740(Q49,V41).... One more for the John Doe's

I'm back now and I hope my earlier staccato advice didn't scare you away. I now have plenty of time to tell you about my GMAT journey. I started preparing on 7th Dec'06. My prep classes were scheduled to begin on 17th Dec so I thought it would be a good idea to finish PR 2007 before that so I could understand better in class. I took me exactly 10 days to finish the PR, excluding the questions in the bins at the end. My prep classes were on weekends, 3 hrs each for Quant & Verbal - total 10 classes for each. Our teachers were kind however because once our classes finished they agreed to take a few extra classes for us. That helped. Some of the quant stuff we did in class far exceeded level of the GMAT stuff I came across earlier today. The Verbal questions were never hard enough. Here I must say the CR's that dvtohir posts are much tougher that what I faced today on the GMAT. I am glad (s)he decided to post at GMATClub


Our quant teacher recommended that we do the quant in NOVA. That was in January. I promptly did that - was the first one in my class to finish the quant in NOVA. February & March were spent doing what was taught in class. It was difficult to keep up with the assignments they gave us. One week they gave us 400 questions and around 320 questions the very next week! During this time I gave priority to GMAT over everything else and that I believe can happen when you are very strongly motivated to reach your goal. There have been many days when I would wake up, start studying, soon realise I was late for office, change clothes and rush to office. I would later come back from work and start studying immediately. During these days I would frequently skip bathing and even brushing my teeth at times
Meanwhile I also read artshep's post and how he found a grammar book useful for SC's so I bought a grammar too (The only Grammar you'll ever need by Susan Thurman). Like ywilfred's SC notes I read certain chapters (2,3, 4, 5 & 7) of this book many times during the first 2-3 months of my prep. I was now able to identify subjects, objects easily in some complex sentences as well. This book teaches the basic stuff very well but you'll need to build on what you learn here because this book is just not good enough to get you a 40+ Verbal. During the last week of February I took a Kaplan Diagnostic test and got 650. The test showed RC to be my weakest area. I searched for different ways to attack RC's and eventually settled for the PR approach, which is a great approach if used fully.

Once my Prep classes were over in March I started with the OG-11 Quant but that wasn't too challenging so I only did the last 50 questions in PS, last 20 in DS. I did all the SC's using the MGMAT SC. I started with Kaplan800 and that CR & SC were enough to make me believe I hadn't wasted the past few months learning nothing but I knew from others posts about this book that this book hadsome tough questions. In total I revised the SC's & CR's in this book twice. The PS is easy in this book and the DS is ok. The RC's are good practice and my PR approach worked on all of them. I never got more than one wrong in any of the Kaplan800 RC's.

I took a PwerPrep on around 15th April and got 700. I immediately booked a slot for myself for May 02 thinking that would would give me enough time to revise what I had learnt and review my mistakes. I did not hope to improve beyond this level, and I probably haven't. Here's why I think I got 40 extra points today. Firstly, soxy_topacio gaveme good advice on not taking apples with me to the test center. I instead had a banana in each of the breaks and half a chocolate. The effect was almost instanteous. I never felt the slightest fatigue during the entire nearly 4 hour long performance. Thank you soxy_topacio.
I also followed bb's advice here about breaks & the divers reflex.
https://www.gmatclub.com/content/courses/last-week.php
The divers reflex is incredible. Do it during your breaks and you'll be surprised.
My concentration was intensified during the test and I was myself surprised at some of the CR's where I was able to identify some of the weaknesses/ conclusions of arguments that woul dotherwisehave taken me much longer (but they weren't dvtohir's level ) and in DS I was able to pull off similar stuff.

In the end I believe if your motivation is strong you will achieve your target score - t hat got me t o 700. I also believe that it was the between the breaks diet & the diver's reflex that got me the extra 40 points, coupled with my own heightened concentration during the test of course. The rest is history. I have a lot more to tell but this post has become too long for anybody to read I fear. How do others manage to keep theirs so short?