Hi all
This is actually my first post... Not really an active member at all. I used to mainly read people's GMAT experiences and thought it'd be only fair if i gave my 2 cents worth in return.
A bit about myself: engineering background... was pretty confident with the math... so mainly worked on getting the verbal right.
About the Test:
I found a lot of what is actually said in these posts to be verry true.... so most of what i say will be a repeat of what you've already heard, in the hope that it may reinforce the ideas!
1) Maths is harder than the PowerPrep...easier than Kaplan (only because Kaplan is a horror for time)..the real test has its share of hard questions but there are some ridiculously easy questions as well to make up for lost time...anyway, the hard bit is that we're expected to do some painful calcs occasionally... that usually takes more time and increases the chances of making errors.... I got a REALLY hard Probability question (something i forgot to study) in the beginning (Q3 i think)... by the time i finished reading the question i forgot how it started.. something to do with dependent events... i realised within a minute that i wasn't going to waste my time doing it...and justified my decision to skip it by convincing myself that it had to be an experimental question..
2) Verbal is quite similiar to the
OG.. some hard CRs... thought i recognised one of them from my prep.. sc was ok i guess.. RC was good... passages on astronomy, sociology, etc... usual crap!
3) You will always tend to underestimate your performance.. i really thought i did a 730 test.. so was quite pleased to see the 760 pop up.
4) Pratising the AWA section during practice tests really helped build up my stamina
5) I also liked the idea of checking progress every 25 minutes... so doing 12 math questions and 14 verbal questions in 25 mins... can't stress how much that helped me... i think it's a really good strategy
I guess the stuff that you really need to realise is that the GMAT is first a test of temperement, then stamina, and only then knowledge... i really do believe that... you may learn all the rules and practice everything in every book..but at the end of it a cool head will get you home...
Another important thing is to leave your ego home... if a question cannot be solved then it cannot be solved.. don't take it personally! don't give it an extra two minutes coz you think u're a math whiz and nothing can be too hard for you... Do Focus on the problem at hand but don't forget the BIG picture entirely either!
Anyway, now for my practice scores (in that order):
Kap 1 640
PP1 740
PP2 730
Kap 2 620
Kap 3 630
PR 1 710
PR2 730
Finally got sick of the Kaplan verbal and Princeton Math.. one was too hard..the other too easy... so started doing a mix of the two.
ALso.. the one thing that I hated the most was RC... (thanks to Kaplan and their wonderfully enlightening passages about 18th century crap!)... but in the actual test it was actually RC that saved me... i somehow miraculously absorbed the passages in one go and ended up doing all questions without even going back to the passage.. really helped me make up for a lot of lost time.
Phew!.. ended up being a pretty long post..anyway, i hope this helps...be it for motivation or to compare practice scores( notice the lack of parallelism in that sentence... I'M FREE TO DO THAT NOW!!!
Right then.. Good luck everyone... feel free to ask any questions.. i'll check the site during the week and may come back later in the year for opinions on school choices etc.
Thanks for the help here.. You've got a great thing going!