Monkey is off the back

Hi Friends,

Completed the GMAT yesterday. The score breakup is -

Total = 730 (96 percentile)
Maths = 50 (94 percentile)
Verbal = 40 (89 percentile)

My journey to GMAT started in Apr-2008. Preparation material used were -

OG - 11
OG - 10
Sentence Correction Guide - Manhattan
1000 SC software - was really helpful. Thanks Walker for this wonderful tool.
GMAT Club Challenges
Manhattan GMAT CAT Exams

My scores history has been -

MGMAT - Free - 570 [Q41, V 28]
Power prep 1 - 690 [Q48, V 38]
Power prep 2 - 690 [Q49, V35]
Peterson 1 - 750 [Q60, V40]
MGMAT1 - 670 [Q47, V 34]
MGMAT2 - 680 [Q48, V 35]
MGMAT 3 - 710 [Q48, V 39]
MGMAT 4 - 690 [Q49 V 35]
MGMAT 5 - 710 [Q49, V 38]

Thanks - Before I start my debrief let me thank all of you wonderful people on the forum. It would have taken me much longer than 2.5 months without you all here. Your continuous support and eagerness to participate in forums has really helped. The fact that some of you contribute to forum even after getting your GMAT scores is really appreciable.

Exam Day - I had scheduled the test from 1:00 PM local time. Stuffed myself with some food before entering the test center. After initial procedure started the test. Analysis of argument went well but boy got time management problem on Analysis of issue. I could proof read only half of the essay before time ran out.

Quants section started well. I did not get any unfamiliar question in quants. No probability but one question on permutation/combinations, that too was very basic. I got one DS question from OG-11. My time management was good till last 7-8 minutes. In Last 7 minutes I had 4 questions left. Then I got 1 very lengthy DS questions. I had to read it twice to figure out what it was asking. I got engrossed in reading the question, analyzing and answering it. By the time I answered this, I had 1.5 minutes left for last 3 questions. I had to guess last three. May be this is where I lost a bit. I could have scored little more in quants, had I not got sucked into that question.

Usually when I do well in quants GMAT prep throws me a boldface as first question in Verbal. I did not get the boldface in the beginning of verbal and got little worried about my quants. However there was nothing I could do at this point of time. I did not get a single boldface in my verbal section and by the end of exam I was sure that I had screwed it up big time. I must have got 15-16 sentence correction, got 3 RC. One of the RC was on science [topic was about absence of craters marks created on surface of venus], and thus was easier for me. Few questions on CR were tougher than OG11.

At the end I was scrolling through those 10 survey screens and expecting my score somewhere between 680-700. It was a pleasant surprise to see 730 flashing. However when I look back now, I realize i could have stretched my score a bit.

Now all preparations to focus on application process. My friends say that getting GMAT score is the easiest step in entire B-school admission process. Looks like Monkey is off the back but Gorilla has taken its place.

Cumic