I would like to share my story because I also picked up some tips, which helped me a lot.
To begin with my background, I studied chemistry a long time ago and am now working as a marketing specialist for a multi-national company for 6 years(total 8years work experience).
My first test score was 650(Q49 V28) in Apr. '11 after a three-month study. At that time I just covered
OG, did review wrong answers and didn't do any sample CATs. After seeing the score I finally realized the reality I faced with.
As soon as I got back home, I searched what I need to do for the test. What I did was to buy the best recommended references and to start studying really hard, at least 3 hrs a day on weekdays and 8 hrs a day on weekends. I studied both the references I bought and the OGs. When you feel confused at the references you should look up the OGs. The
OG is the bible you can always rely on.
I took 6 CATs from Manhattan from one week before the actual test. The best score I've got from the test was 710(Q51 V 36). I think that
Manhattan CATs are a little bit more difficult than a actual test. Especially the Quant problems are extremely challenging.
As a non-native speaker I thought that getting over 40 points in verbal section would be time-consuming, concerning that I have a full time job. My strategy was to get 50/51 in Quant and over 36 in Verbal, and I will be able to get over 700. In order to this I tried to solve Quant problems within two miniutes when studying, and focused on SC and CR. Especially in SC I thought that I could give correct answers as many as possible if I got trained to do that job. For SC I studied Manhattan', which is great, and solved
OG again and again, trying to understand the logic in it. For CR I got the powerscore, which can gives you general understanding of the types of the problems. For Quant I got Kaplan and
OG. But Kaplan's could be very easy for those who already got over 49. If you are on that level you should try
OG with time limits, 2 min per problem.
As a result I got 730(Q 50 V 39) today. I felt Quant problems were easier than Manhattan's CATs and tried to give best answers to Verbal questions, especially faced with SC problems.
Guys, I think you can also do what you want to achieve if you set up the goal and strategy clearly, and implement the strategy persistently. Good luck to all of you.
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