720 -- 48Q, 40 V (08/31/2007)

Here's some background on my various practice CAT scores.

All taken in early July:
Princeton #1 -- 640
Princeton #2 -- 610
Princeton #3 -- 570
Princeton #4 -- 570

Taken in late July and early August:
Kaplan #1 (Online) -- 700
Kaplan #2 -- 680
Kaplan #3 -- 650
Kaplan #4 -- 610
Kaplan #5 -- 570

Take in late July:
MGMAT #1 -- 670
MGMAT #2 -- 650
(The rest I took untimed)

Taken in mid- to late August:
GMATPrep Retake #1 (four months after first taking it)* -- 760
GMATPrep Retake #2 (four months after first taking it)* -- 720

*I booked my first appointment for mid-April way back in January but probably didn't even get 20 hours of studying time because I was in the middle of the spring semester of my junior year. Postponed test appointment to August 18th and then to the 31st. Didn't restart studying until June 20th and basically had to start from scratch.

As you can see, prep company materials are nearly irrelevant in pinpointing your final score (or at least mine). Hell, I think I scored low. I was really agitated last night and even though I went to bed at 8:30, I probably didn't fall asleep until 11. Woke up randomly this morning at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. Went for a 3 mile run at 5 to make sure I wouldn't fall asleep during the exam. Got to Pearson at 6:55 a.m. and walked around the parking lot twice in an effort to clear my head. Could already feel my mind already getting tired. Started my test at 7:15 even though my appointment was at 8.

The AWA went well enough. Never practiced for it but looked over some templates the day before the exam. Finished just on time with 300+ words for both argument and issue essays. Argument was the easiest of the pair. It was like writing a critical reasoning rebuttal. Issue was pretty much routine BS.

I ran into trouble immediately with Quant. The first problem was a simple algebra construction and after staring at it for 3 minutes, I guessed (pretty sure wrongly). It wasn't a hard question -- nerves got the best of me. Took all my will to try to calm down and finally did around the 15th problem. I heard people say the actual GMAT Quant is harder than GMATPrep. From my experience today, I don't necessarily agree. Geometry barely came up, except for one simple circle problem with coordinate systems and a cylinder problem (that I still remember). I got one probability question that I answered fairly easily from doing and re-doing MGMAT prep questions. I think the most tested areas were number properties and algebra (either with word problems or inequalities).

I bombed the Verbal, at least that's what I felt like the whole time I was taking it. The amazing thing with the actual GMAT is how accurately my score reflected how I felt when taking it. I knew I wasn't doing spectacular on Verbal because there was just way too much uncertainty. I probably felt unsure about 3/4 of the critical reasoning and 1/3 of the reading comp. For the last two weeks, I have been solely on concentrating on sentence correction (for Verbal). Did all of the OG questions twice (some 3 times). Went through MGMAT SC book 3 times and the Powerscore SC book once (and did all 145 of the problems). I pretty much only had trouble with one SC question on the actual exam. That probably saved my Verbal score.

And it's not like I didn't review critical reasoning. I bought the Powerscore book and basically read it cover to cover and did every single practice problem they had (only had around 50 or so). And the book was easily the best reference out there for critical reasoning. But...all that was done some 3 weeks ago and besides doing some CR problems from redoing the GMATPrep CATs, I didn't really do anything to keep it fresh. Big mistake. Every section, even reading comp, needs to be kept fresh right up until you take the exam.

I'm probably not going to retake it. There's always going to be the what ifs -- what if I slept a normal 8 hours or so and actually reviewed CR more before I took it...maybe a 750+, who knows. But I'm graduating this December and need to find a job. Don't have the time.

What I used for studying (this is besides the OG material):
Sentence Correction -- I recommend the Powerscore SC book more than the MGMAT, but I suggest studying both for the sake of comprehensiveness. The Powerscore has probably three times the meat of the MGMAT book with 145 original SC questions (a little bit on the easy side though) and goes into more detail on just about everything MGMAT talks about except maybe the subjunctive mood (don't really remember). By a week before exam time, I could pretty much could identify what kind of SC errors were being tested (there was at most maybe 3 simultaneously) using OG material and narrow my focus on those errors immediately with SC problems.

Critical Reasoning -- Powerscore book. The author basically broke CR down to a science. I just didn't spend enough time internalizing everything.

Reading Comp -- I really don't know what is the best reference for this besides the OG material. RC 3000 is really way too different than the real thing and will probably lead you astray.

Quant -- Did the MGMAT questions and then went through them again and again. After doing the second CAT, I stopped taking MGMAT CATs timed altogether and didn't pay too much attention the verbal parts either (skipped it for the last two CATs). MGMAT gives us 222 Quant questions with the purchase of the SC book (yes, I know with every book, but that's the only good one out of the series). For people like me who have weaker foundations in math, those 222 Quant questions are more valuable than the SC book itself. You'll probably only see a handful of questions as convoluted as the MGMAT Quant questions, but it helps with the more difficult topics like Probability/Combinatorics, etc and they tell you great shortcuts that I really haven't seen anywhere else.

I'm attaching some notes I took for Quant (many from MGMAT explanations) and Sentence Correction in this post. They're not organized well (and I think a handful of the points are blatantly wrong) and not really meant to be comprehensive (I only put stuff that I didn't think I would remember on there), but it's there if you want to look at it.

This topic has expert replies