Took the GMAT last weekend and scored a 740 (49Q, 42V), up from 690 (39Q, 45V) just under two months ago.
I wanted to share my story in case anyone can draw inspiration or needs advice!
As a consultant, timing was always an issue for me. I bought the official GMAT book way back in June of last year but due to being staffed on a variety of projects I just couldn't get the study time in. Coming to my hotel room at 9:00pm or 10:00pm, the last thing I wanted do was study for the GMAT. Even if I tried, I wouldn't retain anything. When I got home for the weekend, I wanted to catch up with my girlfriend and see friends that I had to neglect during the week. In short, I was spinning my wheels for months. Because I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, I decided to just schedule a test to put some pressure on myself.
This did help me to dedicate additional time to studying but at this point I was being frantic. Whenever I sat down to study, I couldn't decide what to focus on. While studying quant, I was worried about a weakness in verbal. While studying geometry, I realized my permutations and combinations were a joke. I knew that my issue was a lack of discipline and structure but I didn't know how to fix the problem. I briefly considered taking classes but my arrogance and/or cheapness convinced me that I could do it by myself. Practice tests had me at 690 but I figured the adrenaline from the real deal might push me over the 700 mark...
Come test day and I score the dreaded 690 - not terrible but just under the 700 cutoff. I did some research and discovered just how bad my quant score was, a 39. Sloan has always been up there for me as a target school and the more I researched GMAT scores, the more I realized how screwed I was. Add on top of that the fact that I'm at a "Tier 2" consulting firm, a white male, and in the Technology practice, and I knew I had to retake the test. But how on earth was I going to boost my quant score by 7+ points?!
At this point it was mid-January and I was unstaffed. I knew that if I wanted a real shot at a good score, I had to get as much studying in as possible before I got staffed on another project. I was looking for a classroom experience but the price tags seriously discouraged me - after all, this was high school math! Then I realized that what appealed to me in the classroom setting was the schedule and structure, not necessarily the teacher. When I looked back to my previous test, what killed me was that I didn't know what my weaknesses were and thus how to address them.
A few months prior to this, one of my colleagues had brought in a representative from Target Test Prep, a web-based quant study platform that I decided to give a shot ($1 for a week's trial, and they don't do that annoying thing where you have to opt-out or they keep billing you). The first thing I did was check out the study plan and the analytics - Bingo! The study plan tells you, topic-by-topic, what you need to study when, and what your target score should be. The analytics + dashboard show you how you're doing in each topic area (i.e. exactly what you need to be studying!!). I signed up for 3 months of access ($300) and followed the study plan religiously. I condensed my plan pretty significantly, as I wanted to get as much studying in, as fast as possible. Of the 19 chapters, I did 1 per day, with a review test every 3-4 chapters, to which I usually dedicated a whole study day. Global review tests and full practice tests started after I finished the chapters. For the home stretch, I just practiced those topics where I was doing poorest until I was answering at least 75% of the questions in all topics correctly. By the time I hit my 75% target for all chapters, it was time for the test - and the rest is history!
In summary, I am basically writing this post to recommend Target Test Prep. If you need a 45+ quant, just follow the study plan and then clean up any chapters where your average is below 75% (they also have study plans for lower scores but I never tried those out). Do make sure that you can follow the plan though, preferably every day. The quant section of the GMAT is not objectively hard in terms of the material, so the real differentiator is consistency under pressure - like a marathon. Absolutely think of it like a marathon: if you don't train, you won't finish. Target helped me with my training and I would highly recommend it! On top of that, the people at TTP are super nice and provided great customer service (the CEO sent me a really encouraging email a week before my test with a lot of advice. Apparently drinking a ton of water helps?)
Best of Luck!
I wanted to share my story in case anyone can draw inspiration or needs advice!
As a consultant, timing was always an issue for me. I bought the official GMAT book way back in June of last year but due to being staffed on a variety of projects I just couldn't get the study time in. Coming to my hotel room at 9:00pm or 10:00pm, the last thing I wanted do was study for the GMAT. Even if I tried, I wouldn't retain anything. When I got home for the weekend, I wanted to catch up with my girlfriend and see friends that I had to neglect during the week. In short, I was spinning my wheels for months. Because I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, I decided to just schedule a test to put some pressure on myself.
This did help me to dedicate additional time to studying but at this point I was being frantic. Whenever I sat down to study, I couldn't decide what to focus on. While studying quant, I was worried about a weakness in verbal. While studying geometry, I realized my permutations and combinations were a joke. I knew that my issue was a lack of discipline and structure but I didn't know how to fix the problem. I briefly considered taking classes but my arrogance and/or cheapness convinced me that I could do it by myself. Practice tests had me at 690 but I figured the adrenaline from the real deal might push me over the 700 mark...
Come test day and I score the dreaded 690 - not terrible but just under the 700 cutoff. I did some research and discovered just how bad my quant score was, a 39. Sloan has always been up there for me as a target school and the more I researched GMAT scores, the more I realized how screwed I was. Add on top of that the fact that I'm at a "Tier 2" consulting firm, a white male, and in the Technology practice, and I knew I had to retake the test. But how on earth was I going to boost my quant score by 7+ points?!
At this point it was mid-January and I was unstaffed. I knew that if I wanted a real shot at a good score, I had to get as much studying in as possible before I got staffed on another project. I was looking for a classroom experience but the price tags seriously discouraged me - after all, this was high school math! Then I realized that what appealed to me in the classroom setting was the schedule and structure, not necessarily the teacher. When I looked back to my previous test, what killed me was that I didn't know what my weaknesses were and thus how to address them.
A few months prior to this, one of my colleagues had brought in a representative from Target Test Prep, a web-based quant study platform that I decided to give a shot ($1 for a week's trial, and they don't do that annoying thing where you have to opt-out or they keep billing you). The first thing I did was check out the study plan and the analytics - Bingo! The study plan tells you, topic-by-topic, what you need to study when, and what your target score should be. The analytics + dashboard show you how you're doing in each topic area (i.e. exactly what you need to be studying!!). I signed up for 3 months of access ($300) and followed the study plan religiously. I condensed my plan pretty significantly, as I wanted to get as much studying in, as fast as possible. Of the 19 chapters, I did 1 per day, with a review test every 3-4 chapters, to which I usually dedicated a whole study day. Global review tests and full practice tests started after I finished the chapters. For the home stretch, I just practiced those topics where I was doing poorest until I was answering at least 75% of the questions in all topics correctly. By the time I hit my 75% target for all chapters, it was time for the test - and the rest is history!
In summary, I am basically writing this post to recommend Target Test Prep. If you need a 45+ quant, just follow the study plan and then clean up any chapters where your average is below 75% (they also have study plans for lower scores but I never tried those out). Do make sure that you can follow the plan though, preferably every day. The quant section of the GMAT is not objectively hard in terms of the material, so the real differentiator is consistency under pressure - like a marathon. Absolutely think of it like a marathon: if you don't train, you won't finish. Target helped me with my training and I would highly recommend it! On top of that, the people at TTP are super nice and provided great customer service (the CEO sent me a really encouraging email a week before my test with a lot of advice. Apparently drinking a ton of water helps?)
Best of Luck!
