This was my 2nd attempt at GMAT in 2 months and I am finally relieved to have a decent score. I took the first attempt in Feb and last one in April.
My Prep. process-
1. Started with
OG 12th Ed. Felt comfortle with almost every section except the SC. My accuracy in
OG questions was around 90% in SC ad RC, while it was around 65-70% on SC.So took up a Manhattn SC Guide (old version - "manhattan_sc_guide_175 (2).pdf") and went through it for 15-20 days.I attempted the GMAT Prep tests a couple of days before actual GMAT. My score was 720 & 730. So I was pretty comfortable & was expecting a score close to that. However on actual test I scored 680 (Q51V30, AWA 5.5). That was poor performance on Verbal and I generally found all verbal sections tougher than GMAT Prep. Also, I realised that I didn't have a strong foothold on SC & CR concepts and might have been lucky on the mock GMAT prep tests.And so I decided to take GMAT again.
2. On 2nd attempt I did only two things - Studied the Manhattan SC guide & CR guide and took Manhattn Tests. I realised only after 1st attempt that there are two versions of Manhattan SC guide and this was a more comprehensive one with some advanced topics. This time around I tried to get holf of why a particular option was wrong & why it was correct, rather than just counting how many correct/wrong attempts I had made. I spent close to a month on the SC guide (Twice) and a week on CR guide. There is not much concept wise in CR just that there are 3-4 rules that can be used to identify wrong/right answer choices. Then I tried to test myself with
OG to see if there has been any improvement and fortunately there was. Then, I moved on to take
MGMAT tests just a week before the actual test day. I found the initial tests to be more difficult than actual GMAT (especially Quant section) but later on it started seeming more inline with the actual experience. My score patter was - 720, 680,740,730,760 & 750. I retook the two GMAT prep tests (using the trick as posted on GMAT club- thanks for that) and score in each was 760 with same break-up (Q51 V41).
On the D-Day, I somehow had a bad feeling while taking verbal section in later stages and was wary of a very good score. One RC was really tough with confusing answer choices. However, at the end I saw my overall score and was relieved to say the least
. On second look though, I was disappointed to see 50 on Quant!
As this has been my strong area and I thought I had not made any deliberate mistakes in the section. The last 4-5 questions were tough in Quant section which validated myoverall feeling of near perfect performance.. Although, it seems I was either overconfident or I did some silly mistakes. Anyways, I am through with GMAT. I will take this score anyday.
Thanks to this forum which has certainly helped on my way.
My advice on Prep -
1. Take
OG. Assess your weak & strong areas and decide which ones you need to work on. May be take one GMAT Prep test after going through
OG.
2. For me it was mostly SC and I can say nothing beats the
MGMAT SC guides. Detailed explanantions of exercise questiions at the back with relevant questions in
OG listed for each topic.
MGMAT CR is OK and can be covered quickly. For quant I found
OG to be more than sufficient for practice.
3. Take some good 8-10 tests. Again I would say
MGMAT & GMAT Prep are sufficient in themselves. You can assess after 4-5 tests if your prep has been sufficient. If NOT may be you need to stop there and do some introspection otherwise keep working on it!
ALL The BEST guys!