710 (Q-50, V-37)

There are two things that I followed perfectly from GMAT Club
i) to follow the rule of not studying the day before the exam
ii) the GMAT Snacks post!!

Like most of you around here, was really struggling with pushing my score beyond 650.. Out of the 6 MGMAT, 4 Kaplan and 4 GMAT Prep(2 tests taken twice), i crossed 650 just thrice !! was starting to get nervous when I got 640 and 620 on GMAT Prep on the final week before the exam, but I knew that SCs were my weak-spots, followed by CRs and RCs. But today, just an hour after my exam, I am glad that I got 710 on my real GMAT.

So how did I prepare
I started preparing for GMAT a couple of months back.. I used to study for 2 hrs atleast a day with the OG during my early days.. within a month I completed the full OG and Verbal OG. Working in a software concern does no good to ur preparations. So, I told my team I would be needing leave for 3 full weeks(15 working days to be precise) and somehow got that done. This was very important for me, because I had no thoughts about my prioritizing my studies and work.. just had to concentrate on studying.. It was these 3 weeks when I did work really hard. Doesn't mean that I studied 10 hrs a day, but a minimum of 4 hrs a day atleast.. I was really strong in Q, hit 49 consistently.. so i was concentrating more on my verbal.. 2 weeks before my exam it was time to prepare for my AWA. bumped on the chineseburned thread posted by bb in a forum.. Its an awesome guide to get started with AWA and I followed it literally for my exam.. Also, I took the final 4 tests(2 MGMAT, 2 GMAT Prep) with AWA. It helps you analyze your stamina.

Some pointers

1. I used the GMAT club forums extensively for CR and SC. I usually open two windows, one for CR and one for SC. Do 2 problems of SC, switch over to CR do a couple of them, come back to SC and so on.. the reason is because thats how the real GMAT is.. You very rarely get 3-4 questions of SC/CR straight..Secondly, i found that doing so was little refreshing to my brain instead of constantly looking for grammatical errors in a sentence/flaws in the reasoning..

2. For people who are little lazy, this might be a good one. On my mobile phone, i had this in my screen background.. "Study HARD. Crack 700. Destination *ur fav univ name*".. believe me, this works. every morning when i feel lazy to get up, i look at it and the next moment I am up brushing my teeth.. it works. period.

3. During the breaks in my real exam, before entering back to the test, i told this in my mind "let me kick this stuff.. its now or never" saying it to you with force, gives you immense confidence and you are ready to face the challenge....

4. Finally, pray for luck to favor you on the day of the test. I know people who had put their heart-and-soul in this GMAT preparation, but failed to make it to the 700 and I also know people(including me) who have not put so much of hard work (in comparison to those guys) crossing 700 quite easily.


Last but definitely not the least, there were few guys who helped me out with this preparation. So thanks to all those who posted questions, and those who answered them in the discussions.

Thanks specifically to bb, nusmavrik, noboru and tommy..

Cheers,
Sridhar