Hello guys, I cannot say that i am new to this forum but i am new to the idea of sharing my experience with you all.

Last night whilst in flight to London, i decided that i will put my thoughts and experience out here on this forum. And the reason behind this is i want to put my plans, target and strategy for GMAT, which can help others, out here for others to scrutinise and to seek advice.

Here's my story so far.

I'm not a native-English speaker. I have been working in finance sector for past 7 years. Last year, i decided to pursue for MBA , and luckily i found this website, which helped me to put together my thoughts & plans into action.

I bought most of the GMAT study material by May2010, but opened it only after November2010. There were many reason why i delayed but that's something to discuss some other day.

20th December 2010

I Organised all the books and E-books i had bought over the period of 6 months. I logged back to GMATclub and start looking for THE BEST STUDY PLAN. I found many moving experiences, of GMATclub members, shared on this website. Those experiences opened my eyes that that this journey for 700+ will not be the easy one. I like the study plan mentioned by BB. As per that i decided to devote entire 4 weeks for Quantitative section, and to keep practising quantitative question till i succeed Q44, and keep a error log for all questions i attempt.

Once i achieve Q44 i will start with Verbal section for four weeks.

Quantitative Section

WeekQ1 - 20th Dec 2010
Material used: MGMAT books and GMATclubs Math book. I guess these are more than enough to brush up Math basics.
Week1 Breakdown: I felt comfortable with basic maths and along the way i picked up new techniques and strategies.
Also started doing 5-10 SC questions on this forum each day.

WeekQ2 - 27th Dec 2010

Material used: Diagnostic test and OG12
WeekQ2 Breakdown: My diagnostic test result was Q35 V32. Utterly disappointed i turned towards GMATclub's quantitative forum, as i was looking for any one with similar score or some one with similar agony. Also, i was looking for some advice and motivation from quant gurus out there. Few helped me and few didn't even bothered to answer.
To my surprise, i was doing really good at OG questions. My accuracy was almost 85% for PS and 80% for DS.

WeekQ3 - 3rd Jan 2011

Material used: GMAT hack's (Jeff Sackmann) 1000 questions. Bit pricey but worth it.
WeekQ3 Breakdown: After very disappointing week2, i decided to buy 1000 questions from GMAThack. as an Engineer i believe that one needs to know basics before locking horns with tough quant questions.
I started with GMAT hack's questions sets, which are in total 10, with 100 questions in each set. Details of these can be found on http://gmathacks.com/
I completed almost 6 sets. Four more to go

WeekQ4 - 10th Jan 2011

Material used: GMAT hack's (Jeff Sackmann) 1000 questions and GMATprep 1.
WeekQ4 Breakdown: By the end of this week, i have completed all the sets of GMAThack. And i was ready to put my knowledge to acid test, by taking GMATprep1's quantitative section. I was very nervous, as i really don't need any more setbacks.
I started good but soon i fell into the trap set up by GMAT. I spent too much time at few questions and that cost me dearly. My advice - Choose your battles. One cannot solve all the problems with getting into time problem. Jokes apart, please do not waste time on questions which are difficult to crack in 2 mins. MOVE ON.
I did verbal section half heartedly because i missed out on many quant questions and because i was bit too anxious to know my quant result.
At the end of the exam, with utter disgust, i clicked next. To my surprise i scored Q44 and V26.
In quant i attempted in total 23 questions within time and out of which i scored 21 correct. In remaining 16 question i simply clicked my way to the finish line, as i don't want to get penalised. I scored only 2 correct out of last 16Q. I was/am SUPER confused about my score. how one can get 44 after making so many mistakes.
I checked my mistakes and did the remaining 16 questions. I found the test was not that difficult.
Mistakes i made: Poor time management, Half-hearted attempt in verbal, and Failed to review verbal section. Lesson learnt - Practise practise practise till i get timing issue erased.
Well i congratulated myself to achieve my quant target, and decided to move on to Verbal section.



Verbal section - THE BEAST

Target: 40

WeekV1 - 17th Jan 2011
Material used: MGMAT books, Powerscore Sc & CR and GMATclubs Grammar book . I guess these are more than enough to beat the BEAST.
Week1 Breakdown: I started off with GMAT clubs grammar book and finished it by the end of the week.

WeekV2 - 24th Jan 2011
Material used: MGMAT books, Powerscore Sc & CR and GMATclubs Grammar book . I guess these are more than enough to beat the BEAST.
Week2 Breakdown: I have almost completed MGMAT SC & Powerscore SC book.
Accuracy for SC till date: 65% - questions from various source such as gmatclub forum, OG11/12, 1000s and mgmat online forum.
Accuracy for CR till date: 85% - questions from OG12 - did first 60 questions.
Accuracy for RC till date: 80% - questions from OG11. did first 4 RCs.
i did GMATclubs M01; i scored 29/37. I guess i am on right track.

Aim for this week:
To complete MGMAT SC & Powersocre - including all the OG12 questions mentioned in MGMAT.
To do GMATclubs test M02 & if possible redo all the error log questions for quant.
Sunday - do MGMAT 01. GOD help me.

Scared - Yes i am as i don't know my real level in CR & RC, as i was doing only OG questions in these two sections. OG questions are normally not that difficult, especially those in the beginning.

I will post my progress report almost daily on this thread. Also i will share any issue which i am sure i will face in this difficult and exciting journey.

I will appreciate it if you guys can provide some feedback or if you guys can share your experience and strategy so far.

Lets motivate each other and help each other to BEAT THE BEAST.

PS: I'm looking for a study group based in London. If someone interested then PM me.
_________________

In The World Full Of Duplicates,, I Am The Only Masterpiece..
Girl Power
beat-the-beast-with-non-native-speaker-108349.html

@Mackieman - Thanks for ur advice. i will check this book out this weekend. I heard good things about it.

No, i don't have much time in hand for reading novels. although, i read Free Metro newspaper, in the morning rush hour, and Evening standard. Apart from those, i read 2-3 articles on FT everyday.

Anyhow i will try to read at least one novel before the G day.

Yesterday's update.
Did another set of CR - OG12 Q61-Q80, only 1 incorrect. I went out to play badminton and somehow managed to fracture my right hand thumb. God help me.
Its an agonising day.

Today's mission:
Maths word problem - To do 30 DS questions from GMAThack.
SC: 20 questions from OG12 - Modifiers and comparisons.
RC: 2 RCs from R99 or OG12.

But it all depends on how i feel in the evening. At present i don't feel good.
_________________

In The World Full Of Duplicates,, I Am The Only Masterpiece..
Girl Power
beat-the-beast-with-non-native-speaker-108349.html

Update 29th-30th Jan 2011
Not a prodcutive weekend as i am Restricted due to my thumb injury. Yesterday, i was reading MGMAT SC & Aristole SC AGAIN, and also managed to finish this amaZING novel The Great Gatsby - a must read novel. Today's plan is to finish CR questions from 81 to 110. And do as many questions as possible.

Deepak - You can put down your plan on paper and we can go through it. Let's make most out of next month.

Its time to do some CRs.
_________________

In The World Full Of Duplicates,, I Am The Only Masterpiece..
Girl Power
beat-the-beast-with-non-native-speaker-108349.html

Its good if you are short of time or if you want to review all the topics. Its a consolidated MGMAT SC, But MGMAT SC is a must.
_________________

In The World Full Of Duplicates,, I Am The Only Masterpiece..
Girl Power
beat-the-beast-with-non-native-speaker-108349.html

You are probably right. Did a full test yesterday and scored V39 with 100% RC but a lot of mistakes in SC. I need to focus more on SC
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12/2010 GMATPrep 1 620 (Q34/V41)
01/2011 GMATPrep 2 640 (Q42/V36)
01/2011 GMATPrep 3 700 (Q47/V39)
02/2011 GMATPrep 4 710 (Q48/V39)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 1 650 (Q46/V32)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 2 680 (Q46/V36)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 3 710 (Q45/V41)

Based on the split 14-14-13 or so I had 2/14 (15%) CR incorrect and 7/14 incorrect SC (lol). I was not 100% focused during the verbal part, I'm usually not that bad at SC. I'll have go through the questions and see how silly mistakes I made.

Previous tests I've gotten V41 (my first test) and V37 (the second test)

My goal is at least at least 40 on G-day in 3 weeks, I've put in most effort in quant during the last weeks though so I'll have to throw in an extra gear in SC now.

I'm planning on doing ~30SC a day from now on, do you think it's too many or too few?
Material
Primary:
OG 10&12 with repeating until I've learned everything there is to learn
Aristotle 100's

Secondary:
Manhattan SC
_________________

12/2010 GMATPrep 1 620 (Q34/V41)
01/2011 GMATPrep 2 640 (Q42/V36)
01/2011 GMATPrep 3 700 (Q47/V39)
02/2011 GMATPrep 4 710 (Q48/V39)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 1 650 (Q46/V32)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 2 680 (Q46/V36)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 3 710 (Q45/V41)

I'll propably skip RC completely since I read a lot of english articles and books. However, CR is a good idea though. I'm currently writing on my bachelor thesis so I have a couple of hours per day to devote to GMAT.

Aristotle 100 q's are okay I guess, they are quite straightforward if you combine them with the info in the book. Altough sometimes there's only a slight difference between the correct answer and some other alternative, compared to OG, the wrong answers in OG usually consists of multiple errors.
_________________

12/2010 GMATPrep 1 620 (Q34/V41)
01/2011 GMATPrep 2 640 (Q42/V36)
01/2011 GMATPrep 3 700 (Q47/V39)
02/2011 GMATPrep 4 710 (Q48/V39)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 1 650 (Q46/V32)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 2 680 (Q46/V36)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 3 710 (Q45/V41)

In Aristotle, around 75%.

Starting with OG12 SC tomorrow ,so I'll report the stats for OG later.
_________________

12/2010 GMATPrep 1 620 (Q34/V41)
01/2011 GMATPrep 2 640 (Q42/V36)
01/2011 GMATPrep 3 700 (Q47/V39)
02/2011 GMATPrep 4 710 (Q48/V39)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 1 650 (Q46/V32)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 2 680 (Q46/V36)
02/2011 MGMAT CAT 3 710 (Q45/V41)

OP can you say a little bit more about what you thought of the GMAT Hacks books? I have seen them a little bit, but I don't know a ton about them. 50 bucks for a pdf seems incredibly pricey though, so I am shying away from purchasing them. How hard are the questions when juxtaposed with the actual GMAT?

Well i am back in the loop. I had a miserable week in terms of GMAT prep. I did nuff all for past 7 days.

But now i am back with vengeance. I dropped the idea of doing 1000s SC questions. But certainly i will go through 1000s CR questions. I've started with R99 with a target of at least 3 passages a day.

In SC i will stick with Aristotle and OGs.

@shovitdhar - Thanks for your advice. Yes i went through OG12, and its explanations. It was useful but still i feel vulnerable to SC part of GMAT. I have decided to go through OG12 again coupled with Ron Purenwala's explanations. May be you could share some more tips n golden advice with me.

Have a nice day all.
_________________

In The World Full Of Duplicates,, I Am The Only Masterpiece..
Girl Power
beat-the-beast-with-non-native-speaker-108349.html