Hi everyone,
I just came back from the test center and finally relieved.
My GMAT score: 710 (92percentile) Q49 V38 I made my 1st attempt in February, 2010 and got 630 (Q 45 V 31). That score was a big surprise then because I scored in the range of 660 to 680 in my
MGMAT practice tests. I don't remember my GMAT prep scores from that attempt, but definitely above 650.
I was very disappointed with the score and was planning to make a 2nd attempt since then. It took a while for me to get started and finally started studying in August. Being an engineering graduate my strategy for the 2nd attempt is to maximize my score in quant and improve my score in verbal. I felt that I was overconfident in quant in my 1st attempt and I must spend as much time as I can studying SC.
Books used:
Manhattan GMAT 8 books, 11th and 12th edition , Verbal review , Quant review,
Powerscore CRMy prep time was about 2 hours each day after work Monday to Thursday and studied on Friday and Saturday during the last month.
I first started with the 5
MGMAT quant books and finished all the 5 books in a month. I would credit
MGMAT books for the increase in my Quant score. After finishing the 5 books and the 12th edition and quant review in August I did not have to go back to math until today.
Once I was confident about the quant part I put my focus on SC. I want to tackle idioms first and so I prepared index cards with the word on one side and the extension on the other side. For example for the idiom 'ability to' I wrote 'ability' on one side and 'to' on the other side of the card. This process was very helpful in memorizing the idioms. I downloaded Gayathri's SC notes from this forum and it was very helpful. It took me a while to understand the concepts of Sentence Correction. So I studied
MGMAT SC book twice and did all the SC questions from 11th, 12th and verbal review twice.
I started taking
MGMAT tests to gauge my progress in between.
MGMAT test 1 (9/8): 660 (q46 v34)
MGMAT test 2 (9/11): 600 (q43 v31)
MGMAT test 3 (10/15): 660 (q47 v33)
MGMAT test 4 (10/20): 660 (q46 v34)
MGMAT test 5(11/03): 680 (q47 v35)
MGMAT test 6 (11/05): 680 (q48 v35)
Knewton free test : 650
GMAT prep 1: 700 (q49 v35)
GMAT prep 2: 700 (q47 v38)
I noticed a difference in the scoring of
MGMAT and GMATprep. As per
MGMAT I am doing worst in RC but as per Gmatprep I am doing worst in SC.
I initially scheduled the test on Oct 30th but thought I need some extra time and rescheduled to Nov 11th.
Finally, the day of the test, I went to the test center and completed all the formalities. Completed the AWA part and took the break. Time was not a factor for me as I was able to do almost all the practice tests within the time limit. I practiced not to spend too much time on 1 problem. If I am totally clueless on the question I will simply pick some answer and go to the next question not wasting anytime. This has worked for me. I bombed the 1st quant question and had to make a guess. I noticed that my 1st 3 quant questions are hard. Other than that everything went fine. But I have seen some very simple quant questions in between which made me to panic and made me think I am not doing good. I finished quant section with 1 min to spare.
Took the break and started the verbal section and it went smooth overall. As I started approaching the last 15 mins I was so anxious. I just want to end the test and see my score. Finally I barely finished the verbal part in time and eager to check my score I just skipped the next few screens as fast as I can and voila
710.
I am very relieved and happy. My target schools are MIT, Tuck and Yale. Hopefully, this score is enough and I don't have to take it again.
Thanks everyone on this forum. This forum has been very helpful through out the past few months and once again I thank everyone here.
Good Luck.