Hey everyone! Just took the GMAT Focus last week and scored 715 (99th percentile). Started with 545 on my diagnostic. So I decided to share what truly inspired me since I know how frustrating it can be when you’re stuck.
Background: Working full time in consulting, so had to be smart about study time. Tried the usual “study practice questions every day” approach for like 2 months and barely improved. Was getting burnt out and honestly thought about giving up.
I was scrolling Reddit and saw a thread about GMAT Club and thought why not? Had tried pretty much everything else. Didn’t expect much – it just seemed like another prep site, and I already had a ton going on. But damn, this was different.
The expert explanations were fantastic and so was the error log and recently, analytics. Like it didn’t just tell me “you suck at math” – it broke down exactly which question types gave me trouble, where my timing was off, and patterns in my mistakes I hadn’t noticed before. My study sessions actually felt productive.
After doing a ton of questions and getting a bit stuck to put it mildly, I asked for advice and someone mentioned in the chat that it did not need more practice questions, but a system that could pinpoint exactly where I was struggling. I did not need to look at quant or verbal as a singular section but instead zooming in down into microlevel of each question type such as working rate problems or assumption questions. Zooming in, helped me turn those weak spots into focused practice, test my progress with quizzes, and build up my timing and accuracy. Can’t remember what came first accuracy or timing but these two seem to be painfully related brothers. It’s hard to get both of them.
The system that worked:
1. I used them Manhattan prep books which were fantastic. After I covered the material and you feel confident enough , I took one full mock each week to build stamina and timing skills.
2. Quick 15-30 min quizzes on weekdays, just for my weak spots.
3. Error log where I tagged every mistake as “concept gap”, “misread” or “timing issue”
4. Then kept going over similar problems until I stopped making the same mistakes.
Some bonus items that made studying easier:
1. Saved filters in the Forum Quiz made my short study sessions super focused. I didn’t have to rebuild my settings every time which meant I could consistently hammer away at my weak subskills. Those question bookmarks and tags turned my random practice into a personalized collection that I could quickly revisit right before mock tests. I mean, where else do you get something like this?
2. YouTube – when I could not study, I would watch strategy videos on double speed. I joined several live sessions with Marty and someone from Manhattan, though it was challenging to stay engaged because of work calls, but YouTube has a ton of content and you can start with GMAT Club’s channel and then expand from there.
3 I had a number of timing issues particularly uncared questions, not being willing to give up. I would do timed practice and I stuck too pretty strict timing but I wouldn’t limit myself for two minutes per question instead I would take a quiz and take five or 10 questions and then I would limit the quiz time. I would pick easy medium and hard and just go at random not knowing what difficulty I would get. I could maybe sometimes solve an easy one in one minute and sometimes a hard one in three minutes but it would balance itself out. This was fairly accurate to what I’ve encountered on the test, I wasn’t just getting super hard questions on and on which sort of threw me off a bit but it felt like the difficulty varied quite a bit especially in quant.
4. GMAT prep is a lonely journey. Three more days when I needed encouragement so joining the gym at Club‘s WhatsApp group proved helpful. There are a few groups but hearing from folks about their struggles help me feel a lot better about mine.
5. Save your mistakes. Keep track of them. The error log does a good job and I would download it and filter it down in a variety of ways to analyze my weaknesses and also celebrate my strengths. I would look at my accuracy by topic by difficulty level.
And yeah, there were definitely some difficult moments, so here’s what tripped me up and how I got past it:
- Challenge 1: Burnout
I’d score 635 on a practice test when aiming for 705+ and feel like quitting, doubting my abilities.
- Challenge 2: Inconsistent performance
I’d ace 705-level quant one day and miss 605-level the next, making progress unpredictable.
In a weird way I found I did well at DI in mornings and verbal when tired, so adjusted my schedule accordingly.
- Challenge 3: 665 level
Stuck for weeks with no improvement, wondering if I’d peaked.
I Analyzed patterns and realized I was rushing medium questions to save time. Slowed down on them for better accuracy.
- Challenge 4: Overthinking on test day
During my first attempt (which didn’t go well), I kept second-guessing myself and changing answers. Classic mistake.
What I did: Practiced “first instinct” rules during prep. If I was between two answers and had solid reasoning for one, I stuck with it. Also did timed sections where I couldn’t go back and change anything to build confidence in initial choices.
The mindset shift that mattered most:
Stopped treating every practice session like it had to be perfect. Some days were for building stamina, some for speed, some for accuracy. Once I gave myself permission to have “off” days during prep, the pressure lifted and scores actually became more consistent.
And final score: 545 —> 715 after months months of very focused prep.
Big thanks to GMAT Club! This site help me get my score without buying courses are paying expensive tutors. The question bank is huge, the analytics and error log are awesome, and the community is supportive if you ask politely. I doubt I could’ve made this jump while working full-time without it and on the cheap.
Hope this helps someone. If you’ve got questions drop them in the comments and good luck, everyone!
P.S. Forgot to add – sometimes I added external resources, but only when analytics showed a clear gap in a specific topic.
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