680 with GMAT fix

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680 with GMAT fix

by joeydemaio » Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:38 am
Thank you guys for your post and for the energy of your community. I have been a lurker in the last few months and Beatthegmat has been a useful resource,especially to make me understand that so many people were in my situation.
The best I can do for you is providing you with some feedback about the company GMATFIX.

26, French, British university, Sales background, not too much experience in quant.

I contacted GMAT fix after 2 months of light prep. I was scoring 610 on official software,but I realized that I wasnt going to be able to improve further to the 700s I required.
Gmatfix is basically a one man company, Patrick teaches and produces the material. What made me go for it was that you can "pay as you go", 100 $ per hour.
This is very convenient, since you can change your mind if you dont like the prep course and since you dont have to sacrifice a big amount of cash immediately.
I dont have many other terms of comparison, since I never used 1-1 tutoring ,especially online. Classes are laid back and intense at the same time. We worked on some theory, with related questions, and then on GMAT official questions together. The only thing I dont like too much about his classes were when some days we ended up doing only exercise correction from my tests or homework. However I think that was an exception he did with me since we used to meet quite often (2-3 per week).
In 2 months I was scoring 700-720 in the official test prep (with a few questions repeated).
Unfortunately for us, I was in a very stressful and unlucky period of my life. I failed my first test - which ,by the way was taken in another country the day after my grandmother funeral, you can imagine how I was feeling(600, less than what I had when I begun)- and Patrick offered me 2 free hours per week to prep again until my new test. We worked much more on the basic and practically only on Quant.
Finally I scored a 680, which is not the 700 I wanted but considering my background is still a decent score.

Final comments

GMAT; a good mindset counts as much as a solid preparation. Go in the room with a strategic plan. Dont spend more than X minutes on each question and if you see a question that gives you problem, set the time limit (eg Ill work on this one 'till the countdown shows that there are 22 minutes left) and eventually move on. If you keep on following a strategy and sacrifice the impossible questions,it's much easier to get a decent score.

GMAT FIX; a very good teacher who loves his job and really cares about the success of his students. You can tell that he overwork a little bit too much, but he always manages to be energic during the class and to deliver an interesting session.
The company also offer several materials;
OG companion,the bible for Official guide Q question. It has multiple solutions for each exercise on the OG and a vast set of new 700+ quant exercises (with solutions). I found it very, very useful.
Flashcards; online flashcards for 4 verbal topics, I did them everyday and ended up with a 40 in V.
Prep solution; a software containg all the solutions for all the quant problems in the GMAT prep software. Again , a must have for me.
Note that I had access to the first two tools for free initially, and access to the GMAT Prep solution software for free after my first GMAT.

I dont want this to sound like and advertisement, and as I said I dont have term of comparison. Since when I begun I did not find many review about this company, I just thought it might be helpful to know what it is about. I had a solid preparation, took several classes and was penalized by living one of the worst period of my life. Overall I am glad I found an honest person, who was helpful all the time, gave me advice via mail or chat even when we did not have class, taught me how to score on the AWA basically for free (correcting my essays and giving me advices via e.mail,I scored 5.5 and 5.0) and ultimately prepared me to achieve a good score.

Sorry if I made some mistakes in the post, I am working and I am in a hurry. Good luck to you all guys, you'll feel great once it's over.
Source: — I just Beat The GMAT! |