GMAT Club
August 11, 2019
JBANK23

Joined: Sep 18, 2018

Posts: 0

Kudos: 0

Self-reported Score:
650 Q47 V33

Target Test Prep is the Best for Quant

REVIEWER IDENTITY VERIFIED by gmat club tests [?]

Improvement 50 Points

Course Target Test Prep Maximum Learning

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My GMAT story may be similar to others. I am 15 years into a career in medicine and I had not seen algebra in 2 decades. When I decided to pursue an EMBA I took a practice GMAT without studying. My starting quant score was a 20. Based on hours of combing through GMAT club threads I realized that I'd need to put in about 6-months of studying to reach my goal of ~45 on quant.

The studying that followed was:
- 4 weeks of Manhattan Prep Foundations of Math (to re-learn the basics)
- 3 months of all Manhattan Prep Quant Books with corresponding OG questions
- All Magoosh online video tutorials and began using GMAT club quizzes
- Completed All OG and OGQR questions and targeted GMAT Club quizzes based on my weaknesses
- I also hired a recommended tutor for weekly sessions to address how to 'problem-solve' and crack the GMAT questions.

At the end of 8-months of studying and doing all 6 Manhattan Prep CATs (each take twice), and all 6 GMAC CATs, I never scored higher than a 42 on a practice exam, with most of my quant scores falling in the high 30s.

Throughout the frustrating studying process, I frequently encountered answer posts on GMAT club from Scott and Jeff at Target Test Prep. Their clarity of thinking through problems very much aligned with how I think. So I emailed them 2 weeks before my scheduled exam and asked if I could get additional tutoring before my test to get a bump to 45.

Jeff and I spoke on the phone and to his credit, he stated that I was not hitting my mark because my studying was a 'mile wide but only an inch deep'. He didn't think that a crash course of tutoring would help in 2 weeks. Jeff suggested that I take the exam and, if I didn't hit my mark, then to spend 3-4 months completing his Target Test Prep program.

As predicted, my 8-months of inch-deep studying only allowed me to score a 38 on quant - extraordinarily deflating after 2/3 of a year, 20hrs/week of studying on top of a full-time career.

After taking a month to rethink strategy, I opted to dedicate the next 3-months to Jeff and Scott's Target Test Prep. Their program diverges from 'learning to get questions right' and heavily reinforces doing 'so many questions' of different levels of difficulty that you simply 'cannot get questions wrong'. TTP breaks down 18 quant categories with a depth unseen in other programs then follows the chapters with multiple sets of easy/medium/hard questions.

I completed their program in 10 weeks - faster than the 12-14 weeks that is recommended. It took 3-4 hours/day with 8-10hrs/day on weekends. My prior studying did help with many sections.

After completing their program, I spent ~10 days doing a couple of GMAC CATs then re-took the exam. TTP allowed me to hit a 47 on Quant - this was a score I'd never seen before on any practice exam. Their style of embedding knowledge with deliberate practice made the second go of the test wonderful. It even helped my IR score jump from a 3 to a 6 mainly b/c of the deeper understanding I developed for relationships and principles.

One fear prior to joining TTP was whether doing non-GMAC questions would mimic the real test. I state with certainty that the hardest questions in TTP are harder than the hardest questions I encountered during my second shot at the GMAT. In fact, I did no OG questions the 2nd time around and I felt better prepared for the exam.

Deliberate practice with super tough questions after forming a deeper understanding of the material is what I needed and TTP offers just that. Couldn't recommend the program any higher. Scott and Jeff are available to talk when you have a question, which is pretty remarkable. And their integrity for not selling me a couple of quick $500 tutoring sessions when they knew it wasn't going to help is also commendable.

May 07, 2020
NN33214

This is a fantastic review, as I went down almost the exact same path with MGMAT > Magoosh > OG > etc. I am starting TTP this week. Do you have any general advice to better retain the information or any other general tips for things you would do differently if you could go back? Also, did you incorporate verbal review into your studying over those 10 weeks?

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