Done. 740 (97%) - Q49 (89%) / V42 (95%)

Question

Well I took the test today. I'm happy to have it over with. Overall, things went pretty well. Here is a list of my practice test scores:

MGMAT CAT1 - 700 Q45/V40
MGMAT CAT2 - 740 Q47/V45
MGMAT CAT3 - 720 Q43/V45
MGMAT CAT4 - 730 Q45/V45
MGMAT CAT5 - 760 Q49/V45
MGMAT CAT6 - 750 Q48/V45
GMATPrep 1 - 740 Q49/V41
GMATPrep 2 - 740 Q47/V44

Actual GMAT - 740 Q49/V42

So as you can see, my real GMAT was right in line with the two GMATPrep tests. Overall I am very happy with my score. It would have been nice to have a really good day and get my verbal up to a 44 or so, but all in all, I definitely can't complain.

As for the actual test:
The quant went pretty smoothly. To be honest, I expected it to be harder. It was definitely harder than the OG11, but it wasn't much harder than the GMATPrep questions I got on my practice tests. I got only one probability question, and no permutation/combination questions. There were one or two hard geometry problems. I guessed on the last 2 questions because I didn't have quite enough time.

The verbal went alright. Honestly, I underperformed a little here, but what can you do? I felt that the verbal questions were mostly in line with OG, but there were probably 3 really tricky SC's, 3 really tricky CR's, and a couple of very vague RC's. The SC's (other than the 3 tricky ones) all came down to basic rules, so make sure you know those.

One other note about verbal: I think MGMAT CATS and practice questions are good, but there is definitely a different flavor to the actual GMAC sentence correction problems. I would suggest spending the last few weeks of preparation doing SC's that are only from the OG or GMATPrep.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and help in preparing for this thing.

TimeSquareDesi · Answer

Congrats man! Awesome score, and awesome practice test scores! Have fun with the applications :lol:

- tsd

greenoak · Answer

Congratulations, smkrn! Excellent score, and very balanced, too. 
Good luck with your applications!

P.S. May I ask in what sense the hard SC’s you mentioned were unusual?

FN · Answer

congrats my friend..yes please comment on the verbal and what made the SCs trickier than normal??

marshpa · Answer

Awsome score smkr, good luck for your application. And can you please tell us what do you mean by vague RC?

dushver · Answer

Congratulations and good luck with your applications!! Great score.

ko · Answer

Well I guess it's kind of hard to explain, but there were one or two SC's in which I could identify a concrete basic grammatical rule that was broken in every answer choice...and usually I only missed 1-2 SC's in my practice tests, but those 1 or 2 on the actual GMAT were unlike anything I'd encountered. So it must have been some very obscure grammatical rule I was missing. Or maybe I was just going too fast and misread them.

As for RC's, there was one question where 2 of the answer choices were extremely similar, and I really could not differentiate between the 2. That hadn't ever happened to me before in practice.

So I guess the lesson to be learned is to make sure you really, really focus while taking the verbal section...it's sometimes the very small details that make an answer correct, and apparently I missed some of those small details on the actual exam.

vishy007 · Answer

Congrats Dude! Awesome score.

Can you provide debrief on how you built on verbal on SC,RC & CR. Though I read several postings on these topics, its worth asking winners. Especially how you overcame RC timing issue and SC issue of identifying the exact error. Though I am better than I was couple of months ago in spotting the error, still I miss on some of them. I have troubles with RC timing as well. I guess these are universal problems for people who are not native English speakers.

rao · Answer

CONGRATULATION ON YOUR SCORE!!!

I have just started preparing for GMAT and I am a non-native english speaker. it will be extremely helpful if you can provide us with some timelines. As to when you started preparing for GMAT and in what order you used the prep material.

Thanks in advacne

buffdaddy · Answer

great score and go the scousers !!!!!

ko · Answer

Thanks! Now if we could just get the Gareth Barry transfer sorted out...

ko · Answer

Update: AWA 6.0

ko · Answer

I really am not much help for RC. I just read them once usually, while trying to tell myself I was interested in the passage. This helped me to pay attention. Then I would just address the question. I only did 2 RC passages in my preparation (other than those included with practice CATs), so RC just kind of came naturally.

As for identifying the exact SC error - just practice, practice, practice. Especially from the OG, and you'll get the hang of the types of SC errors they like to present.

ko · Answer

In terms of timelines, I started thinking about the GMAT in March. But I didn't have time to actually study until school was over in May (I'm still an undergrad). So I spent May and June studying (while simultaneously working on an application that was due July 1). I probably spent 20-30 hours a week studying for the GMAT.

I first went through all the MGMAT books, which were pretty helpful (except for the RC and CR book - I didn't get much from them). I thought all of the MGMAT quant books were very good because they cover the scope of everything the GMAT will test. Then I did all the OG11 PS and DS questions. After that, I moved to OG11 SC and RC questions. About this time, I purchased the GMAT Club tests. So for the last 3-4 weeks, I would do a mix of SC/RC from OG11, SC from the OG Verbal guide, and GMAT Club tests. The GMAT club tests were more than enough to keep my quant at a 48-50 level (in all, I did about 7 of the GMAT Club tests, I think). I also did one practice test a week.

For almost all of my studying and practice, I would do groups of 15 questions in 30 minutes. I think that helped me keep good timing on the actual test.

Througout my study, I kept a spreadsheet of the questions I missed and what my mistakes were. So on the day before the test, I just reviewed the problems (PS, DS, and SC) that I had missed.

That's about it for my approach.

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Done. 740 (97%) - Q49 (89%) / V42 (95%)

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