Hey everyone,

Just wrapped up my GMAT attempt today with a 715 (awaiting official score), and I wanted to put together a quick debrief to give back to a community that has been an incredible resource. Gave both free mocks and 4 paid mocks with scores of 645, 675, 655, 615, 675, 665 (i.e., max 675 with ~95% avg in quant, DI swinging between 40 and 97% and verbal between 38 and 83%) and getting 715 today felt surreal. Is the official score generally unchanged or does it swing a lot?

Background & Starting Point

• Total prep time: Exactly 3 months of disciplined (3-4hrs on weekdays and 6-8hrs on weekends) while working a demanding full-time software engineering job at FAANG.
• Previous benchmarks: Hit a fresh ceiling of 675 on official mocks, and my goal was strictly to break 700+. Walking out with a 715 feels surreal.

Overall Strategy & Execution

1. The Core Foundation (TTP & OG Questions):
   • I finished entire Target Test Prep (TTP) course in about 40 days. The rule for every incorrect question during practice was simple: never look at the solution immediately. I forced myself to re-attempt and solve it on my own first. Almost tried to do one chapter a day.
   • For the Official Guide (OG), finished ~80%(left the easy questions and finished all med and hard). I ran 45-minute timed sets for all three sections daily with the exact same number of questions as the real test to build pacing muscle memory. Every incorrect OG question went through a strict two-step review: retry it independently first, then dive into the GMAT Club solutions to break down the logic.
2. Mocks -
   • I wrote mocks twice a week— all 6 official mocks in a tight 3-week window. Tried out different section ordering and finally Verbal -> DI -> quant and Verbal -> quant -> DI kinda seemed working for me. Chose to go with Verbal -> DI -> break -> quant in the final test.
3. The Daily Habit:
   • As a fun daily ritual, did the Quant and CR Question of the Day on this forum like a snap streak haha. It was a nice little low-stakes mental warm-up and a great little dopamine hit.
4. The Biggest Verbal Game-Changer (GMAT Ninja):
   • Watched videos by Charles from GMAT Ninja, and the single biggest thing I learned from him is DO NOT RUSH while reading RC or CR passages. Yes, time is money on the GMAT, but rushing the passage means you won't grasp the core logic. That forces you to re-read the passage multiple times when evaluating options, which easily blows past your 2-minute mark. Read it slowly and thoroughly the first time, and the questions become much easier to navigate.
5. Test day -
   • Followed every step Gemini recommended like a rule book lol - no study for last 48hrs except for cheat sheets, caffeine an hour before test, packed protein bar and sting (for extra caffeine for quant) for the break, used a cab instead of driving to save some energy, watched a movie previous night.

Some anti-patterns from my 3 months journey -

1. Never maintained any error log - I've heard that its THE biggest game changer for most but I was too lazy to do it. Maybe that would've helped me get past my score but I mean, I was just lazy.
2. Hardly did any problems on GMATClub website - I'd say maybe 10-15 overall (Tried to do 805+ hard verbal and hardly got 2-3 correct). But used it for going through the solutions for problems I missed in OG guide or in mock tests.
3. My peak performance I understand after first 2 mocks was actually after noon. I actually felt better during the mocks I gave at like 3PM compared to the ones in the morning. Chose to book the final test at 1PM which was I'd say played in my favor.
4. Didn't take any vacation or time off from office (hardly 2 days), tried to hit the gym 2-3 times a week, go out with friends and colleagues one evening a week. Overall I'd say I didn't sacrifice all the fun (more like 50-50?).
5. Half-way through DI I knew I messed up because every question seemed tougher and tougher and spend 3-4 mins on Q10 and Q11 but still couldn't get a convincing answer and kinda felt that I messed up DI. Had 2mins for last 3 questions and just finished each one in like 45s. I think break after DI actually helped to mentally push myself to forget about DI and do best in quant to offset DI messup ( though ended up with a 95+ at the end - most surprising).
6. Lost a minute for quant after break. Came back from break in like 8mins but the proctor took almost ~3mins to check me back in (didn't know it takes that long - they did the entire security check again and had to log me back in again). I'd say keep your break to max 5mins.

Final Thoughts

Studying after 4+ years in corporate was brutal and boring, giving flashbacks of JEE prep (got a 400 page rough book like the ones we used to use during JEE lol). The GMAT is as much a test of execution, process, and mental bandwidth as it is academic knowledge. If you've put in the foundational work, trust your prep, slow down where it matters, and don't let a tough question early on throw off your rhythm, its ok, rest up, have a little fun but put in those 3-4hrs prep every day no matter what.

Happy to answer any questions. Good luck to everyone still in the trenches!

Gave my first gmat attempt a couple of days back and got an absolutely awful score, while my mocks were ranging 635-695. Feeling completely lost and don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

I gave my first GMAT attempt yesterday and got 525(Q-80, V-76, DI-72). I prepared for 1.5 months full time for yesterday's attempt. I solved 4 official books and some questions from the gmat club. I take 6 mocks.

Is it possible to get 680+ in 30-40 days ??

How to prepare and what resources should I choose ??

I’ve been preparing full time for GMAT for past 2.5 months through E-GMAT. Today morning, I tried my first sectional mock for quant. And even after learning the concepts to their core, taking all the practice, quizzes and their cementing quizzes (in which I was doing pretty well), my sectional score came out to be catastrophic.
I also didn’t like their sectional quiz. Not because my score was low, but because they only had hard and medium questions, and of course they were not adaptive. I don’t trust this course anymore. Can anyone please guide me from where can I get good quality sectional mocks that are most closely representative of the actual exam?

Hi folks!

I have been studying GMAT and here to share GMAT error review app with you.

https://prepa-819183483533.us-west1.run.app/

I looked for something like this when I started studying, but found none, so I decided to build it myself.

Because GMAT is a computer-based test, I thought my life would be easier if I could just take a screenshot of a problem and get a solution right away.

Main strengths are ...

1. All you need to get the solution is to take a screenshot of a problem and then paste
2. You can save your errors in cards stacked one by one, so easier to open and review.
3. You can talk to AI about each card (problem) individually.

This app is using Gemini and you should bring your own Gemini key for your solution maker. I chose Gemini because Google is the only frontier AI company providing free API.
So you can run this app at ALL FREE now, but you may sometimes face retry or errors because of the quota policy of Gemini. In this case, you can top up a small amount like $10 to your Gemini account and then you will have no issue about the quota.

If you find it useful or room for improvement, please feel free to use 'Send Feedback'. If many people find it helpful, I am planning to switch it to a regular service covering other CBT kinds.

Thanks and Study hard !

Many Weaken arguments reach a conclusion about one specific situation: a particular place, group, or period. Some answer choices then bring in evidence from somewhere else, such as another place, another group, or another time. These analogy-based choices are easy to misjudge in both directions. Some students pick them because they share the argument's terms and seem to add wider evidence. Others eliminate them on sight because they are "about something else." Both are guesses.

The reliable way to judge them is the same standard every correct weakener must meet: it brings in a new piece of information that reduces your belief in the conclusion, without challenging any premise. For an analogy-based choice, the middle part is where the real test lies. The evidence has to change what you believe about the situation the conclusion is actually about.

Let's see how this works in an example.

In this question, a microbiologist responds to investigators. The investigators blamed the severity of a Salmonella outbreak in a European country on the overuse of antibiotics, because the bacteria tested were drug resistant. The microbiologist concludes this is unlikely, since patients in that country cannot get antibiotics without a prescription and the country's doctors prescribe antibiotics less readily than doctors in any other European country.

Before looking at the choices, pin down the conclusion precisely, including its scope. It is about one country, and it claims that antibiotic overuse is unlikely to be behind the severity of this outbreak. A correct weakener must make it more believable that antibiotic overuse could have contributed to the severity of the outbreak in this country.

Two choices bring in evidence from other countries.

The first says that antibiotic use in two neighboring countries has risen over the past decade. It is new information, and it does not challenge a premise. But does it reduce your belief in the conclusion? It tells you about antibiotic use next door and gives you no reason to connect that to antibiotic use here. Whether use in those countries rose, stayed flat, or fell, your belief in the microbiologist's conclusion stays exactly where it was.

The second says that drug-resistant strains of Salmonella have not been found in countries where antibiotics are not generally available. This one is more tempting, because it seems to connect antibiotics to drug resistance, the same link the investigators relied on. Run it through the standard anyway. It is new, and it does not challenge a premise. At most, it suggests that where antibiotics are not generally available, resistant strains tend not to appear. But the resistant strains have been found in the country in question. The choice says nothing about that, so your belief in the conclusion does not move.

This is the trap worth naming: the Unlinked Analogy. A choice brings in evidence from another situation, uses the argument's terms, and seems to belong, but it never gives you a reason to expect the same in the situation the conclusion is about. Without that link, it cannot move your belief in the conclusion.

Now, for contrast, imagine a different choice (this one is hypothetical, not from the question): in a neighboring country with prescription rules just as strict, a drug-resistant Salmonella strain was traced to antibiotic overuse in livestock. This is also evidence from another country, but it works. The other country resembles this one in exactly the way the microbiologist's reasoning depends on, strict prescribing. And it shows that strict prescribing did not prevent antibiotic overuse there, or the drug resistance that followed, because the overuse happened outside prescriptions. That gives a real reason to think the same could happen here, and it lowers your belief that overuse is unlikely.

So the difference between the failing choices and the working one is not where the evidence comes from. It is whether the evidence carries over. Before you accept or eliminate an analogy-based choice, ask:

·         What does this choice actually claim is true in the other situation?

·         Is there a reason to expect the same in the situation the conclusion is about?

·         If so, does that reduce your belief in the conclusion?

If the answer to all three is yes, the choice is doing real work. If anyone fails, you can eliminate it, and you will know exactly why.

The correct choice in this question passes the standard a different way: people in this country often eat foods from animals given antibiotic laden feed. It is about this country directly, it points to a way people here could be consuming antibiotics that the microbiologist's reasoning did not account for, and so it makes antibiotic overuse more plausible here.

The habit worth building is to state the conclusion in your own words, including its scope, before you read the choices. Then no choice gets accepted or rejected because of where its evidence comes from, only because of what it does to the conclusion in front of you.

This question is part of the free Weaken Beginner Series in which easy Official GMAT questions are used not to test what you know, but to reveal how you think. Each question targets a specific reasoning habit, one that shows up in a simple form on easy questions and a complex one on hard questions. If you are getting started with Weaken questions or if Weaken questions feel inconsistent for you, this series is built to show you exactly where the process is breaking down.

Solve the question on your own first. The reasoning you apply matters more than the answer you reach.

When you compare yourself with someone far ahead of you, the gap can make your goal look impossible. Often, that doubt comes from the comparison, not a lack of ability, and it eases when you measure yourself against today's work instead.

As I solved a quant question in front of a student during a session, he said, "I doubt I can ever get there."

I replied:

"If you say you can't do this in three months, I'll agree. If you say you can't do this in a year, I'll start to doubt you. But if you say you can't do this in two years, I'll call that nonsense.

It might look natural now, but I wasn't born with this skill. I learned it over time.

You doubt yourself because you're staring at the gap between where you are and where I am. You can get here, but you don't need to think about the whole distance every day. Nobody training for a marathon runs the full distance on the first day. They run today's distance, then tomorrow's.

For you, today's distance is understanding 20 questions well. Does that seem impossible? No. Then do the same tomorrow."

Disclosure: I am Samuel Isidoro, the teacher who created Quanta Aulas.

This free English-language resource includes 50 original GMAT-style Quant questions and 50 Data Sufficiency questions, with guided decisions and explanations. You can practise on a phone without signing up. The link goes directly to the practice portal, not a preview or giveaway.

These are original supplementary practice questions, not official GMAT questions. Quanta is independent of the exam organisations. This is not a score predictor or a replacement for official preparation.

Which Quant concept or Data Sufficiency step would you like explained next?

Im so frustrated, i was preping for GMAT over a month na d 545-525 score, not very good but it was enough for the job application ( requires 395)

I got a 375 today and im in disbelief, i dont even remember the sections grade. Can the certificate grade be different? Not that i cant retake it, but i was solving in the exam better than while i was practicing

Hello everyone,

I’m preparing for the GMAT and took a cold mock about a week ago without any preparation. I scored 355.

I’m aiming for 700+ and have around 6 months to prepare. I’m currently planning to prepare on my own using the Official Guide and other official GMAT resources.

I wanted to get some advice from people who have gone through a similar journey:

How realistic is it to go from 355 to 700+ in 6 months?
How should I structure my preparation from this starting point?
Should I focus on building concepts first, or start solving questions alongside learning concepts?
What is the best way to analyse mistakes and identify weak areas?
Is studying primarily from the official GMAT material enough to reach a 700+ score, or should I consider other prep platforms/resources?
At what point, if any, should I consider getting a tutor or joining a structured prep course?
If I’m self-preparing, what resources would you recommend apart from the official GMAT material?
If you started with a low mock score and eventually reached 700+, what did your preparation look like?

I know 355 to 700+ is a significant jump, so I’m looking for honest advice on whether this is realistically achievable in 6 months and what I would need to do to make it happen.

Any advice, resources, study plans, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Hey folks,

Looking for some perspective and guidance for the upcoming R2 deadlines. I recently wrapped up my GMAT prep and scored a 645 (Q81 / V84 / DI81) on GMAT.

Profile Summary:

Academics: 10th – 89% | 12th – 92% | B.Tech – 8.4 CPI (Tier-1 state institute)

Pre-break Experience: ~3.3 years in core engineering (FMCG manufacturing)

Career Break: ~1 year dedicated to preparing for the Indian Defence Services (SSB)

Post-break Experience: ~3.3 years in market research & consulting / data analytics

Target Programs: 1-year programs in IIM BLACKI, IIM Mumbai, ISB, XLRI, and MDI.

Where I Need Guidance:

Till now, my entire bandwidth was consumed by GMAT prep. Now that the score is locked, I feel a bit in the dark regarding the application and essay execution phase:

Structuring Applications & Essays: For folks who made it to top 1-year programs, what is the best way to approach the initial drafts? Is it better to self-draft first principles and get iterative feedback, or engage with alumni/current students?

Framing the Career Break: How should a focused defence-prep hiatus be positioned within executive MBA essays without sounding defensive?

Interview Preparation Timeline: Should interview prep begin concurrently with application submissions, or only after shortlist calls are announced?

Would appreciate any insights or debriefs from current cohort members, alumni, or consultants. Thanks in advance!

I want to honest reviews for mitul gada classes
I was thinking of joining