GMAT Study Plan

Hi everyone, given that SA is now to start in July (likely to be virtual as well), and especially for Canadians whos finals end this week, I will be having a good amount of down time

I'm thinking of studying for and taking the GMAT since I have all this free time, and I figured it would help open doors if I wanted to do a msf or help with FT recruiting given I get a good score.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the best approach to studying? I've read numerous forums and while they somewhat differ, the most common thing I'm seeing is:

  1. Read and do all 3 books from GMAT Official Guide
  2. Manhattan GMAT (Especially of IR)
  3. TargetTestPrep for quant / maybe other sources for quant?

So far this is what I'm planning to do anyways, does anyone who've taken it or is planning to take it have any suggestions / opinions?

Thanks!

 

TTP is great for quant. I found it super helpful. It would be a waste of time to spend more than an hour studying for integrated reasoning. Almost no programs even look it. If you just do it every time you take a practice test that should be plenty of prep.

The most important part is tracking your errors. GMATClub has a few q bank guides that has all the official guide book questions broken down by question type and difficultly. See below https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-official-guide-for-gmat-review-293852.ht…

As you progress, do your best to identify your weak areas and then adjust your attention to them.

If you put in the time it is not incredibly difficult to break 700.

Good luck

 

Since this thread was posted I thought I’d add here. Has anyone found an online verbal resource that they think stands out similar to the way target test prep stands out for quant?

I’ve begun to prep and have a target test prep subscription but I’m looking for a verbal resource to compliment. Some of the verbal resources seemed tailored to trying to bring verbal into 40s vs bringing verbal from low-mid 40s to upper 40s but I’m saying that without trying the course so I could be wrong.

 

I took the GMAT on 3 weeks prep time in February and got a 710. Manhattan course was useful as were the practice problems done in class. the most beneficial resource I was able to utilize from Manhattan Prep was their quant worksheets. You have to request these worksheets from them. Each sheet contains different types of quant questions and there are tricks to answering these types of questions. Without practicing the worksheets, I would not have been privy to these tricks and I would have gotten a lower score. For sentence correction, the GMAT official guide is the most accurate representation of how the questions will be asked. Same with the rest of verbal. Like someone else mentioned earlier, log your errors. I didn’t start logging mine until the last week of prep and it helped me to stop repeating the same careless errors. Careless errors will kill your score on this exam. Do not allow yourself to miss lower level questions as it will be extremely difficult to recover. The best predictor of my score was the official gmat practice test on mba.com. I hope this helps!

 
Most Helpful

I posted the below on GMATClub (which was super helpful, btw) and thought reposting it here might be useful. For some context, attended a slightly above average public university, currently work in corporate strategy at a large financial institution and am 3 years into working.

I kept meticulous detail of my studying. Overall, I studied exactly 150 hours from first browsing GMATClub to the night before my exam. This studying was done over 8 weeks and I spent close to 3 hours a day studying GMAT topics. These 150 hours are best thought of in three parts, each consisting of 50 hours.

1) First 50 hours was spent reviewing topics, concepts, format of exam, etc. I primarily used the Manhattan GMAT guide, as well as a number of ad-hoc guides found on GMATClub. I found the MGMAT resources pretty detailed and relatively well suited to learning the concepts. I spent a good amount of time working through the various math guides, as well as the sentence correction and critical reasoning guides. I would definitely say these provided me a good foundation, even if I didn't use all the techniques and suggestions presented.

2) Second 50 hours was spent working through practice problems from the 2019 Official Guide I purchased. I used the registration key to get the questions online, which I thought was a better simulation of the exam. I worked through over 1000 questions, reviewing my answers and seeking to understand where I went wrong. I particularly was focused on finding my weak spots. I soon discovered that critical reasoning was a strength, as was reading comprehension, but sentence correction needed some improvement. On the Quant side, I really disliked the data sufficiency problems (I still do) but made sure to work through as many as I could. I would always time myself when doing these questions. When seeking explanations for problems I would copy and paste the answer into google and find a relevant thread on GMATClub in order to understand where I went wrong, which was quite useful.

3) Third 50 hours was spent doing practice exams. I started off with Manhattan GMAT but soon realized two things: the math section was far more difficult than I expected and the verbal wasn't an accurate representation of the actual questions. From this I modified my strategy to use an entire MGMAT CAT just for the math section, then would blaze through the verbal, IR, and essay guessing random answers. This allowed me to focus on the math section. After I used a few MGMAT CATs, I moved on to the official GMAT Prep CATs. My practice exam scores are as follows (only the ones I tried fully on each section):

  • #1: MGMAT CAT - 680 (Q40 V42)
  • #2: MGMAT CAT - 690 (Q46 V38)
  • #3: MGMAT CAT - 690 (Q46 V38)
  • #4: GMATPREP CAT - 750 (Q48 V44)
  • #5: GMATPREP CAT - 730 (Q48 V41)
  • #6: GMATPREP CAT - 760 (Q49 V47)
  • #7: GMATPREP CAT - 770 (Q50 V47)
  • #8: GMATPREP CAT - 740 (Q49 V42)
  • #9: GMATPREP CAT - 770 (Q48 V51)
  • Official Exam: 750 (Q49 V44)

As you can see, the Quant section on MGMAT is more difficult than the GMATPREP exams, and it appears the Verbal is as well, though I would say the main reason I didn't do so well on the MGMAT was that the questions were written differently and can't be considered as accurate as the official exams. I would highly recommend people only to use official guide resources when preparing for Verbal.

I would consistently get 7 or 8 on the IR section, and wasn't concerned with writing a fully developed argumentative essay, so I would just jot down 300 words in 15 minutes then submit. I will say I can't yet say how my essay strategy worked because I haven't received results yet.

Exam Day:

I took the exam on the 28th at 2:15 in the afternoon, which allowed me to relax in the morning, fully wake up, and eat a nice hearty meal beforehand. I worked out a little in the morning, just enough to get my blood pumping, then drove about 45 minutes to the testing center. I arrived about 20 minutes early but they allowed me to start the exam right away, which was nice. The center itself was pretty cool, lot's of people testing, and they provided me with headphones to cancel out any noise. I elected to take the exam in the order as follows: Verbal, Quant, IR, Essay.

During the Verbal section, I noticed the questions were definitely slightly harder than the practice exam. Looking at my detailed score report, it appears I missed four questions overall, and my final score of 44 is pretty consistent with how I was testing on the practice exams. I would've liked to have done better on this section, but will take a 44 as it is still 98th percentile.

The quant section was off to a decent start, and I worked my way through a number of the problems accurately, answering with what I thought was good conviction. The difficulty of the actual exam was in-between the MGMAT (harder) and the GMATPREP (easier) practice exams. I wished I had spent more time reviewing difficult Quant topics. A problem began to arise near the end of the exam as I watched the timer slowly tick down, my mind doing quick mental math to determine how much time I would have per question. I ended up rushing the 4th and 3rd to last questions, and straight up guessing on the last two questions. My enhanced score report shows I missed 50% of questions on the last quartile of the exam, and that likely harmed my score, dropping it to the 49 which was what I received. I really wish I had left enough time to accurately answer the last few questions, which I imagine would have helped me get a 50 and possibly 760 overall, though that is water under the bridge. Integrated reasoning was fine, and I received a score of 7. Nothing crazy to report here and the exam was almost identical to what I had seen on practice exams.

Essay I spent the full 30 minutes on and was able to write what I think was a well thought-out, though perhaps scattered, essay.

I was obviously very happy with the 750 and relieved it was over.

 

This is very helpful. Honestly, I'm basically going through the same 3 steps right now, except over a longer period of time. Out of curiosity did you take an initial GMAT before starting prep? Trying to get a gauge of realistic levels of improvement.

 

As someone who got a 770 on the GMAT, it’s really just grinding practice problems and knowing the test. I took the test the fall semester of senior year for deferred admissions to MBA programs with about 2-3 weeks of studying. For the quant section, as a math major, I just needed a few go around to get the style. For the verbal section, it’s really just practice. I’ve read maybe 4 whole significant books on my own volition in my entire life. I narrowed my focus to just do Verbal sections of practice tests until my test date. In the end, I completed around 7 tests with only doing the math sections of 3 (2 in the beginning and a third one at the end).

 

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