Hi
My Gmat experience is rather long. I took the Gmat 2 1/2 years ago to get into a part-time MBA program and scored a 620 (I took a
Manhattan Gmat online-prep class). After being in school for a while I decided that I wanted to continue my education so I started studying to take the Gmat again.
Late 2012 I took an online class through Veritas Prep. The class instructor was good but the program overall wasn't great and the books specifically were subpar. I used my old
Manhattan Gmat prep books for studying instead of the Veritas Prep books. (Just a side bar I filled out the course feedback for VeritasPrep because of some issues I had with the class/program and asked in the feedback to be contacted.... I never was contacted so I personally would NOT recommend VeritasPrep)
After studying very little in the 1st half of 2013 I left my job to go back to school full-time and study for the Gmat. I studied for two months and scheduled to take the Official Gmat in late August.
Practice scores leading up to the Gmat in August were:
Veritas 680 (aug 3)
Veritas 660 (aug 7)
Kaplan 680 (aug 12) Regarding the
Kaplan Premier 2014... these test scores in my opinion do not hold the same value as previous scores like those stated in the Gmat Score Calculator
Kaplan 690 (aug 17)
Gmat Prep 690 (late aug) with duplicate questions so the score was inflated
I took the Gmat late August and got a 600!!!! It was shocking since with very little studying over 2 years ago I scored a 620. I place the bad score mostly on nerves. For a couple days prior I was sleeping poorly and barely eating.
After a big dose of humble pie I got back on the Gmat horse and decided to give it one more try. This time I hired a tutor for ten hours (it was the instructor from the VeritasPrep Course). I don't know what I was expecting from a tutor but I had this thought that they would impart some great knowledge but that didn't happen. I think there was some value added but I still don't know if it was worth the expense.
Anyway I studied for two months along with going to school.
Here is the important facts:
1. I bought the question pack from GmatPrep. Those questions are gold in my opinion and I feel that those questions helped me more than any other material.
2. I bought the Test Pack from GmatPrep. Those tests proved to be the best indicator out there.
I took the two test Oct 24th & Oct 30th and score 690 & 680. (there are some glitches with the software and I had some duplicate questions but the 680 proved to be right on with the official score)
Test Experience (November 6th)Before hand I made sure I slept the night before by taking some sleeping pills (I tried them a couple nights before to make sure they didn't have any adverse effects) and I made sure I ate since my test was at 3.30pm.
The writing section was fine. The IR this time was horrible because I genuinely didn't understand a couple of questions (I didn't prepare the last time I took the test and received a 7). It seems to me that something is/was amiss with the questions.
Quant- I felt pretty good about this portion of the test while taking it and going into the test my quant scores ranged from 44-48. This was the area I was a little more apprehensive about. The question pack from GmatPrep was very helpful in preparing for the quant section.
***I used the strategy laid out (Again gmatclub won't allow me to post URLs but it is titled "gmat-prep-software-analysis-and-what-if-scenarios"). Personally I allocated 3 minutes each for the 1st 10 questions and it produced a pretty good score. I would seriously recommend to people to give this a try. ***
Verbal- Sentence correction questions were my weakest portion in all of the Gmat and if I had to guess those were my downfall in not getting into the 40s. The CR & RC were not very hard in my opinion but the Sentence correction were very tough.
Overall I thought the actual quant was easier than in preparing (at least that is what my score indicates) & and the verbal was harder than in preparing (at least that is what my score indicates)
I hope this helps someone.
Thanks
Ryan