I have been silent participant on this forum. I have not used the Math and Verbal forums extensively but all the same, I feel that this website is an excellent resource and provides a wealth of information. Just everybody describing their experiences, enriches the knowledge base here and prospective GMAT takers can learn, improves and better their chances at succeeding on the GMAT
Just before my GMAT, I was constantly checking the website to see if people were getting good scores, in some kind of weird way, seeing 770's surely boosted my confidence.
In my practice tests I never reached beyond 710, so I would say the GMAT score came as no surprise. I wish that my verbal was higher because I am a voracious reader and my GRE score was around the 94 percentile. I was losing my touch in the SC and CR by the end of my preparation so a shorter preparation time may have been better
Actual GMAT Verbal: About the level of tough
OG Questions, not the easy ones. 3 RC, short ones and the questions were CR Type, for e.g. based on authors reasoning, which of the following claims will strengthen his argument. Etc. So CR were masquerading as RC, so for people weak in CRs, try harder. SC was difficult, about the level of the tough
OG questions and sometimes tougher. CR was ok, nothing unusual there, though the bold faced questions have been making quite a come back
Actual GMAT Math: Definitely tougher than
OG, easier than the new Pearson Tests and easier than GMAT challenges. DS are quite tricky so had to keep my guard up. I got tons of probability questions + combination/permutation problems, at least 5-10 of them. Geometry is important since there were lots of questions on them. No statistics thankfully !!!
Here is the advice I would give to somebody who wanted to start with GMAT or wanted to do well
1. Depending on your study habits, schedule a date between 1.5 and 2.5 (2 may be better) away. I do feel that one needs about 2 months of consistent preparation to succeed, anything more than that is an overkill and tests one’s determination to keep laboring through the same material again and again. Also one has to pay careful attention to when you feel you are ready, I felt that I was ready 2-3 weeks before my GMAT, and that did adversely affect some aspects of my performance. Just a few days before my GMAT, my SC started getting rusty and so did my CR, and I did not feel particularly motivated at times, which was troubling.
2. Personally, I got very confused with the Kaplan and Princeton books and early on, I made the decision to not refer to those books. In hindsight that turned out to be an excellent decision, the exam providers (ETS or Pearson) have a standard way for creating test questions and no matter what Kaplan or Princeton say, they just cannot come very close.
3. So it was
OG, some 1000 SC/RC/CR guides and LSAT books for verbal, and off course the
MGMAT SC Book. It helped me in SC by not delving into the nuances of grammar but providing a clean, simple and easy to understand lessons. For people hoping to score 750 and beyond, they may be compelled to really look through grammar books and take the extra step, but I am not sure that it is really required.
4. I did not touch
OG Math at all, because I thought that it did not reflect the current standard of the GMAT and how correct I was.
OG Math is out-dated and if you are at the level of 44-45 you will simply not get such easy questions. This belief was validated in my actual GMAT. The only easy questions (
OG level) I got were in the beginning when GMAT was trying to gauge my level. Since I am engineer by profession, Math was never a problem, and I challenged myself by testing difficult questions in Kaplan and Challenge Archives. For people weak in Math, I would recommend doing the
OG, because it will clear your fundamentals and provide you with the easy first level questions before you prepare for the more difficult level of actual GMAT
5.
Error Log is important, or any place where you maintain the notes and see your mistakes. I realized my weak points by my
error log, they were primarily the idioms especially the type of ‘so as to, such that’ as etc. etc. and silly mistakes in DS, assuming numbers are integers where they are not and such kind of errors
When I finished my test, I thought that I had done well in Math, but not very well in Verbal, and my feelings were absolutely right. Seeing the level of Pearson tests, I feel a little scared about giving it again. I have mixed feelings about my performance, one side I am relieved that at least I touched 700 but on the other side I feel that I can do better, but there is something that makes me feel that it may be worth my time trying to be a part of the elite 750 crowd.
So DEJA VU/ NOT VU ?? - a real dilemma, Not sure, should I give it again? Any advice from second time takers and their experiences will be greatly appreciated.