Just did my GMAT V51, M50, Score 790. Yippee!!

All,

I haven't been a frequent poster here, but have used this forum mainly for challenging quantitative questions.

Now I feel a little guilty that I didn't post more often, as I've clearly benefitted from the input of others here, so it only seems fair to try and give something back.

I finished the Math with about 20 minutes to go, and the Verbal with about 18 minutes to go in the test. That had never happened to me in my practice tests

My study consisted of about 1 month, pretty unstructured, doing maybe a couple of hours per day. I used the OG, Princeton Review, and Kaplan books and CD's along with the Powerprep.

I did all the CAT practice tests I possibly could, as I think there is nothing quite like simulating test conditions.

My scores were:

Princeton Review
V45 M48 740
V39 M48 700
V38 M49 700
V42 M41 670

Kaplan
V50 M50 780
V45 M50 780 (doesn't sound right, but that's what it says)

Powerprep
V42 M48 730
V47 M50 780

I focused more heavily on the math than the verbal, as I found that once you understand the typical errors in SC (i.e. parallelism, pronoun errors, tense, idioms) it all becomes pretty intuitive, so no further study was really needed. Likewise with CR, and RC, study didn't really seem to help me much. I also found that, Princeton Review, Kaplan etc, had subtle differences from the OG, which were just enough to throw me off, and dent my confidence. That is reflected in my practice scores. I simply didn't agree with their logic at times, which I found frustrating. But rest assured, that's not an issue with the OG. Their questions seem better researched in my opinion.

So my advice on verbal would be to focus on the OG, (I did the last 50 questions from each section) and not worry too much about the other guides as they can also cause some confusion if you are not careful. I found the test to be very similar to the OG.

As for the math section: Princeton, Kaplan etc, along with this forum were really useful. By really focusing on more difficult questions, such as complex algebra, probability etc. by the time the test came the questions all seemed pretty easy in comparison. The difficult questions also teach you vital skills like when to backsolve by plugging in, and when to solve algebraically, which I think is super important, in saving time.

I realize I got a pretty good score, so some of you may be thinking that my prep is not very relevant to your study. Granted, I am a native english speaker which has some definite advantages, with recognition of idioms and reading speed, but in other areas it's almost a disadvantage in my opinion, as you have never really learned sentence structure. But I want to stress is that I really struggled at times with some of the math questions on this board, and was constantly in awe of how clever several of the posters here were. So DON'T PANIC if you find them difficult.

Now I'm off to buy a new laptop as a reward for doing the GMAT. I'll try and check back and answer any questions you have.

Thanks again for all your help everyone.