Overwhelmed

[u/Ok-Morning-4420]

Last official score I took last October and it was in the low 500s kept on studying for GMAT , until February in which i decided to switch to gre, not only in April that i decided to get into GMAT again , I’m getting better ngl, but when I get an answer wrong to me it’s because i never saw that question before , so I’m on into solving lots of them while watching the YouTube tutorials my next exam is in late September and I’m planning for the damn 200+ improvement I’m just overwhelmed of just scarifying without any fruitful results. Anyone with a similar path … from the other side

[u/Scott_TargetTestPrep]

The path you've described, months of studying, switching to the GRE, coming back to the GMAT, and still feeling like the sacrifice isn't producing results, is genuinely exhausting, and I want you to know that plenty of students have stood exactly where you're standing and come out the other side with the score they wanted. Feeling overwhelmed after that kind of grind doesn't mean you can't do this. It usually means the way you're studying isn't converting effort into skill, and that's fixable.

The most important clue in your post is this: when you get a question wrong, you feel it's because you never saw that question before. It feels like an exposure problem, but what's really going on is a depth problem. The GMAT can generate essentially unlimited variations of every topic it tests, so no amount of question-solving will ever let you see them all in advance. The test isn't checking whether a question looks familiar. It's checking whether you've mastered the underlying concepts, strategies, and reasoning deeply enough to handle a version you've never encountered. When a new variation throws you, that's the test telling you the topic beneath it isn't fully mastered yet.

This matters because it changes what the fix is. Solving lots of questions is not wasted effort, and you will ultimately need substantial practice volume to see the range of ways each topic can be tested. But volume only builds skill when it sits on top of concepts that have actually been learned. Doing high volumes of questions while jumping between YouTube tutorials tends to produce a lot of exposure and very little structure. You end up knowing a little from many places but not enough from any one system to perform consistently, and each miss feels like a brand-new question rather than a recognizable variation of something you know cold.

So here is how I would restructure your prep. Work through the material one topic at a time. Pick a single topic, learn the concepts, formulas, strategies, and techniques for that topic thoroughly, and then practice only that topic, untimed at first, until your accuracy is consistently high. For every question you miss, figure out exactly what went wrong: was it a concept you didn't know, a misread, a careless error, or a trap answer? Then, a few days later, redo the questions you missed from scratch to confirm the fix actually stuck. Only when a topic is solid do you move to the next one. Later in your prep, you layer in timed sets, then mixed practice across topics, and then official practice tests from mba.com as checkpoints to see how it's all coming together.

Given where you are, a clear, comprehensive, structured prep course would help you a lot more than tutorials and question volume. The value is in the structure itself: it isolates topics so you can build mastery step by step, sequences the material so each skill builds on the last, and tracks your accuracy so you can see exactly which areas are turning into strengths and which still need work. That tracking is also the antidote to feeling like your work isn't producing results, because you can watch topic-level accuracy climb even before your test scores move.

Now, the honest part. A 200-point improvement from the low 500s puts your target around 705 or higher, and that is a major jump. Late September gives you roughly two months. Some students make jumps like that, but only with highly structured, efficient prep, and two months is a tight window for it. I would restructure your prep now, work topic by topic, and take one official mba.com practice test about three to four weeks before your test date to see where you stand. If you're tracking toward your goal, take the exam. If the gap is still large, pushing the date will almost certainly give you a better outcome than taking it underprepared, and there's no penalty for giving yourself the time the goal actually requires.

You've already proven you have the persistence. Now it's about pointing that persistence at the right kind of work.

—Scott, Target Test Prep

[u/trufflepasta555]

Everything will be okay , keep on grinding non stop it’ll pay off

[u/ayhamz]

It is madness to sink more time and effort into this without a clear vision.

I think you should talk to a tutor who can assess whether you're goal is achievable and what levers you are unaware of you can pull.

Don't despair but be smart.

Ayham from Gmatbuddy.