My journey to 730

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My journey to 730

by rehanz99 » Fri May 26, 2023 9:05 pm
Scores:
Pre-TTP

[COLD - Manhattan] November 16th, 2021: 560 (34Q/33V/IR6)
[MOCK 1] January 10, 2022: 610 (42Q/32V/IR4)

Post-TTP

[MOCK 1] July 20th: 720 (45Q/42V/IR8)
[MOCK 2] July 27th: 720 (49Q/40V/IR7)
[MOCK 3] August 4th:710 (46Q/41V/IR5)
[MOCK 4] August 10th: 710 (46Q/40V/IR7)
[ACTUAL GMAT] August 17, 2023: 730 (48Q/41V/7IR/6AWA)

Journey

I began my GMAT journey in November of 2021. I started by taking a mock Manhattan GMAT test to gauge where my verbal and quant abilities were. Needless to say, there was a lot of work to be done. Throughout my time in university, I found that I was most successful in courses where I learned the material on my own, by reading a textbook. I applied that same logic to the GMAT (unfortunately, I was wrong) and purchased the Manhattan Strategy Guides (6th edition) to study from. I would take notes, do the Manhattan practice problems (in both the book and online) and then reinforce my learning with some OG problems. I thought I had a good understanding of the workings of the test, and decided to do an OG mock exam after 1.5 months of full-time studying, a month before my official test date. While I improved from my cold mock exam, my score was still extremely low and I only scored a 610.

My foundational knowledge of English grammar was very weak going into the GMAT, and I found that the Sentence Correction Manhattan Strategy Guides were too advanced for me. I did well on CR and RC, but was struggling with some of the more advanced verbal and quant topics, and Manhattan did not provide enough practice questions for me to feel comfortable in a lot of areas. In addition to all of this, I was struggling with all of the planning and strategizing that comes with creating your own study plan.

My mock test score was disappointing, and I decided that I needed to re-strategize, change some (or all) of the elements of my prep, and move my official test date. Many online resources touted TTP to be an incredible, one-stop resource that solved the problem of creating a lesson plan, and built your skills from scratch. I tried the free trial, felt like that was exactly what I needed, and went ahead and purchased the 3 month plan.

I would print out the supplementary notes for each module and fill them out as I went through the chapter. I liked how the course was self-paced but also set-up so that you would be working on your verbal and quant topics simultaneously, so I never ended up getting too rusty on either. I spent February through June (about 5 months) going through all the modules, and completing every single test available (of course, meeting all the score goals). I spent a lot of time on Quant and SC, and very little time on CR and RC admittedly (because those were my stronger areas). I remember the AWA module on TTP being really helpful in terms of getting an idea of how to structure my exam. If I could go back, I would’ve skipped my studying with Manhattan and just dove ride into TTP ASAP. There’s a lot of material, and it is super tedious, but as I’m about to tell you, it is worth every penny and every second you put into it.

After completing TTP (or at least the parts of TTP I felt were most relevant to me), I started practicing with OG problems. I would do timed, mixed sets of OG questions to get some practice with the way OG questions were structured, and put all my learning together. TTP does a deep-dive into each individual GMAT topic (e.g verbal - SC - parallelism, quant - fractions (DS and PS are mixed), etc.) and so you need time to put all that information together. When you’re studying a chapter (e.g percents) you know that every question you get is related to what you just learned, so you’re working with an advantage that you will not have on test day. Doing mixed sets allows you to get into the habit of identifying what’s being tested in the question at hand, and then you can proceed to use the tools and skills taught by TTP to solve the question. After a few weeks of doing this, I decided to take an OG mock, on which I scored a 720. After taking this OG mock, I got into the habit of spending a week doing mixed sets, reviewing weak areas, and then doing another mock test. I did this during the entirety of the month leading up to my official test date. The week before my official test date I kept my studying very light and stuck to looking through flashcards with questions I got wrong or concepts I needed to reinforce. Come test day I ended up scoring a 730 and could not be happier!

I highly recommend TTP to anyone seeking a comprehensive resource to navigate and excel in the GMAT. It provides a thorough curriculum, effective study materials, and a structured learning path, making it an invaluable tool for GMAT success.

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Re: My journey to 730

by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Thu Jun 01, 2023 4:54 pm
Hi REHANZ99 ,

Congrats on an awesome GMAT score!! Good luck with thing moving forward.

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder and CEO
[email protected]

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