Solving a GMAT problem isn’t the skill. Solving it in 2:00, under pressure, is.
I tutor the GMAT one-to-one, with a focus on non-native English speakers and people from non-technical backgrounds. We train the reasoning you need to perform when the clock is running.
Ayham Shakra · 10+ years tutoring · ★★★★★ 5.0 from 28 reviewsMy GMAT tutoring helped people get into
Everyone has the same official guide and the same mock tests.Most people practise the wrong thing with them.
- ×Untimed questions, one at a time, answer checked after each
- ×Learning whether you were right, not why you were slow
- ×One good session mistaken for progress
- ✓Recognise, decide, execute — in about two minutes, consistently
No time to introspect. If the reasoning tool you need isn’t retrievable almost instantly, it’s too late.
A great GMAT tutor is a lot more than a 99th percentile score.
The GMAT is hard because you are competing against a vast segment of committed professionals who want a great GMAT score as much as you do. To dramatically improve your score you have to become better than a corresponding segment of those test takers. If every single resource available to you is available to them as well, how do you gain an edge?
You have to dramatically improve the quality and speed of your quantitative and verbal reasoning. That means four things, and they stack in this order:
Reading comprehension and basic maths. Weak foundations cap everything above them.
Not recognising a concept — being able to prove it to yourself, and apply it.
Quantitative, verbal and logical. The part that runs before you start writing.
Last, not first. Efficiency training on weak foundations produces speed without accuracy.
A 99th percentile score is a must-have for any GMAT tutor, but it is not enough. Effecting change in others requires the patience and empathy to understand how someone else thinks — and to provide the guidance and material that makes real change in each of those domains.
How the score jumps in the advertisements are made.
Test prep secrets, tips and tricks, alleged proprietary methods are irrelevant. It is really very simple. To dramatically change your GMAT score you have to become better than others at the GMAT. That starts with understanding how you actually solve problems under timed conditions, identifying weaknesses, and developing strengths through frequent drilling.
The dirtiest secret of test prep is that wild success stories are very rare and heavily promoted.
Ask how those numbers are produced. There are two mechanisms and neither is a secret.
Selection
These companies sell to ten thousand people a year. Statistically, a large number of them were going to hit a high percentile anyway. Those are the results that get marketed.
A botched first mock
The starting score in the story is usually a first attempt where the candidate mismanaged their time and had no idea what they were doing. That was never the real starting point, so the jump was never real either.
What is realistic: if you are scoring in the low-to-high 400s or low 500s and you want 645 or high 600s, expect at least six months, often eight. Most candidates need more than one attempt, because progress is not linear.
And be careful what you practise on
Unofficial questions — the ones designed by prep companies — do more harm than good, in three ways. They are artificially difficult rather than nuanced. They are not tested in a standardised environment. And some are cloned from official mock tests, which means when you meet the real question later you have already seen what made it hard. Your mock score goes up. Your real score doesn’t.
Which of these looks like your situation?
Not all prep journeys are the same. Some are straightforward and fast, others are tedious and complicated. Real timeframes, real detours.
Happy at 640, but I saw potential in verbal and advised another attempt. Hit 720 with 99th-percentile verbal, then a full scholarship.
Consulting profile, very strong quant. Timed drills to make the verbal score consistent rather than occasionally good.
Balanced profile, dedicated and smart, but no culture of standardised testing behind her. It took time. She got there.
Methodical consultant who struggled in verbal, with no official mocks left. We lowered the stakes by planning for two attempts from the start.
Uncommon in two months. Reasoning was already strong — anxiety was the blocker. Verbal drills built elimination consistency.
The first mock was botched, so the real starting point was 530 — exactly the pattern described above. A lot of work on stress and on approaching problems consistently.
You have probably tried already.
Most people who contact me are not starting from zero. They have bought a course, worked through it, and watched the score sit where it was.
Your maths education stopped around fifteen
You can follow the concepts when they are explained. What you cannot do is retrieve them instantly under time, because the foundations underneath them were never solid — and no amount of technique compensates for that.
You read English fluently, but not precisely
You understand the passage. This is not just a vocabulary problem and it is not fixed by learning question types.
You have plateaued across two or three attempts
You have finished the material, your accuracy looks reasonable, and your score has not moved. Usually this means what you have been measuring was never measuring the thing that decides your score.
You are preparing around a full-time job
Ten to fifteen hours a week is what most people actually have. That is enough — it simply changes the calendar, and the plan is built around the hours you have rather than the hours a brochure assumes.
If you are scoring comfortably above the 90th percentile already and want a short sharpening, that is a different job and I will tell you so on the call.
Sprints, driven by your journey, profile and goals
A twenty-four week plan is not a meaningful object. It has to be chunked into intervals short enough that what you do next depends on what actually happened last.
Diagnostic — find out where you actually are
A study plan that targets your weaknesses and doubles down on your strengths. The drill routine matches your work schedule and the hours you genuinely have each week — not a schedule that assumes you have nothing else on.
Drill — work to autonomy
Frequent, targeted practice on official material at your level, so you develop reasoning you can retrieve instantly under time. Autonomy is the goal: being able to work through a problem without reaching for the solution.
Assess — check whether it worked
This is the part everyone skips. Completion rates and accuracy percentages tell you almost nothing. We assess with a mock, a real test, or in class — and change the plan when the evidence says to.
Seven rules, and they are harder than they look.
I give every student the same guidelines. Almost nobody manages all seven.
- Read problems to understand, not to solve.
- Don’t obsess over metrics. If you’re checking analytics every other day, that’s a symptom, not diligence.
- Embrace uncertainty.
- Don’t compare yourself to others. You have no idea what they did before they started.
- Lose the urgency and accept the learning process.
- Know a concept — don’t know of a concept. The difference is vast.
- To know something, learn how to teach it.
Anyone who got a good GMAT score had strong foundations, a learner’s mindset, the right materials practised with discipline, a mature acceptance of their weaknesses, mental stamina — and a way of measuring progress that was actually measuring something.
Ayham Shakra
I’ve worked closely with smart candidates who had two problems: they were non-native English speakers, and they came from non-technical backgrounds and so lacked mathematical rigour. Over ten years I’ve built a learning method — and the tools behind it — that pull the levers which actually move performance on a timed test.
You have no time to introspect on the GMAT. If the reasoning tool a problem needs isn’t retrievable almost instantly, it’s already too late. A strong performance means channelling many mental tasks into a coherent whole inside two minutes per question.
Learning that takes time, sometimes more than you’d like. So the programme is built with that in mind: enough resources to gain mastery, for enough time to make progress, and a little more just in case.
Real stories, real results
It focuses on strengthening your foundations and how you approach the exam, not repeating questions over and over.
I’m not a native English speaker and needed to completely reconfigure how I processed information and how I read. Ayham designed a customised strategy.
I had a demanding job with frequent travel and wasn’t sure how to balance preparation. Every lesson had a clear focus.
He understands the weakness of each student and prepares a personalised plan to attack each weakness… he doesn’t teach you — he lets you solve, sees you in action, and recommends improvements based on what you actually did.
I reached out after first trying alone, feeling super stuck and frustrated. His method focuses on how best to approach the test and how to deal with the anxiety of the exam.
In their own words
Short videos from students recorded after their test.
Online, wherever you are.
Almost everyone I work with is online, and it works well — the method doesn’t depend on being in the same room. Sessions can run in English or Spanish.
GMAT tutoring in Barcelona.
I’m based in Barcelona, and if you’re here, in-person sessions are available on request. If you’re preparing for an MBA at IESE or ESADE and would rather sit across a table while we work through problems, say so on the call.
Start where you are
If you’re unsure which fits, book the free consultation first — that call exists partly so neither of us commits to the wrong thing.
Diagnostic deep dive
We work out where your time should actually go and which resources to use — so you stop spending official material before you’re ready for it.
Quick sprint
A thorough analysis of strengths and weaknesses, then a detailed study plan, with three sessions along the way to assess progress and change course if needed.
Full 8-week sprint
Eight weeks solving problems together, assessing as we go, plus 24/7 communication so doubts get answered when they come up, not a week later.
Official guides and mock tests aren’t included. The Official Guide is about $40 on Amazon and two free mock tests are on mba.com. Platform access stays open for a year, whether or not you renew.
Before you book.
Anything else? Book a free consultation and ask me directly.
How is this different from a prep course?
A course delivers the same content to everyone. Here the plan is built from your diagnostic and changes when your results say it should. The other difference is assessment: a course can tell you what you completed, but not whether your reasoning under time has changed. That’s the thing that decides your score, and it’s what we measure.
Which package should I choose?
Start with the diagnostic deep dive if you don’t yet know where you stand — it’s designed to answer exactly that, and what it finds carries into whichever sprint follows. If you already have a recent official mock and a clear target, the quick sprint is usually the right size. If you’ve plateaued across attempts, take the full sprint; the problem is rarely fixed in three sessions.
Do you guarantee a score increase?
No. Many candidates make a lot of progress, some don’t. I’ll identify what you need to improve, the strengths you can leverage, and how to get to competition mode by test day — but the nature of this exam means no honest tutor can promise you a number. Anyone who does is selling you something.
What if I don’t like the class?
For one-to-one, book a consultation first so you experience the dynamic before paying anything. For group coaching, you can request a full refund minus processing fees before the third session.
How many hours a week will I need?
Ten to fifteen is realistic alongside a full-time job, and that’s what most plans here assume. More is possible but doesn’t compress the timeline proportionally — there’s a limit to how much new reasoning you can install in a day, and review takes roughly twice as long as solving.
Are official guides and mock tests included?
No. The Official Guide is around $40 on Amazon. Two mock tests are free on mba.com and four more can be bought in packs of two. I’ll tell you when to use each one, which matters more than owning them — they’re finite and most people spend them too early.
Do I lose platform access if I don’t renew?
No. You keep access to the platform and learning tools for a year.
Online or in person?
Online by default, which is how nearly everyone works with me. In person is available in Barcelona on request.
Not sure where your score is stuck?
A short call is usually enough to tell you what’s actually holding it there — and whether I’m the right person to help. It’s free and takes about half an hour.
