Ok I'm Done! (730 to 770)

770 (51, 44)

I just got back from my exam today and I'm quite happy with my score overall... but I still think I could have done better. I'm not complaining; just being hard on myself.

Anyways, here's my story. I took the GMAT late July and got a comfortable score. I was somewhat surprised with my verbal (only 38) so I rescheduled to take it a month later. Since work was so busy during October, I pushed the date back to September (today).

My journey started early January this year. I studied for about 2 months (on and off, but got serious during the last two weeks of February). March rolled along, and I had to switch my focus a bit. I needed at least 4 months to study for my level 2 CFA exam, so I postponed my GMAT study until late June (giving me the final month of hardcore study).

I was fairly comfortable with quant already, so I spent the majority of my time on verbal (probably 80% of my total time). Here are some of the books I've used:

1) MGMAT SC (a must)
2) PowerScore CR (crucial)
3) MGMAT Numbers Property and Word Translation (I heard both were good -- I scanned through most of the topics; didn't do much of the "homework")
4) OG 12 (went through this book almost 2 times. went through my "circled" questions 3+ times. By circled, I mean, anything I wasn't quick at, or had trouble with, or simply got wrong)
5) OG Verbal
6) OG Math
7) OG 11 for more practice (I pretty much completed this book -- even though I knew there were significant overlaps w/ 12)
8) random SC problems on the forum
9) old GMAC paper exams (I have 9 -- did all the verbals from 7 of 'em)
10) forgot GMATclub tests (couple for math, all the verbal ones)

Some other resources I have that I didn't used much:
1) PowerScore OnDemand course
2) MGMAT CR
3) MGMAT RC
4) PowerScore SC

I didn't keep an error log because after working on so many problems, I realized exactly which problems I had trouble with. You kinda get a sense of your strengths and weaknesses fairly quick.

I did, however, kept a log of all my CATs (in ascending order by date):
Provider Score Math Verbal
Kaplan 2007 Premier Book 650 45 39
Knewton Free Diagnostic CAT 600 42 31
PowerPrep CAT1 730 49 38
PowerPrep CAT2 730 49 39
GMATPrep v2 CAT1 720 49 43
MGMAT CAT1 700 45 40
MGMAT CAT2 720 47 42
MGMAT CAT3 680 47 36
GMATPrep v2 CAT2 750 50 38
GMATPrep v2 Retake1 CAT1 740 50 40
GMATPrep v2 Retake2 CAT1 750 49 42
GMATPrep v2 Retake2 CAT2 770 51 42
MGMAT CAT4 730 50 39
MGMAT CAT5 780 51 45


If you want any details just leave your questions here. I'll try to respond as much as I can.