Thanks a lot to the GMATClub forums,
EGMAT free seminars and
Manhattan books that I used for my preparation. I was really hoping to crack 700, and I'm sure it was well within reach but just didn't execute on time, literally !!!
I hope the narrative below will help other GMAT test-takers.....
The official GMAT itself, personally, felt a lot easier than many other tests (I'd say comparable to their
Official Guide questions really):
The order I chose – Verbal, Quant, IR and Writing
Verbal – did well and was right on time. Majority of SC were shorter sentences, which really tested pronouns, parallelism and adjective/verb usage. 1 question was on comparatives. RC – 1 was a short 2 paragraph and 1 was really long (and boring) but definitely long.
EGMAT seminar to the rescue – READ SLOWLY and soak in the passage. Understand where and what the passage is saying, and then go to the questions. The accuracy and precision was definitely put to test – and at V-34 (Percentile of 73), I think I did ok. Haven’t ordered the official ESR yet !
Quant – Really really easy. So easy that I had to check my answers twice to make sure I wasn’t making an error or that it wasn’t a trick question, and if I had missed something obvious. And that’s what hurt my score Q-46 – I did not have ample time for the last 5 questions – really last 5 questions were very close to a best guess. I should’ve totally been a little more careful with the time management. One silly mistake on a question that I definitely got right but didn’t draw out correctly cost me dearly – an extra 2 minutes. Wish I could’ve stayed on top of the Quant as it was my strong point ! But oh well…..
IR – took a 8 minute break, and OOPS ended up taking an extra 30 seconds longer – so came into the IT section 29 minutes to go……questions were again rather simple and straightforward except for the 1st one that I took really long to complete and ended up guessing finally. All other 11 questions were OK.
A quick profile overview,
I'm 38 now and I took my last standardized GRE test in August 2000 with a 2210/2400 score.
Time and effort constraints - A full time job, 3 kids and house remodel (more specifically kitchen)
!
A quick CAT and mock-test overview,
Signed up on December 2nd, 2018 for the official GMAT test date on January 17, 2019.
Manhattan CAT 1- score 600 (December 7th) - Q 45, V 28
Focus on Verbal preparation only - didn't revisit Quant (to see how could I pull up the V score)
Manhattan CAT 2-score 550 (December 15th) - Q 39, V 30
The following 2 CAT’s were taken after a long day of work, when I was tired/mentally exhausted and couldn’t study but decided to stress-test myself for continuously sitting in a test for ~2.6 hours anyways:
Manhattan CAT 3-score 530 (January 7th) - Q 39, V 30
Manhattan CAT 4-score 570 (January 14th) - Q 39, V 30
Focused well and tried to see where I stand under real life test scenario:
CAT (GMAC Practice test) - score 650 (December 29th) - Q 49, V 29
Veritas CAT Test-score 620 (January 8th) – Q 47, V 29
Rescheduled the official GMAT to January 26th, 2019 due to a very busy work schedule and to top it off, a serious water heater leak in the garage.
FREE….how could I let the awesome FREE test’s let go – took 8 Verbal CAT’s and 4 Quant CAT’s almost back to back…..
Free
GMATClub tests January 1st, January 21st - scores of 630
And NO MORE CAT’s after the last free Quant CAT on GMATClub.
To conclude and summarize, GMAT is easy and a score of 700 should definitely be achievable. Please message or ask any questions if I can be of further assistance !