Hi guys,

I gave my GMAT for the first time in June 2010 and scored a measly 570 (Q49, V20). Was thoroughly devastated that day and could not get proper sleep for weeks. But thanks to Knewton and GMAT club , my score improved by a whopping 130 points. I retook the test on the 20th of Nov and finally made it to the 700 club. My latest score is 700 (Q48, V38).

Recommendations
Quant
1. GMAT club tests - IMO, the questions are of a greater difficulty level and hence they would suffice
2. Knewton GMAT - Try the extra practice section for harder problems.
For those who are weak in quant, Knewton is by far the best.


Verbal - General
1. Knewton GMAT CATs, Knewton Extra practice homework (I found the questions in Extra practice section much more challenging than the ones in the core homework)
2. GMAT club forum - An inexhaustible set with thousands of questions.
3. For expert answers to most Verbal questions, please check out the posts by RonPurewal (Manhattan GMAT forum)

For those who have ample time to prepare for the test, I would strongly advise them to go through the 1000s of questions in this very forum.

SC (Dos and Don'ts)
1. MGMAT SC - This book is a collection of rules but questions are not based on the GMAT template. This book is really useful and probably covers all the SC variants ever seen on the GMAT
2. SC Bible - Hardly more than 130 questions but good coverage.

RC
1. Aristotle - The best material available on the net. Too bad I couldn't lay my hands on this earlier
MGMAT RC is one book that was not helpful and I would never recommend this to anyone since the tome lacks coverage.
For me, RC was the toughest section

CR
1. CR Bible - I found this quite useful since no two questions are similar.
2. MGMAT CR - essentially similar to the bible, but good as a supplement

Test Scores
Knewton diagnostic GMAT - 690 (Q44,V41)
Knewton Practice Test #1 - 730 (Q47,V43)
Knewton Practice Test #2 - 720 (Q45,V45)
Knewton Practice Test #3 - 760 (Q49,V44)
Knewton Practice Test #4 - 730 (Q50,V39)
Did not take the last test due to lack of time. Knewton added the 6th test recently.

Conclusion
I hope my testimony will be useful to those who got low scores in their first attempt. I profusely thank the members of this forum for posting the official questions. I also would like to express my gratitude to Adam and Allison of Knewton for their quality tutoring.

For Knewton students - The Knewton scores (esp on the verbal) are inflated (by 4-5 points). But almost all of Knewton's questions are based on the real GMAT questions and hence the line of reasoning is similar. Also, Please dont miss out the extra practice section esp on the verbal.

Cheers,
Wormtongue

How did you prepare for RC? That is my weak area too.

As I said earlier, I did not enough time on my hands to go through Aristotle RC 99. When are you planning to take the test? If you have more than a month to go, I would strongly recommend you to use Aristotle prep's RC99. Thats probably the most comprehensive RC set available on the net.

Congratulations. That is very impressive and inspirational. Good Luck

Oh right! So you did't fly over for the weekly lessons then. Haha Even more reason for me to do it online too, i'm not American either.

Did the time difference prohibit your usage of the online 'live' classes?

Are you applying this year for R2?
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Congratz for coming under list of 700 scorers..and a great jump in verbal score..How did you find GMAT Verbal questions in comparison to OG tough verbal questions .. Were GMAT CR questions lengthy and convoluted with respect to OG CRs..

does knewton have only online classes or do they also give us some material

You've already booked an appointment? If yes, then I strongly recommend you to go through Manhattan SC and Aristotle RC 99 (try the 33 easy passages first and then try the others). For CR, Powerscore CR bible is the best. And particularly for SC, go through as many questions as possible in the GMATCLUB SC subforum . That should do the trick. Take 1 CAT every 3 days and go through the explanations for each question. You just need to buy 1 MGMAT book to get access to the 6 CATs

Also, dont forget to check out Manhattan GMAT forum for detailed explanations( for verbal questions ) by Ron Purewal