study kit and strategy?

great thanks!

Whilst i'm waiting for my books to arrive in the post I'm going through the GMAT for Dummies book for an overview, probably will take a week for the books to arrive
so my first week will be on that. What do you think of this book?

From what you've said in previous posts it is best not to do any practice tests until you have a bit of study under your belt so I will do the diagnostic test this weekend and ID my weaknesses then focus on them.

Thanks again!

Sounds like a good plan. None of it is absolute; different things work for different people but in general this is the most effective approach.

ok great thanks for your reply. this whole thing is quite confusing as there are so many options, so many books etc. out there.

in your 3 mth guide it says take a practice test first before studying... wouldn't this waste a valuable 'official' practice test though if I've done no preparation so far, or is it really valuable to ID weaknesses? Alternatively, would the GMAT club diagnostic test provided in these forums be a good start instead of a practice test?

thanks again

Good Question!
yes, you would use up an official practice test but you have a few of those (at least 2 but more like 4). Here are the reasons that I would recommend taking a GMAT Prep at the beginning of your prep:

1. You get a clear picture about the test, interface, procedure, process, etc that some of the other tests do not provide
2. You get an accurate measurement of your performance (which again can be off with non-official practice tests). This is very helpful to track your progress
3. When you take a practice test at the beginning of your prep, you will most likely score between 500 and 600 (that's Ok if your score is lower); hopefully by the end of your prep you will be scoring 650+. If that's correct, the overlap of questions that you see during your diagnostic test at the beginning of you prep and the end is very small. Thus, you can take 2 official tests and then reset them and most likely not encounter any repeat questions in your second attempt. Overall, there are 1,000+ questions in the gmat prep (800 math questions and close to 200 SC's).

All of this combined together suggests that it's not a waste of a practice test to use GMAT Prep as a diagnostic.

ok great thanks!

From what I've gathered so far getting a good Top-10 school score in the GMAT is all about preparation and practice, practice and more practice rather than being an Einstein. Is that right in your opinion? Those who get 700 + scores are not necessarily geniuses but have prepared effectively, practiced like hell and worked hard at it?

Also, apart from the GMAT Club (which is great ), do you have a list of really good, free sites for preparation help?

Thanks again for all your help.

You can have good or free
This is the closest that I have to what you are asking: all-gmat-cat-practice-tests-links-prices-reviews-77460.html

Great thanks

So I'm thinking the best plan is this:

Week 1: Work through the Dummies book for an overview and feel for the GMAT.
Weekend 1: Practice Test 1 to diagnose weaknesses and strengths.

Mth 1. In-depth study of the concepts for Math
Mth 2. In-depth study of the concepts for Grammar
Mth 3. Do a lot of tests

Sorry to be a bit pesky about this but I just want to know this is a good strategy - only have 1 shot at this damn test!

Thanks