How to Ace the GMAT Without a Class

What worked and what didn’t on my way to 750

This started out as an email I was sending to friends unsure of where to begin their studies. They started forwarding it on to many of their friends so I decided to put it up for everyone’s benefit.

Materials:

GMAT Prep free tests and extra 2 tests — Absolutely the best study material. They are exactly like the actual test. You can reset them and take them a second time without getting too many repeat questions. I found the scores to be very accurate. I only took the full test with the IR and essay twice before the real test to save time.

Manhattan tests — I took them untimed. The quant is a lot more computationally intensive than the real problems and some of the verbal questions are a bit off. Focus on learning as much as you can and not on your score. I only cracked 700 a few times on these.

Magoosh videos — Very helpful for some of my friends. I found some nice math tricks, but probably needed the lessons less than other people. Video explanations are nice.

Slingfox sentence correction guide — absolute gold.

6.0 Essay guide — simple template to get a 6 on the essay.

GMAT simulation booklet w/ marker — On test day you are given a laminated booklet and marker for your work. I think there is value in practicing like you play so it’s worth spending the extra $20 for this. I sold it back to Amazon for $10 after.

Method:

I mostly took tests and thoroughly reviewed any questions I got wrong or wasn’t sure of. Spend more time reviewing than taking the tests.

Keep an error log of the math questions you get wrong so you can review them again in the future.

I rarely missed reading or critical reasoning so all my studying was focused on sentence correction and quant.

If you google a segment of a GMAT question there will almost always be an awesome explanation from someone on gmatclub.com or a similar site.

Try to get a hour of studying in a day. I tried to do 15 quant questions and 10 sentence correction questions a day. Answering questions becomes pattern recognition after a while.

For more reading, I largely modeled my studying after this girl’s.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask any questions that may come up.