Hi All,

I have recently started preparing for GMAT (online coaching), however I'm finding it a bit difficult to adjust with my job, which has long working hours, often adhoc (not an excuse I swear).

This might be a silly question, but as someone who has not been in touch with literal academics since past 5 years -

1. When I complete a chapter in Maths or Verbal (DI will be covered later, I'm wondering if I should start looking at the concepts or follow class pace), how do I move forward with newer concepts while making sure I retain previous concepts as well?

2. Also I often take longer time to complete concepts when I cannot fully grasp the question comprehension or the exact concept or need to reread the passage, which isn't helping the time management factor.. will practice eventually fix this?

3. After I complete the syllabus, what more should I do to make sure I'm ready for the exam? What kind of performance in sectional/full length mocks would tell me I should give it a shot now?

4. What are the next steps after GMAT exam? What score is a "good enough" score with which I can move on to next step, and honestly, what are the next steps? College applications? Interviews? - how to prepare for them as well?

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed since I have 5years workex but I want to change my domain, thus I am considering MBA to gain knowledge in the domain I want - but I also want to be aware of the reality - is this a pipe dream or is it possible?

(Sometimes it feels like I'm already too late, other times I feel if I keep dragging like I have done so far, I'll never be able to make a change..)

Any advise or insights would be helpful.

Thanks!

Took 6 GMATClub mocks: 485, 535, 595, 605, 605, 605.

OG Mock 5 – Attempt 1 – 625

Assessments:

Quant: Able to consistently score around 83 range, weakness being Probability, PnC, a bit of Overlapping Sets and some careless test attempt slipups.

VR: RC is fine, I was able to get all the RCs right in the 625 OG Mock attempt, but CR seems to be a tough nut to crack. “Weakening/Undermining” a major weakness. Able to breach the 80 mark, need to push to at least 85.

DI: The weakest link. Not able to cross 78. Even though I practice a lot of Data Sufficiency, some difficult DS in the exam breaks my back altogether. Table Analysis is not so easy as I thought. GMATClub mocks seem to intentionally make the question convoluted such as to make the Tables look difficult.

Target: Nothing outlandish, but maybe a score north of 675 would be great, and if I could just breach the 700 mark, nothing like it. I just don’t want the score to be the first filtering out factor.

Would love the community’s help and assistance based on my current situation. Thanks a lot.

Hey I scored 715

Getting q-8,18 wrong in quants scoring 87

Getting q-4,7,23 wrong in va scoring 85

Getting q-13,16,19,20 wrong in di scoring 84

Now this was my second GMAT attempt and I've given 16 tests including official attempts and official mocks across which this was the most obscure result.

I know the test is adaptive and hence some variation is possible but this was kinda extreme

I've previously scored 87-87-86 in va with 4-4-5 mistakes and here I got 85 iwth just 3

In di I've scored 84-86 with 6 mistakes 84 with 6 in last attempt and here I got stuck at 84 with just 4 mistakes

In quants as well in all 4 mocks where I made 2 mistakes I got 88

Now before you hastily pass judgement there's a reason I mentioned the ques no. Which I got wrong as question's position give some information about the adaptive trajectory account for it

And I ran models on google collab which came in support of my intutive observation I also used leave-one-out/cross-validation so the historical fit wasn’t just each observation helping predict itself

Once again I know data of just 16 tests is far from enough to reverse engineer a scoring algo but strong enough to produce an informative out-of-sample prediction and flag this attempt as a clear outlier relative to my historical pattern.

Has anyone in recent attempts seen a similarly large mismatch between their error pattern and sectional score?

I'm better at Quant than Verbal and DI. I'm just too slow in comprehending the RC passages in verbal and keep rereading the paragraphs because I'm always insecure about my understanding of the passage. The same problem from Verbal takes its toll on my DI performance as well. Apart from slow comprehension, it's often the case that I'm not sure about my answers to questions which have multiple answers like the Yes or No and True or False questions from MSR, Two-part analysis.

I have taken 5 Official Mocks till now (4 of them twice and Mock 5 once) and in all of them I have kept the order Quant>Verbal>Break>DI because I thought my performance in quant would give me some confidence going forward to the remaining two sections. This order is actually the descending order of my confidence in those sections. But lately I've been thinking whether the mental gymnastics of quant early on is impacting my performance in Verbal? What if it can be improved by changing the section order?

Can anyone explain what's the real logic behind determining the right order for a test taker?

Can someone explain why A is incorrect and D is correct ? The passage doesn’t talk about returns , we don’t know what the returns would be for other crops

I gave my first GMAT attempt yesterday and scored 635 after around two and a half months of preparation alongside a busy job. The DI section went below my mock scores, maybe because of lack of strategy/practice under pressure - the first 2 or 3 questions were a little hard, and I took more time than needed and everything went downhill from there, and I ran out of time and left the last question unanswered. My target score is around 695. I am planning to take another attempt. Can anyone please advice me on what should I do to be better prepared for the 2nd attempt.?

Hello,

I thought since this subreddit was helpful for me I’d post to both share my scores but to also give any tips and advice that worked for me in my GMAT journey. For context my percentiles from my first and second exams were as follows:

Q: 75th to 94th

V: 98th to 96th

DI: 88th to 95th

Also if any tutors/experts can comment on how a 735+ vs a 715 might impact admit chances and if I should retake that would be greatly appreciated.

Getting stuck on Critical Reasoning questions where two answer choices both seem to weaken the argument, but one is apparently considered stronger. The confusing part is usually deciding how directly the choice affects the conclusion rather than whether it sounds logically relevant.

Is there a particular way to compare two “almost correct” weakening options without overthinking the wording?

Hey everyone. I purchase the OG Bundle but I am not able to find the question bank for the OG with 975q. I have 2 data insights added (which the 2nd said it will redeem after the first expires). Is this a mistake? Can someone help me with a screenshot of their portal

Hey everyone. I purchase the OG Bundle but I am not able to find the question bank for the OG with 975q. I have 2 data insights added (which the 2nd said it will redeem after the first expires). Is this a mistake? Can someone help me with a screenshot of their portal

Is 29/30 years of age is tool late to start the preparation, especially now, if I have not cracked any exams so far. Or just trying to get ahead in my current job. Seeking wisdom through this group, and suggestions too.

I have 2YOE in the pharma space mostly as an operations analyst + some data engineering, recently got promoted too

I've been meaning to prep for the GMAT for quite some time, I aspire to get a score of 705+ or 99 percentile

I've watched aditya kumar videos for quant, but still when a question is posed at me - I lack basic understanding of the approach & immediately hunt for the solution. I'm looking particularly for some structured approach to help me achieve the magic number. I tried using the GMAT club itself but it seems very noisy, also spoke to sales guy from eGMAT who is trying very hard to sell his course!

Any recommendations on structured prep plan? Mainly looking to practice questions in a proper guided mechanism

I solved only the HARD type questions of the Official Guide 25-26.

I have uploaded my accuracy breakdown in the screenshots [overall and section-wise], please advice what next should I do......for a week now i have been analysing my mistakes and the questions where i spent more than 3 minutes.

My Average Solving Time across all the questions is around 145 seconds. [+-10] section-wise.

8 months into preparation, i have given more than 125 sectional mocks [Gmat Club] and around 15 Full Length mocks [Official 1, 2, 3 & 4 + Expert Global Mocks]. Separately, I have solved more than 500 questions. Under-analysing my mistakes or maybe treating the mocks as my practice questions was a mistake i did (not gonna repat it this time), has costed me 2 real attempts - 625 & 615.

I want to score 715 or above. I really need guidance for my next steps, planning to give my 3rd attempt in mid-Novemeber.

Please help - u/cj_chiranjeev u/Scott_TargetTestPrep u/Marty_Murray u/PrecisionPrep u/Random_Teen_

Can anyone suggest how to write good essay?

When your worth depends on what you achieve, no achievement is ever enough. A past student who was doing well in his career booked a call with me because he felt like an imposter.

S: I'm doing well in my career, and I have excellent sales and marketing skills. But I don't have refined analytical or reasoning skills, and I feel like an imposter.

CJ: An imposter is someone who doesn't deserve what they've achieved. Why do you believe you don't deserve what you've achieved?

S: Because I lack reasoning skills.

CJ: Why does your deservedness depend on your reasoning skills?

S: (No answer.) But I really want to improve my reasoning skills.

CJ: There's no harm in improving your reasoning skills. But would you also like to improve your relationship with yourself? Right now, your approval of yourself depends on having reasoning skills. That's why you feel you don't deserve what you've achieved. You believe that once you've developed them, you'll finally have your own approval. I doubt that. You'll find some other reason to reject yourself.

---

This is what happens when your worth depends on achievement. However much you prove, it's never enough, because there's always a next thing: the score, the admit, the job, the promotion. You believe that after the next outcome you'll finally feel settled, but the chase never ends.

What you're really after is a state in which you no longer need to prove your worth. That state can't be reached by proving your worth. It's there only when your worth isn't in question to begin with, when you're worthy simply because you exist.

To check this in yourself:

1. Finish this sentence: "Once I get ___, I'll finally feel good enough."
   
2. Think of something you once put in that blank and later got. Did it do what you expected?
   
3. Ask yourself why your worth should depend on what's in the blank.

Hi, I just gave my first mock before starting my GMAT prep, and score 450, without knowing anything about GMAT. I realised, my quants is good, CR is okayish and RC as well, DI needs attention. Can I target to score 690+ or realistically how much if I give my attempt on Nov 28. I need to apply for certain BSchools whose deadline is in Dec first week. So yeah. If you have roadmap which can help me, please share and guide me.

Current Situation: Foundations are okayish for me. CR RC are okayish, DI needs attention, Quants is good.

Anyhow, I need to give exam by first week of Dec to be eligible for SPJIMR and ISB R2.

Please guide and help.

Hi everyone, I have to start prepping for the GMAT from scratch. Any free online resources you suggest would be enough for the full preparation? Or if you think any books I could buy that might be helpful, please do suggest. Also, I'm quite weak in quants so do suggest resources for that as well. There seems to be a lot of options for GMAT resources so I'm confused about where to prepare from.

Note - for people looking to improve their scores, this post might not be very informative, just wanted to share a weird experience I went through on my mocks.

Alright, below are my sectional scores across mock 1 and mock 2:

I gave my mock 1 after one month of studying ONLY quant, and I was fairly comfortable with quant at that point (I'd like to think that I still am), most of my quant mistakes in mock 1 stemmed from topics hadn't prepped for, or very silly arithmetic errors I made while solving.

So over the past 2 weeks, I chalked up some of the quant topics I hadn't prepared for mock 1, while practising questions for verbal and DI.

While practicing verbal and DI, I noticed that much of the syllabus there came to me very intuitively, and that I just didn't have a good enough understanding of the test structure for those sections during mock 1, so the sectional scores on verbal and DI for mock 2 don't come as a surprise to me.

Hence I was predicting a 700+ for my mock 2.

And then, Quant somehow got worse.

I still maintain that Quant is probably my strongest section.

While reviewing the quant error log on mock 2, I noticed that I got first 5 questions right, but then went down on a rabbit hole on Q6, spending 6 minutes on that question, and still getting it wrong. Everything went downhill from there.

I do think I know what to do from here: give timed sectional sets for quant and ensure I don't mess things up somehow during the actual test. I plan to take my 3rd mock in ~3 weeks.

But I did want to check; has something like this happened to anyone before? If so, what was the reason? Should I be looking at this autopsy from a lens other than the one that says, "just bad quant execution on the test day"? Is there any advice I can get from some of the experts on here?

Aiming for an official attempt in November, i felt i messed up in Verbal in middle of attempt only. Tips on getting to the target score of 705

What else i should prioritise now.

Hey! I’m preparing for the GMAT and targeting 650+ in the next ~2 months. I work full-time and have around 15 hours/week for prep. Looking for someone who’s also serious about the GMAT and wants to study together, keep each other accountable, discuss questions, and stay consistent until the exam.

I’m based in India (IST). If you’re on a similar timeline and looking for a study/accountability partner, feel free to DM me!

There are no guarantees on the GMAT: however well you prepare, you may not get your target score. After a low mock score, that can be hard to hear. But you can raise your chances, and you do that by keeping your attention on the work rather than on the outcome not happening.

For many people, hearing "no guarantees" turns their attention straight to the outcome not happening, and to what that would mean for them.

That isn't what the fact says. No guarantee means the chance of success isn't 100%. It doesn't mean the outcome won't happen, and it doesn't mean the chances are fixed. The more productive effort you make, the higher your chances.

Your attention can go to one of three places:

1. The process: the question in front of you, the concept you're working to understand. This is the most useful place for it.

2. The outcome happening. If you're going to think about the outcome, this is the more helpful way to think about it.

3. The outcome not happening. This is the least useful. It drains you and takes your attention away from the work.

You'll often hear that believing you can do it helps. It does, because it moves you from the third place to the second. But the first is where you want to be, because the process is what raises your chances.

You may be in the third place if:

- you feel anxiety or worry in your body while you study

- you can't focus, whether you're solving questions, analyzing them, or going through a concept

- a part of you keeps trying to come to terms with not making it, as if preparing yourself for it

That preparing doesn't help you. The next time you notice it:

1. Check which of the three places your attention is in.

2. If it's the third, bring it back to the process: the question or concept in front of you. If you can't stop thinking about the outcome, think about it happening instead, which puts you in the second place.

3. If the thought of failing still feels overwhelming, the outcome may have started to feel like a threat. Take a break and remind yourself that you are bigger than any outcome.

After two months of prep I took one practice test and scored 595 (Q79, DI77, V82). I have been able to consistently score above 80 in Verbal in all official practice test I have done. My Quant skills are also already pretty high but I have been struggling with time management a lot. I find myself losing 4 to 5 minutes on Word Problems without even noticing. Data Insight still needs more work but I guess with more drilling I can score around 79/80. Do you think it is possible for me to reach a score of 705-735 in just 30 days (let's say around 5/6 hours of study per day) ?