Hello to all enthusiastic GMAT aspirants!!
Sharing my prep experience with all of you:
Appeared for my first attempt at GMAT on 15.10.2012: Score 660/81% ( Q: 49/83% and V: 32/64%) AWA: 5.0
Took online classes of e-GMAT for 1 month for verbal only.
Appeared for my second attempt at GMAT on 21.11.2012: Score 710/92% ( Q: 50/90% and V: 34/69%), AWA: 4.0
Applied to LBS, Tuck and Darden in Jan'13 i.e. Round 2 and got rejected in all. So reputed business schools do care about your verbal skills and AWA.
Started preparing for GMAT again in Jan'14: Books used- Kaplan for verbal ( RC and CR), Manhattan for SC. Apart from these focused alot on improving verbal skills by reading tough verbiage novels/ newspapers.
Mock test results are as follow:
GMAT Prep 1: 770
Kaplan 1: 720
Kaplan 2: 700
Kaplan 3: 720
Kaplan 4: 750
Kaplan 5: 710
GMAT Prep 2: 730
Appeared for my third attempt at GMAT on 19.04.2014: Score 730/96% ( Q: 50/89% and V: 40/90%), AWA: 5.5.
Will be applying to couple of US universities this year & will also appear for TOEFL. ( Highly advisable for Asian students). My recommendations that there is no shortcut to improve your verbal skills. Just work hard and you can develop good verbal skills in 3-6 months. Wish you good luck for your aspirations. Take care guys!!