Sure, no problem. I started about four amounts ago going through Kaplan's Premier book. I took my first practice test around that time and got a 620. My math score was high, a 49, which remained consistent until my actual GMAT.
The Premier book was good for some basic information about math concepts, but the verbal sections wasn't that great. After I finished the Premier book I bought the
OG (newest edition at the time) and did every single problem the book offered. On my first time around I scored around 85% on the problem solving, 90% on the data sufficiency, 80% on the reading comprehension, and in the low 70s for critical reading and sentence correction. Once again, my math was strong relative to my verbal performance.
After finishing the
OG I singed up for the
GMAT Club tests. I took every single math and verbal test. The verbal tests were fairly easy and I ended up getting around 35/41 on each one. The math tests were much harder, and I struggled to get 25 right on most of them. Nevertheless, it did teach me a lot of concepts that the Premier book and
OG didn't.
Around the time I finished the
GMAT Club tests, I had about a two weeks before my official test. I took one of the practice GMAT Prep tests and scored a 690 (I forgot the exact breakdown but it was high 40s Q, mid-30s V). Surprisingly, almost every single verbal question I missed was in the SC section. So I quickly scrambled and bought the Manhattan 1000 SC book and did every single question the book offered. The questions were tough, but I was given a new mindset on how to approach these type of questions. I took the second GMAT Prep test and scored a 730. Nevertheless, I still missed a lot of SC questions. So I went back to the 1000 SC questions and redid them. In fact I tried to do as many SC as possible before my test. Fortunately, the process worked as I did score in the 95% in V, but my Q did suffer as the 44 I got was the lowest I've ever received on any GMAT test (practice or real).
I spent about 1 hour studying per day for the 3.5 months leading up to the test, about 3 hours per day the 10 days leading up to the test, and about 10 hours a day the 4 days leading up to the test.
As for test day, I had an appointment at 8 am. I came fairly early and was allowed to take the test 15 minutes beforehand. I really liked the room setup, as I was given two pens, headphones, and a lot of space to do my work. I started the essay section, and for better or worse, actually tried my best on it. Both were fairly easy to understand and follow, so I hope I performed well on my AWA score.
I optioned not to take the 8 minute break after the essay section, because I was "in the zone" at that time. So I started the Q portion and raced through the first 10 questions. I was positive I got them all right and probably started to get overconfident, because after the first 10 sections, the questions started to get not necessarily hard, but tricky. The data sufficiency questions, surprisingly, weren't too bad, but the problem solving ones were. Historically, problem solving has been my best part of the GMAT, and I rarely guess on any question. I guessed on three questions this time, including the last one when I had only 30 seconds left. I felt a bit disappointed as I finished the test and decided to cool my nerves by take a break.
I went to my locker and got some water and a granola bar. I came back into the room after five minutes and began the verbal section. As I start, my first question is SC one that kept me stumped for a good three minutes. I just couldn't narrow the choices down at all, because I didn't know what the sentence was trying to say. So I guessed and moved on. Fortunately, the rest of test I managed to use the skills I learned to good use and get through the rest of the questions. The reading passages were fairly long, but easy to understand and the SR questions were also straightforward. As I finished the test with about 20 seconds left, I clicked finished, raced through the questionnaire, and saw my score pop up. At first I was relieved that I broke the 700 barrier. However, after looking at the scores more closely, I felt a bit disappointed at my Q, but a bit surprised at my V score, given my historical numbers. Overall, I was kind of aloof to my score, but still wondering if I could've done better on the Q.
So as you can see, if I did retake the test again, I would probably get my Q score back to 49 or so, but my V score would probably fall back to 38, and I will still have a 710 at the end of the day.
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15 Jun 2010, 12:20
