my GMAT experience

hi everybody,


i quickly want to share my GMAT experience. I took the exam yesterday and scored 680 (Q44/V38, 89th percentile). i think the result fairly reflects my current knowledge and level of preparation.


how did i prepare?

it is important to mention that i faced an enormous time pressure. i had exactly 22 days to prepare, without knowing anything about the GMAT before. For my preparation i used the the GMATPrep, the Kaplan book (the newest edition), GMATClub.com and the 1000 CRs, DSs, a s.o. (Barron's book sucks)
i never had problems with maths and always scored above 42 on this section. in contrast, i was never able to score more than 40 on the Verbal part (i'm not a native speaker). during my preparation i kept an error log, which proved helpful in identifying my mistakes. i also did some CATs, and the highest i scored was 690 (Q49/V35). it was clear that the Verbal part was my Achilles' heel. In spite of that, i should admit that i didnt put much effort in learning the CR questions (my greatest weakness). SC was easy for me-i'm really good in finding gramatical mistakes (except for my own).


The exam day...


...was bad. i had to sleep at a friend's place the previous night. i couldnt really sleep, cause i was dreaming some fractions and factorials, the bed was uncomfortable and it was f*ckin' cold there. i also didnt eat much on the day of the exam (DO NOT repeat my mistke). Everything i had was a chocolate and two Red Bulls. Once i arrived at the test center, i felt that my stomach doesnt share my enthusiasm about the exam. Anyway, i started...
the interface of the real exam is one-to-one similar with the one of the GMATPrep. i felt comfortable with the navigation and everything. AWA was easy-standard topics, enough time. the analysis of an issue followed the familiar model-a general conclusion based on a single company's experience.
Second part was tricky. i knew that the first 10-15 questions are vital and decided to spend some more time there. however, after the 5th question, the computer started bombing me with difficult questions (combinations, factorials and the like) . i did most of them correctly, but lost a lot of time. As a result i had to intuitively answer the last 3-4 questions without seriously analysing all the answers. i am now sure that these final questions costed me 2-3 points from the Qauntitative section score.
Then i took the break. i had another Red Bull, but it didnt help-i was tired from the math problems.
Afterwards came the worst-the Verbal part. the SC questions were easy, and so were the texts of the RCs. The CR questions were horrible-i'm not sure whether i answered a single one correctly. at the end i didnt care much and guessed the last 2 questions (which i now consider a mistake).
At this point i expected a result in the range 550-600. Once I saw the result i felt relieved. The long hours of studying and the 300$ investment both paid off. now i am absolutely sure that with couple of months of preparation i can easily score more than 750.

in conclusion i want so summarize my mistakes. maybe you, who read this text could benefit from my weaknesses.
-although i knew that the Verbal part was my problem, i didnt really study hard to improve my results there. this is especially true about the CR questions.
-i didnt eat before the exam and was therefore very tired after the second section.
-i spent too much time on the first 15 quantitative questions.

So, i tell all of you, my friends-impossible is nothing! GMAT either :)

peter