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Anything is possible with the right amount of preparation/focus. Get to grinding
What's the score breakdown between verbal and quant? I'd either pony up for a course or get the Manhattan GMAT books.
never say never but i think this is going to be challenging given the time frame assuming you have a FT job on top of studying. it took me ~200 hours to go from a 620 cold to a 740 with 10 weeks or so of studying.
Assuming quant is the area you need to focus on (and hopefully it is b/c i think its way harder to boost a verbal score), I can't recommend the course at Gmat Quantum enough (http://www.gmatquantum.com/sign-up/). It's all prerecorded and online and is great. That combined with the MGMAT books, OG books for practice questions, and all the GMAC practice tests you can take is all you need. Best of luck.
He is starting off from a lower number, so if he puts in the same 200 hrs he will get a higher incremental improvement. I say you should aim at 650 for now,
I would never recommend aiming lower
Whatever you do, don't take a class. They teach to the lowest common denominator
This. I went to a free MGMAT class and the first thing the teacher said was something like - I'm sure everyone in here wants a 700+, but the reality is only 10% of people achieve it so of the 30 of you in the room, only 3 or so will break 700. After that, I knew the class wouldn't be worth the time/investment.
Agreed on that one. That defeated mentality doesnt serve much purpose to begin with.
I don't think I will take suche courses... In fact, Maths are okay, I am a finance major and I love mathematics. The "problem" is that I am not an English native, so it is challenging to understand quickly and have a clear idea of what is asked in the question. And it's the verbal part which is the most challenging, not maths...
I highly recommend the Powerscore Bible for Critical Reasoning. The way it's structured, you don't need to be a native speaker to identify the patterns; it's simple "if you see x, then you can infer y" type stuff. If you like solving puzzles and math then this plays to your strengths, and it's an easy read.
GMAT Club is a really good forum that posts tons of problems on the daily, and will likely be the place you end up if you ever google GMAT questions that are giving you trouble. Nothing beats hard work and getting a 700+ score will take time and energy; best of luck in your studies. I recommend Manhattan prep guides and there's also some good free apps you can download: The Veritas Prep app has tons of difficult questions and I highly recommend it.
I second this. GMAT club website has tons of good practice problems, and members there share tricks to solve problems quickly. Most of all, they share their backgrounds and application status, which can be very valuable in the process.
For quant, try to learn all the tricks - number properties especially. Manhattan GMAT makes some good books. For verbal, it is more of ah-ha moments.
Use the big, thick official book for questions.
I started with a 520 and ended up getting a 730 (48q, 42v). If I can do it, so can you. Biggest piece of advice I can give is that you need to force yourself to only focus on weaknesses. Initially I tricked myself and solved things I was comfortable with which was pretty useless but made me feel falsely confident.
I started with a 570 on my first try, ended up with 740, so massive improvement is definitely possible. You likely weren't used to the format and haven't taken a test in ages, it's very common to completely bomb your first attempt.
Verbal is definitely harder to improve over a short time period than quant, however I found that Verbal also lends itself to process of elimination much more easily than quant. As an example, when I was reading the answer options for sentence correction, I could almost always cut out 2-3 options based on clear errors, then my approach for the remaining was to pick the choice that (1) still expressed the intent of the original sentence and (2) was most succinct.
Some things you can do immediately:
When I took the test the final time, I had about 40 days to prepare between sittings, and put in about 120 hours of review. GMAT prep takes time and there are very few shortcuts, but by doing the above you can put systems in place that will push you towards success on test day.
I studied for about a month with the Manhattan books and took a manhattan practice test and got a 580. Fast forward to like 4 months later and I ended with a 760. 100% agree that you really need to be uncomfortable throughout the process to ensure you learn. high level takeaways.
1.) Take the Manhattan class 2.) During the class if you're aiming 700+ you need to be doing double the homework IMO 3.) Thursdays with Ron are amazing for SC and number theory 4.) DON'T look at the really hard questions on GMAT club. I couldn't solve any and ended up Q49/V46 5.) Once you build a really solid foundation you should move to only official questions 6.) I built a 200 question slide deck that had every question i had ever missed, helped a lot. 7.) Make sure you do something GMAT related every single day. No breaks. 8.) Keep your skills sharp by drilling through FOM (Manhattan book) and other worksheets. Any straight algebra/root/power questions should be automatic. 9.) Ready an hour a day to sharpen your RC. I went from 50th percentile to getting every RC right. 10.) Getting perfect at SC allows you to really focus on RC and CR by allowing yourself more time. 11.) Essay and IR are super easy, don't study.
Any chance you could list a few books that you read during your studying that you felt directly improved your RC?
Yes, I think you're definitely right...Since my last message I kept working and I took +100 points (I turn around 600 now) and I can still improve (especially, in verbal) With your advises I think I will be more productive !
IMO, it is best to skip the class and self-study using the MGMAT books and GMATClub. For practice tests, use the official GMATPrep software -- it comes with two free tests and there are an additional four tests available to purchase. You can also use the MGMAT CATs but they are MUCH harder than the real thing.
On Verbal the best advice is to simply read more. Read the Economist or something every morning. For SC problems, the two most common things tested are logical modifiers and subject verb agreement. Always be on the lookout for those concepts. One useful tactic is to compare the choices and notice the differences in each. Often, if you can recognize only one error, you can immediately eliminate 2-3 choices. Another tip is to eliminate the "fluff" in the sentence. The GMAT likes to over-complicate the sentence with useless adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. Questions often become a lot clearer if you can think of them in a basic structure.
2 months are a short time. You will need to live and breathe the material, but it can be done.
Don't track the hours you spend studying; track the amount of material you learn. Assess this amount through MGMAT practice questions, both in the books and online.
You'll have no life for 2 months but your score should improve dramatically.
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