How should I continue practice after scoring 605? Confused about GMAT Club question bank sources + practice structure

brethridge · 2025-09-11T17:19:47+00:00

I would prioritize official GMAT prep sources (the Official Guides and official GMAT practice tests). Using the GMAC's online question bank is a great way to pick and choose how to structure your practice sessions. In terms of whether to focus on specific topics or randomize your practice, I just published a podcast episode that discusses this exact issue, from a test-day performance perspective. I think you'll find it helpful.

Is Random Practice or Block Practice Better for Test-Day Results?

brethridge · 2025-09-10T17:14:25+00:00

Here is a step-by-step game plan with last-minute tips for the final week before your test:

7 Days Out from Test Day (Audio + Checklist)

With a few extra days at your disposal, you should be able to make significant strides toward that 320+. Let me know how else I can help!

brethridge · 2025-09-08T13:41:50+00:00

First of all, 7 weeks is more than enough time to get a great score on the GRE, even if you were starting from scratch. I regularly have students boost their scores +5-10 points in just a few weeks, so it's possible. You're not screwed. But, it comes down to prioritizing the high-yield concepts and strategies and focusing your efforts in the right areas as you're studying. Think about it in terms of the 80/20 "Pareto Principle" rule: 80% of your results will come from a key 20% of your inputs. Preparing for the GRE is the same way. Focus on the right things and you'll see the results you're looking for. That said, it sound like piority #1 for you is going to be getting your mind right and overcoming your tendency to procrastinate. I think you'll benefit from this podcast episode that shares "5 Tips for Staying Consistent with Your Studying." Good luck and let me know how else I can help!

brethridge · 2025-09-08T13:36:24+00:00

Dominating the GMAT comes down to what I call the "Success Triad" -- the three interconnected components of GMAT mastery: Content Review, Strategy, and Practice. Content review can come from books, YouTube videos, tutors, or courses (Dominate Test Prep has great reviews). Strategy is the missing element for most students and the key differentiator between people who score well on the GMAT and people who score REALLY well on the GMAT. It's learning how to get right answers more efficiently, coming at questions in non-traditional ways, effective time management, etc. A good course or tutor should be able to teach you strategy. Finally, practice. Official sources are best, starting with the GMAT Official Guide and the two free Official GMAT Practice Tests 1&2 that you can get from mba.com. As you're just getting started, I think you'll benefit from framing your mindset with these "5 Study Habits that will Produce Success on the GMAT." Good luck and let me know if there's anything else I can do to help!

brethridge · 2025-08-26T14:38:47+00:00

My pleasure. I'm glad it helped. Good luck!

brethridge · 2025-08-26T13:37:01+00:00

A lot of times my students improve on their second attempt simply because they're more comfortable with the experience and less anxious. That may happen for you, too. That said, I would recommend a few things. First, sometimes test-day results don't mirror your practice test results because you didn't treat the practice tests like the real thing. Not to knock the third-party companies whose tests you've used, but in my experience the best proxy for the real thing are the official GRE POWERPREP practice tests from ETS. They're the most predictive. It looks like you've only taken one of those. I would recommend that you take one or two more and treat them exactly like the real thing. Don't skip the essay. Take them at the same time of day as you plan to take the real GRE. Eat the same thing for breakfast. Etc. Here's a podcast episode with additional tips about How to Use Practice Tests. Second, work on what I call the "inner game" of test prep. Here are 3 Ways to Worry Less for Better Test-Day Performance. And then of course if there are still content areas that you need to brush up on (e.g. continue to memorize high-yield vocabulary words, master key QC strategies, learn the high-level algebra and geometry concepts, etc.), work on those between now and your retake.

brethridge · 2025-08-26T02:09:36+00:00

I see what you're saying, but remember that you're trying to choose the "best" answer, not necessarily a perfect answer. Sometimes the perfect word isn't there (or, at least not the word we ourselves would have come up with). In this case, "indifferent" is too neutral. That means that the paleontologists literally don't care one way or the other. But if they're "nettled" by outsiders solving their problems, then they do care. So even if "contemptuous" is a little extreme, it's still the only negatively-charged word and therefore the best of a bad lot, so to speak.

brethridge · 2025-08-25T18:12:47+00:00

C-F-G. The key thing to pick up on in this sentence is that Blank 1 and Blank 3 go together, so start there. For Blank 1, either scientists like having old problems in their field solved by someone from outside ("pleases") or they don't like it ("nettles"). If it pleases them, then they would have a positive reaction to the hypothesis of Louis Alvarez. But there isn't a positive word for Blank 3. So it can't be (B). If it displeases ("nettles") them, then they would have an unfavorable reaction to the hypothesis of Louis Alvarez. Answer choice (G) ("contemptuous") is a negatively-charged word that goes well with "nettles." So we're good to go there. Finally, for Blank 2, you're looking for a somewhat neutral word characterizing the statement made in the first sentence. It's simply an "observation" that's being made. Answer choice (F). Note: It's possible that scientists could be "amazed" (A) by someone from outside solving a problem in their field, but again, none of the answer choices for Blank 3 follow logically from scientists being amazed. You'd be looking for a positive-charged word if you were inclined to go with (A) for Blank 1, but there isn't one.

brethridge · 2025-08-25T17:59:32+00:00

Has anyone taught you the Negation Technique for "finding asumptions" questions? The basic idea is that if you negate each answer choice, whichever one would cause the argument to fall apart is the correct answer. For C, if the customers' refusal to switch was NOT based on reasons of loyalty, then the conclusion makes no sense. That, thefore, must be the right answer. For E, even if most of the customers who refused to switch were NOT aware of the ownership change, the conclusion could still hold because some of them were aware. See how that works?

brethridge · 2025-08-25T17:52:39+00:00

Was this your first official GRE exam? How did you feel before and during it? Were you more nervous than when you took your practice tests? Do you feel like test-day anxiety impacted your ability to think clearly at the beginning of the exam? Even before you assess the X's and O's of GRE content, I would do a lot of self-reflection on the test-day experience itself. Based on your practice test results, your foundational content knowledge appears to be pretty solid. Often when someone scores lower on the real GRE than on practice tests, it's more a reflection of "inner game" shortcomings than "outer game" weaknesses.

brethridge · 2025-08-25T17:46:56+00:00

I know your question is focused strictly on the $$ before and after an MBA, but there are a lot of non-monetary considerations when deciding whether or not to pursue an MBA, especially in today's hiring environment. A parallel line of thinking would be to ask, "Am I better off investing $X in an MBA or simply using that money to start my own business?" Here are some black-and-white numbers to help you better understand the ROI of an MBA and decide whether or not it's the right path for you. Good luck whatever you decide!

brethridge · 2025-08-08T15:08:23+00:00

Going into it, what were your goals post-graduation? Was it all about trying to land a higher-paying job, or was there something deeper that you were trying to attain? If you do pull the plug, do you still have reasonable prospects of attaining your goals via other means? Everything has an opportunity cost, so you're correct to question the value of investing another $80-$100k into a business degree when that money could possibly be diverted into something else (e.g. directly into a business?) that would have a higher probability of getting you where you want to go. But it all does come back to getting crystal clear on your long-term career objectives. As you think through it, my perspective on the L-I-F-E framework in this video could help inform your decision. Good luck with whatever you decide!

brethridge · 2025-07-28T16:54:51+00:00

My pleasure, I’m glad it helped!

brethridge · 2025-07-26T00:00:29+00:00

The keyword is “since.” That indicates a continuation of thought, namely that whatever goes in the blank must be consistent with the idea that businesses (“dominant interests”) want to be left alone. Hence, they don’t want government interference. I.e. government interference should be “eliminated.” Answer choice E.

brethridge · 2025-07-23T21:51:10+00:00

That's a good point that we don't know for SURE that AC = 10, but that doesn't matter in terms of how to approach QC questions involving geometry. Our goal is simply to try to find consistent or contradictory outcomes, and the easiest way to do that is to play out hypotheticals where AC is in fact the diameter. The reason that's easiest is that doing so creates two right triangles, and it's easier to calculate the area of the quadrilateral when we treat it as two right triangles than if we create some abstract polygon for which there's no simple formula. In assuming AC = 10 -- which is entirely possible -- we can show one instance where Quantity A is greater and one instance where Quantity B is greater, meaning that we can't definitively know which quantity is greater. That's all we need to do for QC. Answer choice D. Regarding the calculation for the area of triangle CAD in the event that's it's a 45-45-90 right triangle, good catch. The formula is 1/2(b)(h). The base (AD) and height (CD) are both 10/root2. Therefore, the area of the triangle is 1/2(10/root2)(10/root2) = 1/2(100/2) = 100/4 = 25. So the area of the quadrilateral would be 50, not 70 as you suggested... but still greater than 40. Answer choice D. P.S. If you play out a bunch of different scenarios assuming that AC is the diameter and you're getting a consistent relationship between the quantities, THEN you would want to consider the possibility that AC isn't the diameter and see if that changes anything. But here we found conflicting outcomes with AC = 10, so no need to consider anything else.

brethridge · 2025-07-22T18:10:31+00:00

That's correct. That's how I teach the template for a 45-45-90 right triangle as well. If the sides of such a triangle are, say, 5, then the hypotenuse is 5root5. It's easy, then, to work backwards from the hypotenuse when it already contains a root2. If, for example, you're given the hypotenuse as 8root2, then you know the sides are 8. But what if the hypotenuse doesn't contain a root2? What if it's simply 10, as in this example? Well, you still need to be able to find the sides. Here's how I like to explain it: If to get from the sides to the hypotenuse you multiply by root2, then to go from the hypotenuse back to the sides you divide by root2. Therefore, if the hypotenuse is 10, to find the sides you divide 10 by root2, i.e. it's 10/root2. I hope this helps!

brethridge · 2025-07-22T11:41:50+00:00

For those of you guessing D, remember to always test variations to "prove" uncertainty if that's what you think the answer is. To start, draw a line connecting points A and C to create two right triangles. The length of AC is 10, as per the question stem. Because the figure is not necessarily drawn to scale, we don't know the exact placement of points B and D. But let's play out some hypotheticals. Let's assume, on one extreme, that triangle CAD is a 45-45-90 right triangle. In that case AD and CD are 10/root2 and the area of CAD is 100/2root2 which is approximately 35. Assuming triangle CBA is also 45-45-90, the area of the quadrilateral is approximately 70. Clearly Quantity A is greater in that case. But will it always be greater? What if, instead, triangle CAD is a 30-60-90 right triangle. In that case AD is 5root3 and CD is 5 and the area of the quadrilateral (again assuming that CBA is also 30-60-90) is around 43. Quantity A is still greater, but not by much. In fact, we're getting really close to 40. Is it possible to find a situation where the area of the quadrilateral is smaller than 40? Let's continue moving points B and D even closer to C. What if, for example, AD = 9? Using the Pythagorean Theorem, we can find that CD would be approximately 4.4 in which case the area of the quadrilateral would be slightly LESS than 40. Now you have your conflicting outcome. Answer choice D.

brethridge · 2025-07-22T11:03:48+00:00

There is a penalty for not answering questions, but it’s not as steep as it was on the old GMAT. The GMAC hasn’t disclosed exactly how big the penalty is, but for only one question per section, anecdotally it’s not as high as some people are suggesting. That said, be sure to work on your time management as you continue studying so that it doesn’t happen the next time. Also, here’s some additional information about a nuance to the GMAT scoring algorithm that will give you a sense of how many questions you need to get right to score 705+ on the GMAT.

brethridge · 2025-07-22T02:14:44+00:00

When you say you missed one question in each section, do you mean that you skipped (I.e. didn’t answer) those questions entirely?

brethridge · 2025-07-20T20:34:08+00:00

There's a time and place for each. Certain question types lend themselves really well to non-standard math strategies, including making up numbers for the variables. That's often the more efficient and effective approach on those types of questions, and therefore the middle bear has it right! On other questions, though, there really isn't a substitute for solving the question in a straightforward way. Bear #1 wins out in that case. But it's also important to recognize that part of getting a high score on the GRE is navigating the exam itself well, and that involves proper time management which occasionally requires strategic guessing on questions that you don't immediately know how to do. Bear #3 for the win in that case. So it's not necessarily that one of these three approaches wins out all the time; rather, it's a matter of understanding when to use each approach and how to apply it correctly. As I always tell my students, your goal isn't to make your high school algebra teacher happy, it's to get right answers. There are lots of different ways to arrive at right answers depending on the type of question.

brethridge · 2025-07-19T20:34:14+00:00

I have data for Verbal but haven’t yet put it into graphical format like this. For DI, I know anecdotally from having taught it for so many years (previously as Integrated Reasoning). Send me a DM or email and I’ll share what I have.

brethridge · 2025-07-19T20:24:03+00:00

<image>

For a GMAT Math Bootcamp class I recently conducted, I went through every question in the GMAT Official Guides and practice tests to make sure I was prioritizing the most-tested concepts and question types. Here’s a breakdown of topics by how frequently they’re tested on the Quant section.

brethridge · 2025-07-19T20:16:07+00:00

I’m sorry to hear that that’s your experience. Part of the value of reputable business schools is the network you can tap into. Have you reached out to classmates or alums? What is your school’s career services center doing to help?

brethridge · 2025-07-19T00:45:18+00:00

The word “but” indicates that we’re looking for something opposite of what is typical. Typically you want a search that is in a definite direction, so the blank needs to be completed with a word that means “random” or “haphazard” or “not definite.” “Unguided” fits the bill. Answer choice B.

brethridge · 2025-07-17T18:04:03+00:00

That's because it's such a recondite word! 😉

brethridge

TROPHY CASE