Thanks, Target Test Prep, you ROCK!

I cannot recommend Target Test Prep enough.

I come from a non-traditional background (Musical Theater), and, when applying to MBA programs, knew I would need to perform at a competitive level in my quant and IR scores in order to make a mark in my applications.

I'm stubborn and cheap and didn't want to sign up for an in person class or one-on-one training (also very uncomfortable failing in front of people, and I knew there would be a lot of failure as I relearned all the math I'd forgotten since high school). I initially used a different program-a long set of books that gave me a good refresher on conceptual knowledge with basic questions about each chapter just enough to cover the basic principles. Even though I spent two months with these books and countless hours studying, my first sitting at a real test was a disappointment. I scored a 39 (37th percentile) for quant and a 6 (70th percentile) for IR. I knew these scores would not prove to an admissions team that I was ready for their business oriented programs. And what was worse, I knew that I was capable of a better performance. I just didn't have the right tools.

I looked around online forums for programs specifically geared towards raising your quant score and Target Test Prep seemed to be the best course content for the best price. I loved the idea of the monthly subscription, as I was registered to take the test again two and a half weeks later, and didn't want to spend a ton of money on something I would (hopefully) only use for a couple of weeks. And with the awesome week free trial, I really would only be using the subscription for a week and a half. The week free trial let me test drive the software and see that it was the kind of guided progression that I was missing out on from my resistance to not take an in person class. It provided a structure that made sense and felt interactive and engaging. The dashboard, study plans, and chapter tests, are invaluable tools. The hundreds of practice questions littered throughout the study guides really drill typical test formats into your study process. Where I had learned conceptual knowledge from the previous program, Target Test Prep teaches operational knowledge that is of real use when approaching the GMAT.

Admittedly, I did not follow the study guide to the letter, as I only had two and a half weeks to use the software. I did make sure to work through all of the study guides and take most of the "easy" level chapter tests. Then I moved on to the mixed review tests. I love that there is always a timer for the tests that counts down two minutes and that the scoring of each test tells you whether a question was easy, medium, or hard. I knew I was ready when the only questions I was getting wrong were "hard" level questions. I also felt confident looking at the dashboard, seeing that I had answered 500+ questions with 80% accuracy.

On the day of my second test, I experienced some major differences in my performance due to using Target Test Prep: I was more comfortable with all question types, I had working knowledge of all quant principles and knew what kinds of problems each question was asking immediately and what formulas to use, I was much speedier and my internal clock told me when two minutes was about up and it was time to move on, and, maybe most importantly, I could immediately identify questions that were simply too tough for me or on insanely difficult subject matter not even explicitly covered by Target, allowing me to quickly guess and move on, buying me time for other questions and saving me the stress of wondering if I could have ever answered it correctly.

With just two and a half weeks of studying with the Target Test Prep software, I raised my quant score from 39 to 46 (60th percentile) and my IR from 6 to 8 (93rd percentile). My verbal section also improved drastically due to having less stress over the quant section (I didn't study any verbal between test 1 and test 2).