I've been reading the gmatclub forum for quite some time and through it I found lots of interesting material, so now it's my turn to give back to the community.
I started my study using Princeton Review. The book is ok, but does not go that much in depth. Possibly it's good to get the overall picture, but it cannot take you to high scores. My first practice test was the Princeton Review online one, after I finished the book. I got 610 (Q48 V26), which seemed normal, because I had an 800/800 at GRE math (quite a few years ago) and I am not a native English speaker.
So, my first priority was to fix my verbal:
a) SC: The
Manhattan GMAT SC guide rocks! Immediately after finishing it, my SC went way up. I also read the Powerprep SC bible and it was quite good, however the material is also covered in the
MGMAT guide.
b) CR: The Powerprep CR bible rocks! Again, after reading it my CR went up.
c) RC: I think that the only way to boost RC is by reading Wall Street Journal or Businessweek or something similar. Generally, RC was my weak point in verbal.
After finishing with all the above I used the
OG 11th edition + OG11 Verbal + OG11 Math for practice. I did all the verbal exercises twice and my scores were 80-90% in each section.
After finishing with my preparation in verbal, I got around 720-730 in practice tests, so it was time for Math. I bought all the
MGMAT math books (5 of them). The ones that helped me were the Word Translation (I've read in quite a few places that this boosts you from 48 to 50-51 and this is definately true) and the geometry one. I did all the exercises from the 5 books, as well as the OG11 + OG11 Math exercises that were mentioned in the
MGMAT guides (I didn't do any other exercises from OG11 apart from the ones mentioned in the
MGMAT books). After this, I purchased the
gmatclub Tests. I scored around 80%-95% in the first 5-6 ones, but then the stats changed (because the last year's test takers were added to the calculation) and I fell to ~60-70%. At that point they mostly became a psychological handicap, so I stopped using them
Anyway, at that point I had managed to get unstuck from 48 in math and even reach 51 in some practise tests.
After that in the
MGMAT and the GmatPrep practice tests I scored a steady 740-760.
So, my target was 750 and I scored a 740. I think that if I had little more stamina in verbal I would have had a higher score there. Especially towards the end, I was getting pretty tired.
Now, I'm waiting for AWA. Hopefully I'll get a 5/6 and I'll be done with GMAT
The last few practice tests that I gave:
MGMAT CAT 5 (3/1): 740 (Q50 V41)
GMATPREP 1 (3/10): 760 (Q49 V46)
GMATPREP 2 (3/11): 740 (Q50 V40)
MGMAT CAT 6 (3/12): 750 (Q51 V41)
GMATPREP 1 Retake (3/13): 770 (Q51 V43) - There were many questions that I had seen before, but it was a good confidence booster.
I also tried a couple of the Pricenton Review practice tests, but they didn't correlate with the GmatPrep ones. Also, I have bought the Kaplan books and CDs, but I didn't look at them.