What do you make out of this ?

Hi Guys,

I have been a GMAT Club member for almost 2 months now and think that is the best GMAT forum I have seen so far. Today, I want your opinions, feedback and any inputs on my performance so far. The reason is that I am planning to schedule my GMAT after 3 weeks from now and want to be absolutely sure that I am ready for it. So here are some details of how and what I prepared and my scores in some tests that I have taken.

History : I took my first official GMAT in Jan 2005 and scored a moderate 660 (Q48, V36). Was not happy with it then but did not have time to redo the entire exercise immediately. Early, this year, I decided to fight back and started preparing only in the month of April. But my preparation till July end was with lot of breaks sometimes as long as 15 days. I have been regular only since last week of July.

I completed the OG 11th edition (whole of it). I did exercises from Powerprep's Cracking the GMAT and Kaplan. I knew my weak area was Verbal and really had to focus on it. To tell you frankly, even now, I think I have hardly prepared for Maths. For verbal, I have referred to numerous questions on GMAT Club, GMAT Sets and 1000 questions. I have also referred to MGMAT material and solved their tests.

1) 07/29 - The first full length test I solved was Kaplan diagnostic test from Kaplan book.
- 650 (Q45, V39)

2) 08/01 - I happened to have 800 Score verbal and maths test. I solved their first verbal test and got a scaled score of 40.(31 out of 41 correct and 91 percentile) . I realized it hardly matched the actual GMAT and decided not to solve any more of their tests.

3) 08/16 - Princeton online CAT 1 - Total score 640 (Q48, V31)

4) 08/19 - GMATPrep CAT 1 - Total Score 680 (Q49, V34)

I really geared up after the GMAT Prep. Decided enough is enough. I accelerated my preparation. Solved many SCs from 1000 SCs. Purchased Manhattan SC book and used a lot of concepts from it. I started seeing some improvement in my SCs.

3) 08/26 - With lot of hopes, I gave the Kaplan CAT 1 on the CD. I scored a devastating 600. I realized how crappy Kaplan was not only because how unrealistic their scoring was but also because how specious were some of the explanations they provided.

4) 08/28 - Back to Princeton online CAT2- Score didnt change. Total score was 640 but verbal score went down and maths went up. Q50, V28. I realized one more thing, Princeton maths was definitely much more easier that real GMAT and they penalized way to high for any incorrect questions in both verbal and maths. But since their verbal level of difficulty level appeared to be close to real GMAT, I decided to try their next test in a few days and meanwhile build my verbal armory

So days went my and I solved many more GMAT Club questions, GMAT sets, brutal SCs(they were just like their name, brutal), 1000CRs.

4) 09/11 - MGMAT CAT 1: I kept the time same 75 mins for Q and 75 mins for verbal.. Total score 630(Q43, V33). I realized that their maths was much more difficult that actual GMAT. And also noticed that many GMAT club members were not solving the match section in a timed environment. But I decided against that to have the actual feel of a full length test.

5) 09/15 - Powerprep Test 1 : Total Score 750 (Q50, V42) !!!!!. My thoughts after this. Maths was way to easy. Verbal somehow seemed to be at a level slightly below Manhattan but not much. I was happy anyway to know that I am improving

6) 09/16 - MGMAT CAT2 : Total Score 650(Q43, V36). Could not believe my eyes. How can my performance vary so much..100points that was too much to digest. However, I decided to move on and keep practicing.

7) 09/23 - MGMAT CAT3: Total Score 660 (Q44, V36)

8) 09/27 - Princeton online CAT3 : Total score 710 (Q50, V39).

9) 09/29 - MGMAT CAT4 : Total Score 640(Q44, V34) - I did not know what to make out of this. I decided to give Powerprep 2 the next day to make sure I am on the right track

10) 09/30 i.e. today : Powerprep Test2 : 770 (Q50, V44) : I must admit that maths appeared to be a shade more difficult than that of Powerprep1. However there were 3-4 CRs in verbal, which I had seen before.

This is what I think today. My verbal has definitely improved since the time I started preparing. But the fluctuations in my Manhattan score and powerprep scores(of around 100 points) has been driving me crazy.

Guys, my target score is 730+. My original plan was to take my GMAT in the 3rd week of Oct. Today I am in 2 minds whether I should take the appointment. The sad part is, if at all I dont, I will not be able to take it before Nov end due to personal reasons. And there will be more than 20 days gap when I wont be able to study ( last week of Oct and first 3 weeks of Nov) at all. That is more trouble. In the last 3 months, I have noticed that a gap of 3 days also had its effect on my accuracy.

I have not yet solved GMAT prep2, MGMAT 5, MGMAT6 and Princeton 4. I will be doing these in the next 2 weeks. I had planned to solve GMAT Prep 2 only one week before my test date. So have kept that on hold.

What I will like to know from you all is what do you make out of my scores ? Do you think, I am ready for 730+ with 2 -3 weeks of more preparation ? Or do you think, I must be hold on that and then take my test date by this year end to be absolutely sure ?

Thanks for reading my long post, so far my longest.