680 (Q49, V33)

Hi Guys,

I have been a silent follower of this web site for quite sometime now. Here is my GMAT experience:

1st attempt: 08/05/09

620 (Q45, V31); AWA: 5.0

Study Material:

Manhattan SC
OG 10 & 11
1000 CR

Prep scores:
GMAT Prep: ranged from (660-700).
Cambridge: (620-650)

2nd attempt: 9/28/09

680 (Q49, V33)
overall - 86 %
Q 49 - 87%
V 33 - 66%

Study material:
OG 12
Manhattan Num properties
Manhattan SC
1000 SC

Test Day:

AWA section: AWA section went well. Even though I am not a native english speaker, somehow my writing skills are better than average. The essays were pretty easy and I was able to finish this section in the stipulated amount of time.

Quant: This has always been my plus point given the background that I hail from, but my quant experience in the first attempt was a shocker since I have been scored below 95% in any of the quant tests that i have given so far. Neverthless, i took the experience from my 1st attempt and made sure that I did not repeat the silly mistakes that had cost me dearly. One thing I am good about is reading quant solutions as in going through the solution from OG 12 was sufficient for me to get upto the speed.

The quant questions on the second attempt were very much closer to the difficulty level in OG. I did see combinations and probability questions in the last 7 sections of the test. There were couple of questions in the middle of the section which threw me completely out of balance and I decided to make educated guess and move on. Luckily, that did not hamper my quant score.

Verbal: This has always been a challenge for me as I neither have a good understanding of the basics nor do I have a good vocabulary. The two most challenging portions of this section were SC and RC. Somehow, I felt that CR was not a problem for me bcause I am pretty strong with my analytical skills. Based on my experience in the first attempt, I decided to focus completely on SC and kind of neglected RC because I was thinking that practising RC's was not going to improve my accuracy.

Thought of Concern:

I hail from the famous IIM back ground (Indian IT male, although my experience has been in Business analysis which is more oriented towards the functional side of the business). Also, I have had a very good growth experience in my job history i.e. within 6 months of joining I was promoted to Lead business analyst and assisant project manager. Hopefully, this is a plus point in my apps. In addition, I also have a very diversified back ground i.e. my education has been in chemical engineering with couple of research papers but ended up working in IT. I have an MS (Master's of Science) with 3.5 GPA.

Could anyone please advise whether i should give GMAT another try because my verbal is slightly below par. I aspire to apply to the following schools:

Wharton
Chicago Booth
Tuck
MIT
ISB