730 (Q50, V38)

I took the exam this morning and it was my first attempt. I joined
this forum at the end of 2003 and was an active member for about 2
months. That was the last time I looked at OG and Kaplan.

Back again on this forum Dec 2004. I realized that I was not getting
anywhere with my verbal. I was still in the 75-80% right answers on
verbal. So I decided to take gmaxonline. I think that helped me boost
about 30 points in verbal.
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Prep and scores:
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- OG completed (sometimes glanced)
- GMATCLUB Challenges are GREAT!
- Original OLD paper tests

Kaplan, gmaxonline, princeton tests are no good. They are ambiguous
sometimes and the scoring is not accurate.

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My scores:
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- PP1 - 710 (before OG)
- PP2 - 720 (2 days before exam)
- Kaplan - 650, 640
- Online challenges - 80-98%, most recent - 92 and 93%, avg - 90%
If you are already in the 49+ range, online challenges will provide
you an opportunity to boost the score to 50-51 level. I did the online challenges religiously and got burnt a couple of times trying
to do back to back tests to increase my stamina. Please do not attempt that:-)
- I took the exams and I scored consistently between 680-740. (No official scoring. I used the formula based on number of correct answers).

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The EXAM:
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I has scheduled the test for 8:30am. I reached the test center at
7:30, had my breakfast in the car and took a conference call while
waiting outside the center. I took a couple of days off, thinking that
I can relax but ended up working 10 hours both days. I was up at 3:30
am on the morning of the test to facilitate resolution for a major
systems issue that had a large business impact.

They let me in at 8:00 and I started the test right away. I never
practiced AWA seriously, so will have to wait and see the scores. I
took 'slap cold water on your face' advice seriously and my shirt was
wet during the first break.

Quant started with eay questions. First one was arithmetic decimal
simplification, second was a simple geometry. I got a hard probability
question and I took time to verify it. The questions
varied in difficulty and that made me wonder if I made any mistakes.
But, I did not give any scope for -ve thoughts as I was very
confident in Q.

I had a difficult DS question and thought I nailed it. Marked E as the
answer and went back to the stem to make sure that I was reading it
right. I realized that question asked for the ratio and I was looking
for values. At that point, instead of changing it to D, I clicked the
confirm button. Rightaway, I knew I lost the chance to get a 51. I had 3 minutes for the last question, a reminder plug-in problem with E as choice. If I were to be left with less than a minute, I could not have finished that.

Verbal started with 2 difficult SC's and an easy RC. I only got one bold face CR and I was feeling exausted. My mind went blank on a few questions. I finished verbal with 1 minute to spare. I usually make the most mistakes in RC and I must have done so on the test as well. I got two RC passages of medium difficulty with 65 line passages and a difficult 40 line passage in the end.

Then came the survey and it took for ever. Fianlly clicked for score and saw 730!

Q 50(95%) and V38(85%)

Total 730 (97%)

I was a little upset (easy Q 51) walking out of the test center.

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My thoughts:
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Successful GMAT score requires:

- General aptitude (As a non-native speaker and not so voracious a reader, I knew 40 in verbal would be a stretch)
- Stamina and endurance (Vensune is bang on..most of us loose by the time we get to the verbal section)
- Preperation and practice (one can improve upto 80 points on SC alone)
- Take one question at a time and do not get ahead of yourself (Golf really helped me here).

I would like to thank GMATCLUB for providing such a great forum.
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My profile:
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I have 9+ years tech strategy, architecture, sys management experience and targeting a top 5 EMBA sponsored by my company. I took the test seriously though 80% in Q and V will get me an admission.

Let me know if any of you have questions and I will be glad to answer.

Best of Luck!!