+ hours studying on practice examples and online lectures.

Having to work and study for CFA II began taking its toll so I eventually decided to take a month off from both of these in order to fully immerse myself in my studies. What really bothered me was how much I struggled with the quant section. I always felt relatively confident in my math skills (if anything I thought it would be my verbal component which would be lacking!) so I was pretty surprised when I saw how low my quant score was. I decided to adapt and try something new, so I went out on a limb and signed up for Target Test Prep (after going through almost all their free youtube videos). This helped boost my quant score from a 38 to a 47, and laid out the topics and chapters really easily and progressively (great for someone like me who has a very logical way of thinking and enjoys "ticking the boxes"). Most importantly it helped boost my confidence, which is essential on test day because if you feel comfortable and confident you are bound to get a higher score.

All in all I ended up with a 680 (which I am pretty happy with) - it may not be the 700+ which I was initially aiming for but I still feel stoked with the score and satisfied with the result.

Good luck to everyone still studying - practice makes perfect!

Hey, thanks for sharing. I'm struggling as well. I started in October and I have gone through all the magoosh lessons. My score is currently 560, what do you think I could do to improve? Thanks.

Hi A01

Its a bit difficult to just throw out advice without knowing your goals (what is your target score in each section, overall?) and your current score - I feel different prep packages have different strengths. I liked the ManhattenPrep for Verbal but loved the TargetTestPrep for Quant so it depends.

Also, what are you looking at using your GMAT score for? Maybe consider doing the GRE if you've already put in many hours for the GMAT and are still struggling?