I just Beat The GMAT!

Just took the exam on saturday, I am very happy with my score but was a bit surprised by it as I didn't feel as comfortable as I expected taking the test.

I felt well prepared, but a bit rushed, especially on the quant section. I only took the 2 GMATPrep timed tests, I think taking more of those would've helped a lot. I did lots of practice questions, but pacing is key. I would definitely recommend as many timed tests as possible.

For what's it's worth I got a 690 (no studying) and a 720 (3 days before test) on my 2 practice tests.

I only used the Official Guide v11 and the Kaplan GMAT 800 study guides. I thought both were great and complemented each other nicely. OG11 provided a great breadth of questions, while Kaplan 800 really zeroed in on the tougher concepts (even though it doesn't provide that many questions).

I found the beatthegmat flashcards to be very helpful as well. One of the things I did the night before the test was paraphrase all the flashcards into a text file to refresh and pound them into my head. Worth it just for the idiom list which is very useful in the SC.

Overall, I spent about 2 months studying. Probably about 5-10 hours / week through that time. I kind of took the less intensive route. I think the shorter / more intensive would be more effective, but I'm trying to hold on to my social life as long as I can before I go back to school!

I do have one complaint about the Pearson system, the marker boards in lieu of pen & paper is a serious disadvantage for us lefties. While outlining my response for the first essay question, I wiped out almost all of my notes by smearing the marker with my writing hand (this is why I stopped using pencil and switched to fast-dry ink in 2nd grade). This rattled me a bit for the essay questions, I haven't gotten my AWA scores back yet, but I'm not holding my breath for a 6. I don't know what advice to give to lefties out there, other than be very careful.

Overall a good experience, thanks to beatthegmat for the great resource here!!!

Congrats !! Great score

All the best