I took the GMAT three times
2013: 730 Q48 V41 AW 5 IR 4
2012: 680 Q47 V35 AW 5 IR 7
2010: 700 Q48 V 37 AW 5
US born Asian ethnicity
During my first attempt I spent the two months I had off between college and work going through
MGMAT 2010 edition and a Kaplan basic overview course. I honestly didn't spend that much time going through the
MGMAT books and the only practice problems I did were from the
OG & Kaplan. My preparation was basic at best - Kaplan did help me with developing a framework for the Essays which did make taking the test easier
2nd Attempt = Disaster. I signed up for the Kaplan Advanced course, but my preparation honestly sucked. The only problems I did were through Kaplan and the official GMAT tests - I didn't even get through all the
OG questions (this alone should set off alarm bells). Additionally, I was distracted by work and the combination of all of this points toward my score trajectory
3rd Attempt = Awesome. I first started by reading through all of the
MGMAT Quant books(2 months - procrastination played a role here). Once I was done with those I began to do all of Jeff Sackman's problems (around 1000). At the same time I began to go through the
MGMAT Verbal books - honestly, the only part which really helps is the sentence correction book. After finishing Sackman's problem sets (1 month) I then started going through the
OG (both book and GMAT software), where everyday I did Quant & Verbal problems (3 weeks). The period from when I started preparing to when I took the test was September 2012 - Jan 2013. So during the last 6 weeks I did a combination of Sackman +
OG +
MGMAT Tests + Two Official Tests (final two weeks).
Test - Day: I took the day before off - during this day off I took a leftover
MGMAT test. Test Day in general went well, there were some negatives - I should have done better on IR and probably spent more time on Verbal.
Anyway, the last test was the final one and I look forward to applying to B-School later this year.
P.M. me for any details