I thank Beat the GMAT and GMAT club forum, the test experiences and strategies discussed in the forum was really useful. I started my preparation from Sep last week and registered for beat the gmat 2 month study plan to take my test on Dec 1st. By the time I registered I had 10 days short of 2 months to the exam, I had started with critical reasoning so I was not able to go according to the BTG plan.
Books used - Kaplan review 2011 edition, Manhattan Sentence Correction and
Official Guide 13th edition.
I completed Kaplan review and Manhattan SC but had 20 to 30 questions unsolved in
OG in each section for more practise towards the end to which I never got to.
Few of the most useful tips from forums that worked for me
- Have a strategy that works for you 80% of the time.
-Solve
OG problems a lot and
- Pacing , check the clock for every ten questions Quant - 50-30-10 mins
Verbal 55-35-15 mins.
-taking the breaks and eating something little during breaks on the test day.
The following are the test I took .
After preparing a bit on each topic.
Oct 16th 560 - gmat Prep 1
After Completing Kaplan
Nov 13th 590- Kaplan 2011 edition online test 3
Rescheduled the test to Dec 29th
After completing 80%
OG except RC.
Dec 7th 680 - Kaplan online test 4
Did nothing much After Dec 7th
Dec18th 640- GMAT Prep 1
Preparation and practise almost got frozen after Dec 7th , I was able to see the lack of practise impacted my score when I took the gmat prep again.
Test day, completed Quants on time , verbal guessed last 4 questions and last rc couldn't concentrate much since the 5 min clock started clicking.
Though I could have done better ,I know that my score is in par with the level of practise I did for this test, and luckily is decent enough to apply for local universities which I had targeted for.
In short practise is the mantra for GMAT success. I now know what more to do if I think about rewriting the test....more practise...