Took the GMAT last week and scored a Q42/V31 610 (69th) AWA 5.5 (80th).
The cornerstone of my studying was with the orange book (GMAT Official Review 11th) but I also used all the Manhattan GMAT study guides. Can't stress enough how helpful they are. Of particular note were Sentence Correction, Number Properties, and Fractions/Decimals/Percents. I did not practice any of the analytical writings, nor any geometry topics ahead of time.
I studied on and off for two months. My GMAT prep scores were 550 and 600, although I'm a little shocked how low my Verbal was. I always felt that Verbal was my strong area. Like others out there, I had a situation the night before the test. I had to pick my sister up at the airport after Midnight with the test that morning at 8am. So I was running off 4 hours of sleep. Drinking a redbull helped, but I still found myself sleepy and struggling to pay attention to some of the Verbal Q's. There was one Reading question in particular that was very technical and longer than usual (I had to scroll down to read all of it). It was a struggle to concentrate on that one properly. So to everyone reading this - get some sleep!!!
I'm primarily applying to top regional schools such as TCU Neeley and SMU Cox in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, therefore a 700+ isn't mandatory. These schools are on par with Top 20 school Grads if one of them should apply for work here. If I decide to work outside of Dallas, then yeah they won't hold that much weight although TCU has a top 10 football team now which doesn't hurt in the PR department. Let me know if anyone has any Q's.
Cheers
The cornerstone of my studying was with the orange book (GMAT Official Review 11th) but I also used all the Manhattan GMAT study guides. Can't stress enough how helpful they are. Of particular note were Sentence Correction, Number Properties, and Fractions/Decimals/Percents. I did not practice any of the analytical writings, nor any geometry topics ahead of time.
I studied on and off for two months. My GMAT prep scores were 550 and 600, although I'm a little shocked how low my Verbal was. I always felt that Verbal was my strong area. Like others out there, I had a situation the night before the test. I had to pick my sister up at the airport after Midnight with the test that morning at 8am. So I was running off 4 hours of sleep. Drinking a redbull helped, but I still found myself sleepy and struggling to pay attention to some of the Verbal Q's. There was one Reading question in particular that was very technical and longer than usual (I had to scroll down to read all of it). It was a struggle to concentrate on that one properly. So to everyone reading this - get some sleep!!!
I'm primarily applying to top regional schools such as TCU Neeley and SMU Cox in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, therefore a 700+ isn't mandatory. These schools are on par with Top 20 school Grads if one of them should apply for work here. If I decide to work outside of Dallas, then yeah they won't hold that much weight although TCU has a top 10 football team now which doesn't hurt in the PR department. Let me know if anyone has any Q's.
Cheers
