GMAT 760 ( Q:49; V:46; IR:8.0; AWA:6.0)

Hi Everyone,

I have not been a very active member of the community here but I wanted to share my experience in case it could help someone preparing for the GMAT.

Quant - I am from an engineering background and the quantitative section wasn't particularly difficult for me. However, I had lost touch with many of the formulas and short cuts. It is very essential to have a notebook where you can write down the formulas for future reference.
For a person who is weak at Quant, I'd suggest starting with the Manhattan guides as they canvas all the important topics and formulas. You could move on to the Advanced Quant guide for the final one or two weeks prior to the exam. The main strategy to do well in Quant is to keep on practising. Keep an ERROR LOG to ensure that you are not repeating the same mistakes again. You can look at the mistakes you have made previously and reinforce the correct way in your mind by looking at the error log.
Due to the adaptive nature of the test, it is essential to try and get the questions right at the start. These questions are generally simple with increasing order of difficulty if you get them right. If you can answer correctly at the start, your percentile score improves and you can face the more difficult scoring questions. Dedicate an hour of practice for Quant everyday and you will see your results improve. Take a diagnostic test to determine where you stand in terms of need for preparation.

Verbal - Scoring high in the verbal section was definitely a challenge since I am a non-native speaker. Additionally, Indians are taught British English in schools and it is slightly difficult to change to American English. I started my verbal preparation with the Manhattan Guide for Sentence Correction. It covers a lot of sentence correction rules,which are necessary to master. I'd suggest writing them down with a few examples for context. You should revise these rules regularly. I made it a habit to revise at least 15-20 rules daily. The Official Guide can be used for practising SC. GMAT Club has a wide range of materials available for SC. Download the most popular ones with solved answers to keep practising.
I worked out my own strategy for Reading Comprehension - Summarizing the paragraphs in 3 words each. This helps you create an index for the passage that you've just read. Now you can just look at the keyword in the question and find out what part of the passage it refers to. It also helps you read the passage carefully as you have to accurately find 3 words to summarize each paragraph. You can additionally, keep reading the New York Times/ Economist to improve your reading speed. This also helps improve your SC ability.
Critical Reasoning - Start with the OG and Manhattan Guide for CR. It will give you a good idea of the different question types and the ones that you find difficult to answer. The material available on Gmat Club for CR is pure gold. Try to solve the questions for 700 to 800 level. It will help you get ready for almost every type of CR question that can come on the exam. Read the questions very carefully, try to understand what is needed and then mark off the definitely wrong answers. This will leave you with two answers which both fit the question. Read these two answers carefully and you will be able to find out the fallacy in one of them. 1 to 2 hours of daily dedicated practice is required for Verbal Section

Integrated Reasoning - There is very little material available for this section. I just practice a few questions two days prior to the exam. These questions were available on the gmat.wiley portal you get with the official guide. Don't waste a lot of time for the IR section. Just try to read the question properly and judge each answer on its merit. You can use the 3 word strategy for the passage in IR as well.

AWA - The AWA sections judges you on your ability to write a grammatically sound, well-worded essay with justifiable arguments. I had prepared a ready made template for the essay beforehand.
How to Get 6.0 in AWA template on Gmat Club is one of the best templates you can find. Memorize the template and simply add your arguments in between the statements. Make sure that you read the essay prompt carefully before you start. Do NOT waste time in double checking what you've written after every paragraph.. FInish the essay first and then cross check. Keep your essay to 4-5 paragraphs and your arguments concise. IMPORTANT - There are a few standard mistakes in most of the essay prompts such as - Percentage v/s absolute numbers, comparing one industry to another, assuming co-relation as causation. Prepare well-worded sentences to counter these and it will save you a lot of time.

Practice Tests - I gave a diagnostic test 15 days into my preparation. I scored 710 in the Official Mock provided by GMAC. After preparing for a month after the test, I gave another Mock test to determine the level of further preparation required. I scored 750 on the free Manhattan test. I had saved my last free mock for the last week of exam prep. I gave the test three days prior to my GMAT exam and scored a 770 on it. This gave me a lot of confidence for the actual test. On the final two days, I simply revised the rules I'd written down and solved the Math Workout by Princeton to revise all the formulas.

Overall it was a very satisfactory journey for me as I scored in the 99th percentile on my first attempt. I would to help anyone who is preparing for the exam with regards to materials required, test day experience and so on. All the best for your GMAT. Keep striving and results will follow. Cheers!