June 30,2010 -- 750 (Q 51, V 40) 98 (98,89)

bakfed: Thanks

akaydee: Yes - OG, GMATPrep questions are enough. Make sure you know your basics right. OG has some fundamentals listed in the Quant section. Also Manhattan GMAT Math guides are good.

Try solving questions tagged as GMATPrep on this forum. Even if you know the answer, it helps to see how others are solving. Also explanations by the Quant moderators are great! I used to mostly read the notes written by them - it helped a lot.

Do you think just these material are enough ? Did you use any other material for Verbal ?

Congratulations...good score!

Your Quant score is bang on. Did you use any other prep material for Quant apart from OG Quant review ?

They are enough if you can understand why each question is the way it is --

I enrolled in two other forums too. I just kept doing the top 10 posts in Verbal and Quant forums even if there were repititions.

I just practised as much as I could -- on the test, I was able to eliminate 2 or 3 choices immediately and after close observation, i picked one answer. Repeatedly doing lots of questions helped in elimination.

Thanks.

Other than OG, I did the questions posted on the Quant forums - esp. GMATPrep ones and inequalities.

I bought all 8 guides from Manhattan Prep. 5 of them were Quant books. I read one book but afterwards I just put them aside. I always got 50 (or 49) in GMATPrep tests -- so, I left off my Quant prep completely. But, if you want to learn basics, i think these 5 guides are really good.

Thank you !
Good luck with your apps

testprep2010, congratulations on your score and thank you for sharing your experience with us. Could you please describe in greater detail your preparation, study routine, work/study balance?

I second this request

Awesome score!!! Congrats!

I started my preperation in December. I bought the following books:

1. OG 12, OG Verbal, OG Quant
2. Manhattan GMAT - 8 study guides
3. Nova Prep -- Online pdf copy
4. Kaplan study material -- i bought 3 books, did them and returned them back. I think the books were Kaplan 2010 Study guide, Kaplan Advanced and Kaplan Verbal Guide
5. Powerscore CR bible

These are the only books I used. I also downloaded GMATPrep software. I completed OG Guides, MGMAT SC and CR bible by March. For OG questions, I maintained an error log and kept solving them repeatedly till I got the questions right.

On March 1st, I wrote GMAT Prep exam 1 and got 670. I also wrote one of the 6 MGMAT tests and scored 620. I found MGMAT test tough. In both the tests, I scored full in Math. So, I started concentrating on Verbal. I did not have a strict routine. I made sure I spent atleast 3/4 hours everyday doing the Verbal material. My biggest trouble was SC followed by CR. I read Manhattan SC followed by Powerscore CR. Manhattan GMAT SC guide was helpful but only to a certain extent. I think OG is more useful. All Sentence Correction questions are based on basic rules. So, instead of concentrating too much on the grammar, try identifying what the question is testing -- whether its a Just as...so or not only...but also question. Same with Critical Reasoning. Powerscore CR bible is very helpful. It has great explanations on how you can rule out some of the answer choices and read just the relevant ones. For RC, I just started reading economist, usnews, NewYorkTimes newspapers. I read the sections I would usually skip -- like Sports (Yes!! I am not a big sports fan. I am from India where Cricket is a religion and thats the only sport I watch occassionally), Economy and Opinions/Editorials. My problem with RC was, I could solve some of the questions correctly but after some time, I used to lose interest. So, I spent a whole week doing just RC passages. That way, even though I got bored doing RC, I kept trying to concentrate. This helped because in the exam, halfway through, I got a RC passage that was one of the longest I ever read. From March to June, I did the OG books three times. Even if I knew the answers, i did the question by writing down why the other 4 choices are wrong. I also did the Quant and Verbal tests on gmatclub. I think some of the questions were really tough but doing releatedly helps you spot errors. I also did the sample questions posted on GMAT Preperation/Coaching websites. Even if my answer was correct, I always read the explanations because sometimes you might solve the question wrong but end up with the right choice. https://www.platinumgmat.com has some really good questions. Kaplan also has some sample questions for each section on its website. Manhattan GMAT has some online sessions every Thursday -- everyweek concentrating on a certain topic. I watched the archived vidoes. They were really helpful. I dont have the link anymore. When I solved questions on the online forums, I did them in 3 hour stretches just to see if I will be able to concentrate so long. For AWA, I downloaded the template from AWA forum and went through the sample topics.


For the study routine, I spent 3-4 hours every evening doing the questions in OG and online forums. I work full-time, so I went to office early and came home early to do the studying. In office, during break, I used to go through the online forums. Also, I made sure I was studying in 3 or 4 hour stretches.


From most of other posts, I understood everyone got scores close to their gmatprep scores. So, the last 1 week, I did almost one gmatprep exam each day. Most of the time, Qunat questions changed but the Verbal ones had money repititions -- but it really helped. While writing the exam, for Verbal -- as soon as I saw a SC or CR question, I understood what it is testing. Also, dont lose your concentration during the exam. It happened to me during the Verbal section. One of the RC passages was too long and I had to repeatedly bring myself into the mood. Same with one of the CR -- even though I read it 3 times, I felt all answer choices sounded good. Whenever I was stuck, I wrote down the options on the pad and started striking out the ones that were not relevant. That helped me. I read this in one of the other posts too. It helps you to focus.

HTH! Let me know if any other questions --

Awesome score ........congrats

Thanks a lot for an updated info.

Wou testprep2010! Excellent!

could you please share with us what was you accuracy rate when doing RC passages during a week? 9I wnat to compare this rate with mine, and see how much I need to work)

I am weak in RC and want to improve it.

thanx

Congratulations on ur score!! And thanks for sharing ur experience, study routine..

I think there were very few times when I got all questions on the RCs correct. I think my rate may be around 5 out of 6 = 83%. Initially I think it was below 50%. I used to just glance the passage and start answering.

The thing is, there are some questions you should not make errors -- like main idea, mood of the author/tone of the passage,... If you look at questions in OG, it is really helpful to understand how such questions can be solved. Like in the passage, the author may use the word "carefully" and the tone may be a cautious one (I dont mean this as a concrete example, but try to read explanations in OG and understand). Also, the EXCEPT questions should be easy -- because some of the answers are copied exactly from the passage, so you can rule those options.

Another thing is I solve SC and CR very quickly, so I usually read the full RC passage slowly and even try and understand it -- even though it is not required to do so. This helped me. I think you can follow this approach only if you have enough time.

PS DS was over 95% and the ones I got wrong, I wrote the question numbers on first page and just solved only those before exam.

For Verbal, in the beginning my rate was like 70%. But to the end it improved a lot. I think I was solving all questions in OG correctly but I almost knew the answers to each question to the end.

And about the summer vacation part -- i am caught up in applications and essays and I have no time to enjoy. But, I am going for "Dispicable Me" today.

GMAT is just the beginning. Actually it is nothing infront of those essays.

thanks EyeOfTheTiger, nonameee, varunmaheshwari