I just Beat The GMAT!

I wrapped up my GMAT journey in April after starting my test prep around 10 months prior in June 2022. I had taken a mock test as a baseline (after ~20 hours of self prep online) and scored a 650, which felt pretty on par for me. I've never been a strong test taker, so I knew I'd have a marathon ahead of me to get to my initial goal of breaking through the 700 barrier.

Sometime shortly after my mock exam I was talking to a friend who had recently gotten a 740. Since this was way beyond what I thought I'd be capable of, we talked some more about her study process and she recommended TTP, so I signed up basically right away. From June until February/March, I tried to study at least 30 minutes a day, most days. There were some occasional gaps for vacation or work, and some weekends where I put it a lot of hours, so I liked the flexibility to go at my own pace since I didn't feel too in a rush. I ultimately went through all of the quant lessons and ~70% of the verbal lessons (since I was eventually scoring pretty consistently on verbal throughout my mock tests).

In January, I set a test date as a catalyst to push through the rest of the course material and make the exam feel more "real." I feel like this backfired a bit, since it caused me to frantically prep, review flash cards, and get extremely nervous in the days and weeks leading up to the exam. I remember being pretty tired, and too anxious to eat anything beforehand so I was also very hungry.

I ended up getting a 700 on my first attempt (Q44, V42). I was pretty happy since this met my initial goal and is a pretty good score for most of my target programs, but was doing really well on the practice exams so knew I could do better. Immediately after my first attempt, I made 2 adjustments:
1. I went back through TTP's Strategy section, and realized my many pitfalls around how I stressed myself out before the exam. I feel like it's easy to skip through the Strategy section, but this honestly ended up being one of the most impactful sections for me and completely altered my approach before re-taking the exam.
2. I ordered the GMAT Official Guide in order to access its online question bank. I liked having this as an extra resource to drill through practice quant questions, though after every practice section I'd note which concepts I was struggling with and would revisit TTP's lessons to brush up and review. I also used TTP's concept review tests to hit my weakest points.

About 4 weeks later, I took my first practice exam since my first attempt and got a 760. After that, I knew my quant knowledge was finally coming together, and eased off the studying slightly to focus more on exercise and sleep. The following weekend, I signed up 24 hours before my exam and then did my second attempt-- and was luckily able to replicate my practice exam result!

My final score:
-Q50 (the highest I ever scored on quant...phew)
-V42 (fairly consistent for how I was performing on mock tests, but still pleasantly high)
-IR8 (my IR score sometimes varied quite a bit, but felt super at ease this time)
-AWA6 (I basically always did well on the AWA section-- follow the template!!)

Overall
I feel like I took way longer on the GMAT than other stories I read online (and it's easy to get bogged down by a ton of "I got a 740 in 2 months!" success stories), but I really feel glad I took my time. It's a massive exam, and there ends up being a lot to review and prepare for accordingly. And if you take the exam once and don't get your target score, don't be too hard on yourself-- you might be way closer than you think. A few weeks, maybe worth an extra 20-30 hours of studying (and a change of strategy), ending up boosting my score 60 points...and basically all in the Quant section.

Consistency was also key for me. Settling into a 30-minute-per-day minimum helped keep me engaged with the material and was pretty easy to always achieve after a while. In my case, having daily study goals (even something small) was probably more valuable than had I only studied a few days a week for longer.

I can confidently say TTP can prepare you for literally any question the test can throw at you. As you move through the lessons, I would recommend ALWAYS understanding why you got a question wrong and how you could've gotten it correct before moving on. Fortunately I found that TTP's explanations and walkthroughs were extremely easy to follow and I never walked away from a question feeling totally lost or clueless.

To be honest, I’ve always been used to tests being sources of anxiety and low self-esteem (the ACT was a super humbling experience and I think pretty negatively affected my admissions process for undergrad). I've always been pretty resigned to targeting "average" and needing to beef up my application in other ways. So I feel really fortunate that the GMAT ended up not being that way for me, and beyond just that, the process made me feel empowered and more confident that I could succeed in an MBA program. I truly couldn't have done it without TTP.