770 (Q50, V44) - First Try - The story behind it

Hey guys,

Just took my GMAT yesterday (04.02.2013), here in Bucharest, and got a 770 (Q50, V44).

My training started late October 12' and ended right before the exam: that gave me roughly 3 months, although, to be fair, I had about 2-3 weeks during that time in which I didn't study at all, since I also interviewed for some jobs. All-in-all, lets say I had 2 & 1/2 months (full-time) to prepare. Below, I'll lay out how I prepared and what I did, hope you'll find some of the stuff useful:

Materials used:
1. GMAT Official Review 12th & 13th edition
2. GMAT Verbal Review (2nd Edition)
3. GMAT Quant Review (2nd Edition)
4. Complete MGMAT Test Prep: all 10 books in the series

Chronology of Study

Late October <-> Late November
Basically I started getting used to the question types in all categories of Verbal and Quant. I was doing a lot of questions out of the OG (12th ed.) just to try and get a feel for the type of structure they wanted and how correct answers sounded like. This wasn't a correction review intensive period, as I wasn't spending too much time analyzing all my errors.

Late November <-> Late December
At this point, I had received my MGMAT test prep collection - I ended up reading and studying pretty much all of the books (10), with about 2-3 spent per book, depending on what I considered my weakest spots after the initial month of question-answering. I was fairly structured about taking notes based off the books, especially on the quant part. In point of practicing, I def took it easy during this time, doing far fewer questions (most of them MGMAT) but nonetheless taking my first MGMAT CAT - 660 (Q45, V35), without IR and essay.

14th of Jan <-> 3rd of Feb
As I mentioned, the holidays teamed up with a job interview abroad and I was "forced" to interrupt studying for about 2-3 weeks. Really got me demoralized and kind of scared of actually taking the GMAT. But that's when I realized I had to step it up. In the 3rd and 4th week of January I started taking 2 full MGMAT CAT per week (Monday, Friday - including essay and IR) while focusing on individual question solving and error reviewing on Tue, Wed, Thu. I scored 680 (Q46, V37), 720 (Q45, V43), 680 (Q45, V37), 690 (Q45, V38).
My last week and a half of training focused exclusively on Official GMAT/mba materials - and I recommend this to everyone. I took the 2 GMAT Prep tests in my last week, scoring dramatically different from my MGMAT CATs: 750 (Q50, V42) and 760 (Q49, V44). Additionally, I was all over the GMAT Official Review, doing a lot of practice questions - probably somewhere at 100-120 a day. I marked all the ones I missed and the last 2 days before the exams, I went through the errors (especially for math) - also reviewing most of my notes from Nov/Dec.

On the 4th of Feb, I took the GMAT and scored my most consistent scores ever - what's worth mentioning is that I tend to do well on exam days, focusing on what I have to do (as an example, my highest SAT scores were scored on my exam day as well).

Tips and Remarks:

1. MGMAT Prep - I do recommend it, puts emphasis on showing you the shortcuts and tricks, I am satisfied with the general content. What I would like to talk about however are the GMAT CATs. As you can see from above, they were misleading in point of the Quant. My scores were consistently at 44/45, a lot lower than on exam day and the GMAT Test Prep CATs. I was always running out of time on the MGMAT, getting frustrated with the gargantuan amounts of calculations that had to be done - 4 times i ended up with 7 questions to go and around 1 min per question to do them ) - i was like lawl. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the option in which I score 10 on all my practice test and then score 800 on exam day, but I think, with all due respect to MGMAT guys, that they should try to make their Quant stuff more real test-like. Verbal-wise, I found MGMAT to be accurate and overall very good. As a conclusion, for me, the GMAT Prep tests delivered the most accurate results by far.

2. A tip that I would like to offer: if you have 3-5 more days to go before exam day, no matter your confidence level, STOP reading forums ! ! ! Seriously, no matter what other people experience, your path is different - stop over-thinking stuff, stop second questioning yourself - get it together and go get the score you want!

3. I'm a fan of full CATs to prepare for the exam. Take the 8 min breaks, watch the clock and get used to the real thing - every time I was taking a CAT, I was getting better at correcting time management issues, which I think are essential in having a cool-head and not freaking out during the test.

4. Use the essay and IR during exam-day to shake off the fact that you are nervous. I was brain-farting for the first 12 min of the AWA and then I got it together and gained some confidence. It doesn't count to your 200-800; if you're nervous, lose all of that in the AWA and IR - be cool by the time you're in Quant. Also, TAKE THOSE 8 MIN BREAKS ! ! Really try to clear your mind and just switch your mindset from quant to verbal - it's a leap and make sure you're ready for it when you go back.

Last thing: A BIG THANK YOU TO GMAT CLUB - I wasn't really very active posting or anything during my training and I can't say I spent days on the site, but seeing the ambition of people here and seeing their drive and motivation, well, that really raised the bar. Thank you for that.

Good luck guys ! !