I wanted to share a bit of my experience so it might help some others succeed and improve on what I did. I certainly don't have the perfect methods, but maybe you can learn from where I screwed up and get an even higher score
Prologue:
My GMAT journey started in late 2013. By the time I decided I was going to pursue my MBA, it was already October, and so I knew I was looking at a Fall 2015 start time. Obviously this gave me a lot of time to plan, which I think was a key element to success. I have heard others say you can get a perfect score with enough time, and that's probably true.
Anyway, I took my very first practice exam (on GMATPrep) in Oct 2013. I was a pretty good student in university and aced the ACT before college, so I thought I could score reasonably well. First result: 580. Well, that wasn't exactly going to get me into any Ivy League schools, so I knew I needed some serious study time.
Round 1:
I don't live in the US and my work schedule is often all over the place, so I knew I would need the flexibility of an online-only GMAT prep program. I chose The Economist GMAT after getting a discount, and got to work. First diagnostic test was in early November 2013. Result: 610. Well, I hadn't even begun studying yet, so I guess a 30 point increase wasn't bad. The Economist GMAT lets you set a point goal that you work towards. I knew that 700 was a pretty good score so I set my goal a little higher (at 710) and began the program.
The Economist GMAT overall was pretty good, but in retrospect it has a few issues. For one, the quality of the Skype teachers was mixed. I believe you get 4 Skype sessions as part of the package, and two were good but two were not. One teacher seemed very tired and didn't want to cover the topics I had requested in advanced. The other teacher was quite good.
Another issue was the emphasis on guessing or rough estimation instead of doing hard calculations. With geometry, for example, they advocated estimation a lot more than any other source I used, and this type of estimation didn't work well on the actual exam. Overall, I found The Economist questions to be a bit too easy compared to the exam. Nonetheless, for a total GMAT newbie like myself I still thought it was quite useful. For a more advanced user trying to add a few more points, it's probably not the best choice.
Due to heavy work schedule and other issues, I was not able to finish The Economist program in the 3 month window, and had to pay to extend another month. My scores on the remaining 3 practice tests were 660, 670, and 700. Close to my goal, but still not there. After delaying due to a busy work schedule, I finally registered for the exam in May 2014, not knowing what to expect, but planning on taking the exam again in the summer.
I ended up with a 700 (41Q, 44V, 7IR, 5.5AWA), which in some ways was a pleasant surprise. The math section was far more difficult than I expected, and I really struggled with it. I suppose it didn't help that I got back from my break 2 minutes late (oops). I was surprised by the verbal score, but really disappointed by the quant score. I have never been a great math student, but 49th percentile was surprisingly low.
I agonized for a few days about whether or not I should retake. 700 was good, but I was very concerned about the imbalance in the scores. During college I had only taken a few statistics courses and no calculus, so I really thought that would weigh against me with the adcoms. I decided to give it another go and try again in 6 weeks. My goal was to get a 700 again with a more balanced score.
Round 2:
I scheduled my retake for 6 weeks after the first, in June. It was around this time that I found BeatTheGMAT. I never realized the importance of the OG 13 before (crazy, right?), so I picked it up and focused on this as my study guide. I answered every math question and spent hours reviewing my mistakes. I only took one practice test and got a 690. I was aiming for another 700 with a more balanced score, and would have been happy with that.
I was much more confident this time and went into the test with a good attitude. Result: 670 (43Q, 38V). Cancelled the scores. Math improved incrementally but verbal took a huge dive. It was pretty depressing.
Round 3:
At this stage it became something of a divine mission. I had to get back to 700 with a more balanced score. I had invested too much time and effort to call it off now, especially when I knew my personal ability was better than that.
I began reading BeatTheGMAT daily. I put the OG 13 back on the shelf...I wasn't very happy with where that got me. After completing a week-long trial, I bought a subscription with Magoosh GMAT. The math problem difficulty was much more in line with the actual test, and the videos were extremely useful. I took and retook about 7 practice tests on Magoosh and the GMATPrep. My scores were always 690-700. As you might imagine, i was also getting extremely burnt out on the GMAT at this phase, so finally I pulled the trigger and set up my last test date for today (Sep 25).
Since the test is fresh in my mind, I can point out a few peculiarities I noticed. First, the AWA and IR seemed uncharacteristically easy. The IR questions in particular did not seem nearly as challenging as those in the GMATPrep software. The math section was as difficult as always, and I only had about 5 minutes to answer the final 3 questions. Verbal section seemed comparable to that on the practice tests and I didn't think it was especially hard or easy.
When I finished, I hit submit and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw 720 (45Q, 44V, 8IR). I never got above 700 on a practice exam, so it was an extremely welcome surprise. My celebration included a Diet Coke and returning to work, where I'm writing this from now
Epilogue:
OK, so some thoughts about the whole process:
1) I think all the test prep math questions are too easy. My practice test scores were always in the 75 percentile range, but my real test scores were not nearly as good. While taking the actual GMAT, I always thought that the questions were far more difficult than anything I had seen on The Economist, Magoosh, or GMATPrep. I don't get especially nervous when taking standardized tests, so I don't think it was nerves making the questions more difficult either.
2) The adaptive scoring mechanism is pretty wild. Towards the end of the math section, I got a very easy question. My spirits sunk after reading it, since I thought that meant I was at the bottom of the Q barrel and had answered too many wrong questions.
3) Spend more time on verbal. As a native English speaker, I often thought the test gives you too much time to finish the verbal. I would sometimes really fly through this section on prep tests and end with 20 mins or more remaining. This last time, I really took a long time and purposely slowed myself down. To be honest, I can't say for certain that I changed many answers while working at a slower pace. But my verbal score increased greatly between the 2nd and 3rd attempt, and I think slowing down helped with that.
4) Don't study in a vacuum. Reading community sites like BeatTheGMAT, in my mind, made a world of difference. Although I didn't find a lot of people with my exact problem (high verbal and low quant), reading everyone else's experience has helped immensely. I love the "I beat the GMAT section," the stories have been so inspirational and motivating.
5) Give yourself an absurd amount of time to study. I spent hundreds of hours studying. Every weekend I would do a practice test plus reviews, and at least 30 min of study each evening. Often I would feel extremely burnt out and depressed that I was doing badly on questions labeled "Easy" on Magoosh. But as I reviewed them and learned the tricks, it really became rewarding to see progress. This whole GMAT adventure took me 10 months. Ideally others can finish it in a more condensed time frame, but for many people (like me), work and other obligations get in the way. But today, I'm obviously very happy I stuck with it.
6)The OG is a bit overrated. I didn't have a good experience using it. Maybe it's just because my learning method is different, but I found Magoosh to be much more helpful.
I'd be happy to share any more experience if they can help. Obviously I'm still pretty bad at quant, but I was able to raise it to a somewhat less dismal level. I think many native speakers might find themselves in a similar position.
Thank you again, everyone, and best of luck to all GMAT test takers!
