Took my GMAT today. Got a score of 730 (V39-89% and Q50-95%, T-97%).
I started visiting this club a week before the GMAT, and found it really helpful. The advice on what to expect on the test day and how preparation is done is useful. Here is what I did for my gmat...
For preparation, I used Princeton-Review, Kaplan and a little bit of
OG. I am working full-time, so didn't had much time. I started preparation ~2 months earlier and devoted approximately 1-2 hrs daily (3 hrs daily during last week).
Here are the steps I took:
1. Started with brushing up basics. Used Princeton Review- Crack the GMAT 2006 guide. It had good explanations on how to tackle different sentence correction questions. I found it very handy for building the fundamentals. I did all of the practice questions in this book before taking 3 exams on PR cds:
PR-CD Test 1 -- scored 620 (also took AWA)
PR-CD Test 2 -- scored 630 (fast forwarded AWA, didn't have time)
PR-CD Test 3 -- scored 640 (fast forwarded AWA, didn't have time)
2. Then, I took the Kaplan book (Premier program 2006 ...). I again read the fundamentals for tackling different types of questions. Most of it was same as PR, but I liked its sections on CR and Math review (at the end). Here also I did all practice questions. After that, I took the test at the end of the book (paper based) and got 660.
I didn't get time to take any tests of the Kaplan CD or its online program.
After finishing the Kaplan book, I took one more CBT:
PR-CD Test 4 -- scored 650 (fast forwarded AWA, didn't have time)
3. This brought me to the last week before the test. I started the week by taking two tests of the ETS Powerprep CD:
ETS Test-1 -- scored 740 (fast forwarded AWA, didn't have time)
ETS Test-2 -- scored 730 (fast forwarded AWA, didn't have time)
As I saw that I was making more mistakes in verbal, I did 50 practice questions each for CR and SC from
Official Guide. I wanted to do more but was short on time.
4. On the last day before the test, did nothing during the day (watched a movie). In the evening, I took one set each of different types of verbal ETS-CD practice questions.
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Exam day (today): My exam was at 8:30am. I reached at 8:00am and started early. I had some timing problems in AWA (Analysis of Issue) - didn't get time to revise and barely finished. I took the first 5 mins break sitting on the chair itself. Math section was comparable to ETS. After that, I went out for the break. The verbal section didn't go that well, I was short on time at the end and had to guess on last 3-4 questions.
After all this, I was relieved after I saw the score
I will be doing the mba part-time in one of the top-20 progrmas and believe that this score is good enough to get in...
Regards and good luck for your gmat,
pmat