I just Beat The GMAT!

A note about me: I'm a brand marketing strategist, and I'd like to pursue an MBA from either Kellogg, or Wharton. I had a window of time between projects to "knock the GMAT", but it's just not that simple. I totally underestimated this thing at first.
The naive early days: I bought the 2015 GMAT Official Guides and thought that would be enough. The OG questions are obviously the best quality questions, but the explanations are usually insultingly useless. Here's an example: "(D) is awkward and ungrammatical". Are you kidding me? How about an explanation why? Why is it awkward, specifically? Why is it ungrammatical, specifically? So frustrating.
Result: 480 Diagnostic test with GMAT Prep free software.
Early conclusion: I needed a more comprehensive plan, with more structure, and most importantly, I knew there just had to be a more methodical way. I realized the importance of having a clear tactic to take with each question type, and the importance of really great explanations for every question type on the GMAT.

From there, he's what worked!
Build your resources and consistently use them: Using the right resources is key. Even early on I could tell that certain questions from even books sold at Barnes and Noble were remarkably unrealistic. If you want to ask me, I'll tell you which ones, but I'll choose to not go negative here. Here's what I thought was pretty helpful, and what I thought was key:

• "¢ SC Grail - I thought the SC Grail is well constructed with explanations that actually explain. I found the questions to be remarkably similar to the official ones too.I continued to use the SC Grail all the way through.
  "¢ Manhattan GMAT Guides: Number Properties, SC, and Foundations of GMAT Math, Foundations, Advanced GMAT Quant. I also threw in the simulation booklet and marker which helped me get used to writing things out in pen on plastic.

Research the courses: Some people might be able to self-prep, and that's fine for them, but getting the right MBA is too important to me to take chances. My thinking is if I'm going to spend $200,000 getting an MBA, I can afford to spend a few hundred dollars to help get in to the right school. I checked out sample videos for every course I could to get a sense for the best style, including e-GMAT, Magoosh, GMAT Pill, on and on. I liked EMPOWERgmat. It seemed to have the best teaching style. Here's where I went to compare all of the samples in one place, and I think you'll see what I mean: https://gmatclub.com/forum/free-trials-m ... 196374.htm
How I used EMPOWERgmat: I downloaded the 2 Month Study Plan PDF (you can download it here: https://www.empowergmat.com/the-course/ ), and signed up. EMPOWERgmat was excellent, and here's specifically why;

• "¢ There are video explanations for every question, including the GMAT Official Guide. Even though I already did the official questions, doing them again and watching these videos was night and day. The explanations are super, super thorough and helpful. It's like getting inside of the brain of a GMAT Jedi. It just clicked for me.
  "¢ The course doesn't just emphasize content, or tactics, it emphasizes both. Having gone through the process, I don't think it's possible to beat the GMAT with only one. You need both. The course got me up to speed on the content (arguments, proper reading techniques, geometry, math rules, SC rules, etc.), and blew me away with how powerful the tactics are (the RC ladder, triage, test it, the CR box, the 5 second scan, etc.). I'd say that the content probably got me up to a 550 or so, and the tactics helped me secure the 720.
  "¢ It's on demand, so I was able to train on my terms
  "¢ The price is ridiculous. $99 per month is crazy reasonable. I was even thinking about spending $1000 for a course. In retrospect, that probably would have been throwing money down the drain
  "¢ Important: I committed to exactly following the study plan, and I think it's really important to follow the plan exactly as laid out. I'm not sure it would have worked as well had I deviated, especially on verbal.

Realistic practice GMATs: As per Rich and Max's advice, I always took full practice GMATs with the AWA and IR sections, at 8 AM to match the same time of day as my real test. I always took my practice GMATs on a Sunday morning so I could practice Saturday, and then review the test Sunday afternoon with the EMPOWERgmat Mistake Tracker tool. I found the tracker indispensable to help isolate and target patterns in my mistakes. My scores hovered in the mid-500s for a while, then I shot through the 600s. My best practice GMAT was a 730, so I was right in line on the real thing.

All said and done: Even though I didn't end up clobbering quant, I'm OK with the results, especially hitting the 96th percentile on verbal and the 94th percentile overall. It was good to know that I could beat one of these tests. I didn't score at that percentile on the ACT. All said and done, it feels supremely good to have the GMAT behind me now. Once you beat this test, it can change not only your professional outlook, but it also just feels good, you know? To be able to say "I did it", it's worth everything I put into it.

To those still prepping: go get your big GMAT score. I can tell you first hand that you can do it. You just need the right mind set to welcome the tactical training, commitment to a good study plan, and the right resources.

Cheers everyone!

Very helpful post. Do you recall how you went about your study routine? Days/hours, etc. It would be helpful to know. I'm looking for guidance from those who aced it like you did. Any pointers would be helpful. Thanks!

Hi dombrook,
Here was my training routine in a nutshell:

Weekdays:
15 minute morning/breakfast review (tactics, PDFs, error log, notes, idioms, etc.)
30 minute lunch review (tactics, PDFs, error log, notes, idioms, etc.)
2-3 hours in the evening doing lessons, quizzes, etc.
And then weekends: as I mentioned, I always took full practice GMATs with the AWA and IR sections, at 8 AM to match the same time of day as my real test. I always took my practice GMATs on a Sunday morning so I could practice Saturday, and then review the test Sunday afternoon.

for a non native like me, reading skill is key to verbal but no one discuss this skill
reading skill is taught in englsih course not in gmat course. the gmat course from prep companies teach some rc skills but not important ones.

so, for non natives, focus on rc skill

Hi, I was wondering how long was your prep for as in how many months? Also, which practice exams did you take? Thanks and look forward to hearing from you

I was wondering the same thing as almap333. That's an incredible point improvment. I'm very curious how much time it took and which study plan you used.

Hi Marketingnut,

I would also like to know which practice exams you used and how many did you take? If you don't mind could you post the dates you took the practice exams and the corresponding scores? Also, could you explain the method you used in reviewing your practice tests? Thanks for your help and congratulations on a great score!

Hi almap33 and andymal, I spent about a month dinking around with on my own, but not studying too seriously. Then when I started empowergmat, I set out to use the 3 month plan, but I actually was ready to go about a week early.

I used the GMAT prep tests. One at the beginning of the course, one near the end, and then I purchased the extra two GMAT prep tests for $49. Between those tests I used the Manhattan GMAT tests, which I found to have some weird quirks. I thought the quant questions seemed way more involved than the GMAT prep tests. I guess that's a good thing in a way since it's good to train up.

Ted14, I took my initial GMAT prep test early on in the course, and then didn't take any other tests for a few weeks. After about the first month, I started taking tests about once per week as is advised. It takes a lot of time to go through the questions afterwards, so any more than that would have been impossible to do correctly. Also, as I noted, my practice tests were pretty flat around the 550-580 range for quite a while. I remember being a little bit nervous about that, but things started to improve pretty dramatically from there 600s, then my best practice test was a 730. That was a week before the real thing.
Hope that helps.

Thanks for the breakdown! Sweet stuff. You mentioned the importance of doing the AWA and IR before each test. I have to admit that I haven't been doing that, and when I do, I feel so tired during Verbal. Do you have any suggestions, other than Red Bull of how to improve stamina? Thanks again.