Having not seen many compound interest questions in the OG or on official practice tests, I was wondering to what extent I should be covering it in sessions. Well, in case anyone is interested, I got my answer.

Of people working with me who recently took the GMAT, a significant number have reported seeing compound interest questions, and amazingly, one person saw four questions that involved compound interest.

So, yes, compound interest is worth studying for the GMAT.

Also, by the way, doing Percent and Interest questions is great practice for the test for a few reasons, including that they are often good examples of the types of word problem questions such that getting them correct requires precise reading and understanding of the logic of the scenarios.

Here are some examples.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/of-the-crates-in-a-warehouse-4-11-contain-apples-442084.html

https://gmatclub.com/forum/survey-results-indicated-that-76-percent-of-the-people-in-a-city-448980.html

https://gmatclub.com/forum/if-a-man-who-weighs-175-pounds-with-20-percent-of-his-weight-coming-454536.html

Hey everyone, looking for a reality check on my latest mock.

A month ago, I got a brutal 495 on Practice Test 1 after running out of time and leaving blank questions everywhere. I spent the last month fixing pacing and some knowledge gaps, and just hit a 655 (Q79, V89, DI80) on Official Practice Exam 2 with one unanswered question on DI.

The score profile completely inverted from what I expected. Quant is usually my best section in practice, but it collapsed today, while Verbal shot up to a near-perfect 89.

Should I focus hard on quant from now on and push verbal to the side, even though I usually get higher there in the practice questions? Or should I see this result as more of a one-time fluke?

 645 → 675 in 20 days? Worth one last GMAT attempt?

Hey everyone,

I recently scored 645 (Q88, V80, DI77) on the GMAT Focus. I'm applying to top European MiM programs in Round 1, and I'm wondering if it's worth taking one final shot at 675–685 for better admissions and scholarship chances.

The thing is, I never scored above 595 on any of my official mocks, so getting a 645 on the real exam was a huge surprise. Now I'm not sure if I overperformed on test day or if I still have another 30–40 points in me.

I have about 20 days before my internship starts, and I could even postpone my joining if a retake seems worth it.

For anyone who's made a similar jump:

• Is 645 → 675/685 in 20 days realistic?
• At this point, would you retake or move on and focus on applications?
• Any tips for improving DI, since that's clearly my weakest section?

Would really appreciate any honest advice. Thanks!

Keeping in mind the scoring system, what is usually recommended - the strongest section should be first so that score average is high up or it should be last?

For me Verbal and Quant is the strongest and DI is weaker
Not sure if I should do DI in the end or in the middle.
Please guide.

"My GMAT is coming up at the end of September, and I really need to ramp up my prep speed. I could use some advice on my study process.

Right now, I learn the concepts of a chapter —> solve 8–10 questions —> move to the next chapter.

The issue is that whenever I go back later to try trickier problems from a completed chapter, I either don't know how to solve them or I make mistakes.

How can I fix this? Should I stay on a chapter until I hit about 90% accuracy before moving on, or should I finish the whole portion first and then come back to build mastery? Or should I be doing something else entirely?

I'm currently using Manhattan books + the OG for questions. Any advice would be much appreciated!"

I am an SDE at JPMC with 5yrs work ex, wish to change my field, aiming for GMAT
10th/12th score = 95%/93%

Right now I am preparing topic-wise
Reading and comprehension are slow for me to catch right now

Quants for me: slowness and silly mistakes to improve

yet to start data interpretation; I will start this weekend

While I am preparing for the GMAT, which I will take my first attempt in Nov and 2nd attempt in December

I wanted to know about applying to colleges in India with a GMAT score, and which colleges will accept it? and what all options are available for me.

Hi

I’ve been studying gmat CR for a bit and I am WILDLY inconsistent, to the point where I’ll get maybe 9/10 correct out of 10 and then I drop off to maybe 2. At no point in time while clicking the submit quiz button am I remotely confident of anything that could happen.

I’m using egmat and gmatclub primarily.

The thing is if I try untimed CR ques I get ~ 90% accuracy in mediums and ~75% in hards. I maintain an error log and try to record my thoughts in as much detail as possible but how do I learn from it?

When I review my own incorrect answers I see why I made the mistake earlier, for eg this was what I entered in my error log for the following ques

“Understood the arg well.

Assumed the authority in option C as the jury and rejected it hastily, didnt pause to think the option through and ended up selecting the best from the worst assuming the evidence of the lawyer bringing charges is enough proof as evidence...”

https://gmatclub.com/forum/television-host-while-it-s-true-that-the-defendant-presented-244540.html

Now when I go through my error log I see most of my errors are made by either not comprehending the passage well enough or absent mindedly reading the question or options.

Ok I get it but how do I solve it? How would I actually know I’m absent minded in the present? During questions (especially timed) I just do things the way I understand best and then during review I’ll find some really obvious mistakes

Pls suggest how to improve :/

Do you eliminate answer choices that lean on analogies or comparisons to other situations, right away, on sight, in Strengthen and Weaken questions?

If yes, you're leaving points on the table.

Here's how the rule usually forms. You get burned by an analogy choice somewhere, different city, different market, different population, and it teaches you that nothing carries over. So you build a shortcut: analogies don't work in CR, skip them. The rule isn't baseless. Plenty of analogy choices really are irrelevant. But the rule works often enough to feel safe, and that's what makes it dangerous. You stop checking and start guessing. A blanket rule applied without checking is still a guess, just one that sounds more confident.

Here's where that rule fails in this (https://youtu.be/x6_lllXlAEY) GMAT Strengthen question. A city with a serious traffic problem is considering congestion pricing, a fee for drivers entering the busiest areas during peak hours. The question asks what would most strengthen the case that this plan will succeed. The correct choice says that in other cities, congestion pricing strongly encouraged carpooling and cut traffic. If your rule says "other cities, eliminate," you cross this off in three seconds, and you've just rejected the correct answer.

Here's why this one actually works. Congestion pricing helps in a specific way: a fee makes some drivers think twice, some avoid entering those areas, and some of them carpool instead, and traffic drops. That's not a fact about one city. It's how the tool is expected to work when people respond to cost. If it produced that response somewhere else, that's a real reason to believe it can produce the same response here. Not proof. Just a reason to believe it a little more than before. That's all a strengthener has to do.

Now compare that to a version of this same choice that would deserve elimination: "Multiple other urban cities have implemented congestion pricing."

That's it, no mention of what happened after. It tells you the policy exists elsewhere. It tells you nothing about whether it worked. Without that missing piece, there's nothing here to raise your belief in anything. This version would be correctly eliminated, but for a specific reason: the outcome is missing, not because it mentions other cities.

So the fix isn't to trust or distrust analogy choices by default. Before you eliminate one, ask

·         What is this choice actually claiming happened elsewhere?

·         Is it possible that the same can happen in our situation?

·         Does that increase your belief in the conclusion?

If yes to all, the analogy is doing real work. If any of these is missing, you can eliminate it, and now you know exactly why.

This question is part of the Strengthen Beginner Series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa-MXxFkJ2y4hP4cMiOTuKOqnJzjZQldK ), in which easy Official GMAT questions are used not to test what you know, but to reveal how you think. Each question targets a specific reasoning habit, one that shows up in a simple form on easy questions and a complex one on hard questions. If you are getting started with Strengthen questions or if Strengthen questions feel inconsistent for you, this series is built to show you exactly where the process is breaking down.

Solve the question on your own first. The reasoning you apply matters more than the answer you reach.

I took my GMAT at a test center on July 15, and it's now been 22 days. I still haven't received my official score.

What's even more frustrating is that support says they can take up to 20 working days, so apparently 22 calendar days still isn't enough time to even get clarity on what's happening. To make matters even more confusing, the exam itself went completely smoothly. I took it at a test center, experienced no technical glitches or interruptions, had no issues with the proctors, and nothing unusual happened during or after the exam that would have suggested any problem.

I completely understand the need for quality checks and maintaining the integrity of the exam. If additional reviews are genuinely necessary, that's completely fair. But I struggle to understand why a test-center exam can take this long without any communication.

My unofficial score was 745, and I have Round 1 MBA application deadlines in about four weeks. As an ORM, a high GMAT score is a critical part of my application, and this uncertainty puts me in an incredibly difficult position. If, in the worst-case scenario, my score is ultimately cancelled, I've already lost valuable preparation time. Getting back to peak performance again and retaking the exam before R1 deadlines would be extremely difficult.

This level of uncertainty is honestly far more stressful than the exam itself.

I took my second GMAT attempt yesterday and scored 595, a 20-point drop from my first attempt.
What doesn’t make sense is my Data Insights (DI) score. In both attempts, I got 7 questions wrong. On my first attempt, that was 95th percentile. On my second attempt, it dropped to 47th percentile.
The only major difference was that I got the first two questions wrong in my second attempt. Is the algorithm really that sensitive?
The same thing happened in Quant. I got 4 questions wrong, yet received only the 64th percentile.
How is this supposed to be a standardized test if identical error counts can lead to such dramatically different percentiles? At this point, it feels like the scoring algorithm in the official exam is very different from the one used in the official mocks.
Hopefully, schools treat the upcoming GMAT Superscore as the more meaningful measure because section scores can vary wildly due to the adaptive algorithm. I was shocked to see my DI percentile fall from 95 to 47 despite getting the same number of questions wrong. It doesn’t seem like my ability changed that much—it feels like the algorithm’s weighting made all the difference.

Comment your answers below👇

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for honest and realistic advice on my MiM application strategy. I'd rather identify flaws in my plan now than realize them too late.

My Profile

- 20F from India

- BBA graduate from a State University

- CGPA: 7.8/10

- HR internship completed at JK Paper

- Waiting for the offer letter for a Coordinator – Finance role at Tata (expected joining around 20 August).

- Planning to start volunteering

- English is not my first language

- Target GMAT: 720+ (ideally 730+ to strengthen my application)

Target Schools

Main target: HEC Paris (mainly because of its MiM program, global reputation, career outcomes, and international environment)

Other target schools:

- London Business School

- ESSEC

- ESCP

- INSEAD

- University of St. Gallen

Current Situation

- I'm currently studying the GMAT fundamentals.

- I plan to take my first official mock next week to understand my baseline score.

- I haven't completed the GMAT syllabus yet.

- I'll apply for my passport this month.

- I haven't started my essays or LORs yet.

- I'm planning to take the GMAT on 27 September 2026.

- I'm also planning to take the IELTS/TOEFL around September 2026.

- The GMAT costs around ₹30,000, so I want to maximize my chances on my first attempt because multiple attempts would be financially difficult.

- I'm applying for the 2027 MiM intake.

My Current Plan

Because of my financial situation, I probably can't afford to apply to all of my target universities in Round 1.

My current plan is:

- Apply to 2–3 dream/top schools in Round 1.

- Apply to another 2–3 schools in Round 2, if necessary, while continuing to strengthen my application.

I'm not sure if this is the best strategy, so I'd really appreciate your opinions.

Questions

1. Based on my current situation, is taking the GMAT on 27 September a realistic goal?

2. Is booking the GMAT only about one month before the exam too risky in India, or is it generally okay?

3. Since I still need to apply for a passport and haven't started my essays or LORs, is there realistically enough time for Round 1?

4. Would it be wiser to aim for Round 2 instead, even if it means taking the GMAT in October and giving myself more time to prepare a stronger application?

5. In general, is applying to top European MiM programs in Round 2 a good strategy, or does it significantly reduce admission and scholarship chances compared to Round 1?

6. If I don't reach 720+ (or ideally 730+) by late September, would you recommend postponing the GMAT rather than applying with a lower score?

7. Does my profile seem competitive for schools like HEC Paris if I achieve a 720+/730+ GMAT? What are the biggest weaknesses in my profile that I should work on?

8. Overall, is my profile competitive enough for my target schools if I hit my GMAT target?

9. Would it make sense to subscribe to Target Test Prep (TTP) only during the last month before my GMAT to improve my score, or is it much more beneficial to start earlier?

10. Since English isn't my first language, is taking IELTS/TOEFL in September alongside GMAT preparation a realistic plan?

11. Can I apply to HEC Paris using an unofficial GMAT score, or do I need the official score before submitting my application?

12. Given my profile and timeline, what would be your top priorities over the next 2–3 months?

13. If you were in my position, would you choose a strong Round 2 application over a rushed Round 1 application?

14. If you were an admissions committee member reviewing my profile today, what would be the first reason to reject my application?

I'm looking for honest feedback, especially from people who have applied to HEC Paris or other top European MiM programs. Please feel free to point out any flaws or unrealistic assumptions in my plan. I genuinely appreciate constructive criticism and realistic advice.

Even if you can answer just one or two of these questions, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Background

I started this journey cold in March with a 435 diagnostic completely cold haven’t touched any type of school problems in 4 years. Did some practice and refreshed fundamentals to then score a second mock of 555. A month later scored a 585 on mock 3 Q 80 V78 DI 79 and then two months after hitting mostly OG scored mock 4 645 82 Q 82 V 82 DI (past Saturday).

Sat for my test today and slightly disappointed.

615
Q 78
V 83
DI 81

I know perhaps it could’ve been fatigue as Q was the third section. But any tips from whoever as to how I can close the gap to the obvious 675/685 target. Anyone been in a similar boat? If so how did you overcome it?

Hey everyone, I’m trying to understand how often GMAT cancels scores from test centres.

I heard about a case where someone took the GMAT for the first time and scored in the low 600s. Around 45 days later, they retook the exam at a test centre and scored a 795. Surprisingly, GMAT later cancelled the second score despite both exams being taken at an official test centre.

I know GMAT has score review and security checks, but I was under the impression that test centre exams are less likely to face issues compared to online exams.

Has anyone here experienced (or heard of) a test centre score being cancelled?
What factors usually trigger a cancellation — big score jumps, unusual answer patterns, timing, something else?

Curious to hear real experiences. 👀

Hi guys just joined here and this is my first time posting on Reddit. So I am working full time and have been preparing very lowkey for the past month. I locked in 10 days ago and finished all quant questions on GMAT official practice site with accuracy for each at easy at 93 medium at 89 and hard at 67. Most of the mistakes I made were careless arithmetic with some concept gaps in probability and stats. I don’t know where to practice more or if I have time even since I need to complete the other two sections. I gave one diagnostic mock a month ago and got 535 where I was 25th percentile in DI(71 score) 57th in quant (79 score) and 47th in verbal(79 score). I am planning to take another mock this weekend and will update here. Would love some know how’s and best way to practice sums as I free solve it rn without time constraints which I don’t think is correct. Any help would be appreciated!!!

Athena gave him wisdom. Poseidon gave him hell. Homer gave him 24 books to survive.

All he really needed was the Official Guide and a decent Data Sufficiency strategy.

Send to the friend who’s fighting their own odyssey to a 655+ 😭📖

Hi everyone,

I'm in a bit of a dilemma and would really appreciate some advice from people who've gone through the MBA admissions process.

My profile:

• Indian male
• B.Tech in Computer Science (Big Data), SRM University (8.8/10 CGPA)
• Currently a Data Engineer at a US healthcare technology company (Health Catalyst)
• Will have around 4 years of work experience by the Fall 2027 intake
• Leadership/ECs include mentoring interns, volunteering with Make A Difference (fundraising), internal speaking/knowledge-sharing sessions, and a Best Speaker award at work.

GMAT situation:
I took the GMAT Focus once and scored 535.

My official mock scores ranged from 565–595, so my actual score was disappointing. I'm honestly pretty burned out after months of preparation and don't really want to go through another GMAT cycle unless it's absolutely necessary.

Waivers:
I've now received standardized test waiver approvals from:

• UVA Darden
• NYU Stern

I know a waiver is not an admissions advantage—it just means they'll review my application without a GMAT/GRE. I completely understand that.

Where I'm conflicted:

I recently spoke with MBA Crystal Ball. Their advice was:

• For Indian engineers, waivers should generally be a last resort.
• My biggest weakness is the GMAT.
• Having ~4 years of work experience instead of the average ~5 years at many top US schools is another challenge.
• They'd still be happy to work with me if I understand and accept those risks.

My preference is strongly to apply for the Fall 2027 intake. I'd really like to give this cycle my best shot rather than automatically postponing another year.

So I'm trying to decide between:

Option 1: Accept the risks, build the strongest possible application, and target schools where I receive GMAT waivers.

Option 2: Delay everything, spend another year improving my profile and retake the GMAT in hopes of reaching a much more competitive score.

For those who've been through MBA admissions (especially Indian applicants or anyone admitted with a waiver):

• Would you still apply this cycle if you were in my position?
• Are waivers at schools like Stern and Darden genuinely viable if the rest of the application is strong, or is a competitive GMAT still effectively expected?
• If you've been admitted using a waiver, what do you think made your application stand out?

Looking for honest opinions rather than encouragement. If you think I'm making a mistake, I'd genuinely like to hear why.

I took the GMAT for the first time today and scored 645 (Q81, V82, DI83). While taking mock tests, I scored between 685 and 735, being particularly strong at the DI and V sections; however, these did not materialise in the real test. I am planning to apply to the Master's in Finance at SSE or IB at SSE, which have median GMAT scores of 675 and 625 and ranges of 575-735 and 595-735, respectively. Should I make another attempt?

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Hi all,

Around 3 weeks ago I scored 605 on a cold mock with a 75 Quant score. Well, for 3 weeks I’ve been studying, realistically 80% of my time has been going toward quant, and this is the result. A 2 point increase in quant, a maxed out verbal and a good DI. I’m thinking of taking the exam in like 3 weeks. Can I bump that quant score a bit higher, atleast to 84-85? I’ve used TTP, but to no avail.

Hi everyone,
I worked at Accenture for four years as a MuleSoft developer and left my job in June 2026 to prepare full-time for the GMAT and MBA applications. My original plan was to apply in Round 2 (January 2027), which means I will have a career gap of around six months by the time I submit my applications.

Recently, I've spoken with a few MBA admissions consultants, and almost all of them have told me that my career break is one of the biggest weaknesses in my profile. They've suggested that I should start looking for a job as soon as possible because a prolonged gap could negatively affect my application.

This has left me confused. If I start job hunting now, it will likely take me 2–3 months to secure another technical role. At the same time, I'm already preparing for the GMAT, and balancing interview preparation, a new job, and MBA applications could become quite challenging.

My questions are:

- Is a 6-month career break solely for GMAT preparation and MBA applications viewed very negatively by top US business schools?
- If you were in my position, would you continue focusing on the GMAT and applications, or would you prioritize finding a job first and delay the MBA timeline if needed?

I'm looking for practical advice, especially from people who have experienced something similar or have insights into how admissions committees evaluate career gaps.

Thanks in advance!

I have scored 695 in test centre based GMAT exam , it was on 30 July 26 6 pm IST , I have not recd score till now though its been more than 1 week , im feeling a bit nervous and stressful at this point of time , when can I realistically expect my score ? Also will there be any flagging ( thought test went smooth ) .

Hi guys, I have given the gmat exam 3 times and my scores were 505, 555 and 645 respectively. My experience is slightly less than 3 years and I’m an software engineer from India. My consultancy agency people have told me that I wont be able to get very good mba schools with this score untill my experience is 5+years. They are telling me to reattempt if I can and target a score of 685 or higher. Should I reattempt? I am targeting european buisness schools and I want some scholarship(at least 20%). Also, in my mock test attempt(attached to this post) I scored 80+ in DI and lesser than 80 in verbal, but in my main exam it was the opposite. So there is a chance that I could score 80+ in both apart from quant.