I took the GMAT today and am happy to report that i got 720 (50Q, 37V) -
96th percentile. Verbal could have been better - i fell short of time and
I am sure I hastened on 2-3 questions and 1 complete RC.
Thanks to the GMAT club and the GMAT club members - including but not limited to
ps_dahiya, haas_mba, rhyme, pelihu, kevincan, necromonger, futuristic, Matt,
fig, honghu, laxie, yezz, giddi, gmatmba etc.
The list is too long to name it here but I have learnt from many folks here not to mention the useful posts of older members in the archives. The forum is really wonderful.
Test center staff was very helpful and courteous. Didn't have any issues
with the marker/notebook - checked the marker before starting the exam to
make sure that it was fine. Took both the breaks.
AWA was okay - nothing eventful here.
I found Quant to be much easy than expected - no permutation/combination,
no complicated problems. The easy questions got me thinking and worried
but then i reminded myself of the advice other members gave earlier and
focussed on the test. Verbal is a different story - i found the SCs to be
little harder than
OG and gmatprep and same goes for RCs. The thing which
annoyed me was I got 3 BF CR and one in which i had to replace the BF
statement with one of the answer choices and create an equivalent
argument.
Materials used for preparation.
OG and supplements.
Manhatten SC
Math Challenges.
started preparation about 3-4 months back but was very irregular. I
studied regularly since the last month , 7-10 am at a coffee shop
every day - 7 days a week, plus some time in night (generally browsing
forum, doing some math problems) and some extra time on weekends. I had
chosen the exam slot at 8.00 am. In the last week before the exam, I tried
GMATprep multiple times following Rhyme's advice of moving the exam log
files to a diffrent directory. In the last couple of days, I searched for
GMATprep on this math and verbal forum and did as many questions as i
could which were on GMATprep. This helped too.
Another thing which was very useful for me was to take GMATclub
challenges. I highly recommend them. Even though one might feel that some
questions are tough but i really enjoyed them and they helped a lot in
practicing time management.
Advice/Lessons:
1) Try to study and take tests at the same time as your actual exam time
(this was suggested by many folks earlier)
2) Do effective time management.
3) Re breaks - they get over sooner than expected plus you have to
fingerprint everytime you get out and get in. Each time i went inside
thinking i have easily 3-4 min left - i found that i only had 1 min left.
I didn't eat much during breaks - just sipped some iced tea in both
breaks.
4) Maintain your focus - i think i got distracted during verbal.
Right now will stop at this, will post more later or if anyone has any particular questions.