Thanks Ravshonbek, and thanks to one and all on this forum. The forum was one of my main sources of preparation over the last 2 months. I started preparing for GMAT in right earnest from around mid september. Gave the Gmat Prep 1 without any preparation and got a 640. Like most of the other engineers, Verbal in general and SC in particular was my nemisis. Worked hard on my SC since, and took the help of the famed Manhattan SC. True to its reputation, the book was of a great help. However, I felt just reading the book would not help boost ones score. Its kind of a book that you need to keep referring in regular intervals, between practices to really understand its worth.
Guys, while practicing questions is of utmost importance, what we usually tend to neglect is to revise the questions we got wrong. There is no point in trying to practice as many questions as possible if we are not checking on our mistakes. So do not go all out to complete all the SC 1000 questions in 1 month or finish all the 25 challenges in a month. Instead devote half of the time revising your mistakes. While doing a practice set mark the questions you think you are not sure of. Once you finish the exam, apart from revising the wrong ones, also make sure that you go through the ones you had flagged. It could be that you got some of them right in a fluke.
As for the sources I referred, they were the OGs ,
OG supplements, Manhattan SC, Gmat Challenges and Gmatter. I think these are more then sufficient if you are honest to them.Do refer to the
OG supplements, they seem to have slightly harder questions than the main guide. And the GMAT challenges ofcourse. Once you revise your basics just keep giving the challenges and revising the mistakes. Its more than enough. Well worth the money it costs, more so because it now has the verbal challenges also. .
Now to the exam day. Reached the exam center at 9 and realized that being a foreign national, driving licence would not work as a valid identity !!. This is mentioned in the test directions, which I overlooked. I was given one hour to get my passport. Had to rush my way back to home changing cabs and trains and some how managed to reach back bang on 10. Was relieved that I could make it. The exam started, and there were more suprises in store. I was asked to choose my preferred 5 schools at the start of the exam. From what I was told this is something you do after you get your scores. The seemed to have changed this . So guys be on the lookout for this and be prepared accordingly. Now the essays started and there was yet another Susprise !!. I got the Analysis of an Argument first when I was expecting Analysis of an Issue. I just read the phrase and started writing my essay, taking one side of it. Realized after 25 minutes that this esay is not what I expected it to be !!. Nevertheless I revised it quickly and figured it is good enough to qualify as a critque. I was helpless anyway, so just proceeded to the next one without brooding over it.
So after all the events I started my 'actual' exam. Quant , was pretty much as expected. However I did not get a single question on probability or Absolute values !!. Got around four geometry questions. There were many questions on numbers though. finished the section with around 5 minutes to spare. But
I could sense that I did not do my best and probably could have done slightly better.
Verbal started as expected with SCs and CRs and I got my first RC at around the 10th question. One thing I observed in CRs was that I got many questions which had a blank at the end and asked to figure what would be a logical ending to the passage. There were around 4 such questions , something I did not find much in my practices.
In the end, I scored one less than my best scores in both verbal and quant. My best would have probably fetched me a 730, but no complains. I might probably give it a try again in 2 months.
Thanks again to everyone on this forum. This forum rocks !!