510 to 700 in the GMAT in a month :)

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510 to 700 in the GMAT in a month :)

by raisha16 » Wed Jul 24, 2013 7:30 am
Just gave my exam today and scored 700 (49Q and 35V). All the while I was reading blogs about people scoring 700 plus and was trying to stay motivated through the process and it worked. So, thought of writing down my experience as well for people yet to appear for the exam.
I took Princeton Review classroom program.(Mostly to get into schedule rather than the material). I booked the date two months back but other exams and work kept me busy and could not really start the preparation until mid June. Adding to my misery was only a 3 day leave from office and my office hours are crazy. But still I managed to take out time and gave 8 mock tests in all. Mostly in the last 10 days. The scores ranged between 510-680, which was a relief since my aim was to touch 700 somehow.
My preparation constituted mostly practice, practice and practice! With a limited time at my disposal I could complete only the Princeton review and Kaplan books mentioned below and covered majority part of the GMAT official guides not completely though.

Exam experience:
I found Quants easy with tricky questions in DS.
IR was too tough for me. haven't got the scores yet.
AWA went well.
Verbal had too many difficult SC but RCs and CRs were decent.

Materials used:
Princeton review books for theory
Kaplan 800 Advanced ( helped a lot since it covered all kinds of tough questions)
GMAT 13 OG
GMAT Verbal review
Gave 6 mock tests from Princeton review and 2 at GMAT prep (scored 640 and 660)

That's pretty much. All the best to future GMAT takers!

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by Santhanalakshmi » Mon Jul 29, 2013 8:05 am
Congratulations Raisha16!! Good luck with your applications! :)

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by speedyb09 » Tue Jul 30, 2013 8:45 am
I am so impressed! Can I ask a bit more about your study schedule? How much did you study and how did you study every day?

I am in a similar situation and have become so forlorn about my GMAT practice test (540, need to get to around 700) that it has become really discouraging. It would be awesome to better understand HOW you studied for this in one month! Thanks!

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by mittal82 » Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:41 am
Congratulations! Hard work eventually pays off.

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by batwaraanirudh » Tue Jul 30, 2013 10:47 pm
Great Job man! All the best. Do tell more about your study schedule and tests.

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by raisha16 » Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:38 pm
Sorry for coming late on this. My schedule consisted of at least 8-9 hours one week before the exam. And I focused more on higher difficulty questions and gave around 9 tests in total through 1 month to identify my weak points and work on those. English was my improvement zone so I worked a lot of SC and RC questions.