I just Beat The GMAT!

As a person who generally feels confident in his overall sense of self, I admit that the process of studying and then taking the gmat was like none other. The permutations and combinations of emotions this test takes you through shake, rattle, overwhelm, and at times, utterly dominate your mental psyche. Sure, I shook it off to my peers and colleagues with a smug "I'm not worried about it," but truth be told, I was. To those who are experiencing the aforementioned feelings, you are not alone.

That said, I just took the test and was very happy to see 720 pop up on the screen after the 5-7 seconds of agony where my mind, body and soul went through all 5 stages of grief.

I'll stop with the self-adulation and get to some relevent tips that may help you. There are many great posts on how to study, so I'll try to focus my tips on some topics that I felt weren't discussed enough (or maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place)

1. This site is absolutely terrific
- Read the success stories when your exam is approaching. They obviously did something right. For many of you, this post may not define "success," so look for those posts that are relevant to you. Avoid reading them too close to your test date, though. It may mess with your confidence. In fact, I recommend not visiting the site the week or at least the weekend before your test.
- Take nobody's advice as gospel. Be flexible and understand that each post is perspective on how you should refine your approach.
- The posted math and verbal questions are great practice as they usually represent complicated questions. More importantly, the explanations provided by the experts and fellow users contain endless tips that can be applied to other questions. If someone posted it, they couldn't figure it out themselves. Most questions on the GMAT aren't that difficult given enough time, so if someone truly couldn't figure it out, chances are it's a good one to learn.

2. Make mental preparation your focus after you reach a certain level of gmat skill competence.
- I had about 100 notecards and knew them cold. Yes, doing the flash cards helped me and learning the core concepts is absolutely critical, but as soon as you start uncovering esoteric idioms that you HAVE to memorize or convoluted math rules that you CAN'T BELIEVE you didn't know, you probably are going to get very little yield from further effort. There are a handful of things you need to know (which the test prep books lay out well), but beyond that, it's all about execution.
- So what do I mean? In the last few weeks, focus on timing, endurance, confidence and overall strategy.
- Lay out your game plan of how you're going to use the clock. For me, it was in 3rd's. I turned the clock off when I started both sections. For math, I looked at the clock for the first time at question 12 to see if I had 50 mins left and Q24 to see if I had 25 minutes left. I was ahead of pace at Q12, but behind pace at Q24. After Q24, I kept the clock on as a result. This forced me to move. At that point, I was in a rhythm, so the clock didn't distract me the same way it would have if I started with it on. I think it was very important for me to get the time pressure out of my head in the beginning. The clock messes with your focus. After studying for a while, you are going to develop an internal clock, so you presumably will know when you're approaching dangerous territory (ie 4 minutes+). While the impact on your score of getting the first few questions right is up for debate, knowing you got them right certainly will boost your confidence. Do whatever you can to get in the right mindset from the onset.
- The test is long. One of the biggest challenges is staying alert all the way through the end of the verbal section. The best way to train (while I realize I am insulting the Olympic athletes with the comparison, having the Olympics on did make the prep feel like training.. good motivation) is to do full-length tests regularly the week or two before the exam. Do GMATPrep multiple times (I did each one 2x). Because I truly hated doing the Kaplan and MGMAT tests late into my studies because of the often ambiguous wording and unrepresentative difficulty level, I eliminated them from my prep. Instead, I stuck to OG. Until my last week of prep, I just used the orange book. But, after I finished all the math and SC in the orange book and understood my mistakes (I was consistently strong in RC and CR, so didn't do all of them), I found that I would still miss things on GMATPrep. Specifically, the last several questions because of time. So, I bought the purple and green books and for four days in a row, I sectioned off the approximate number of questions that would be presented on the test (starting from the end of each section) and simulated a full-length practice exam as accurately as possible. After doing this 4 times in a row the 4 days before my test, it became part of my routine. I was able to identify the key roadblocks to a 700+ score as a result of this process. Those roadblocks were: staying on pace, making sure I start off strong on math and staying alert through the end of verbal. Because I realized that those were my natural inclinations, all it took during the actual test to counter them was the points I discussed earlier (checking time at regular intervals, turning off the clock at the start of math and pumping myself up through verbal).
- Make sure you're aware of all the other stuff that you need to feel mentally strong for 4 hours. Amount of sleep, food, when to go to bathroom, etc..

Practice test scores:
Kaplan online CAT: 640
Kaplan CD CAT 1: 550
Kaplan CD CAT 2: 530
Kaplan CD CAT 3: 550
GMATPrep 1: 710
PowerPrep 1: 720
PowerPrep 2: 710
GMATPrep 2: 650 (this is where I realized what could happen if I don't start off math strong and don't keep the energy level high on verbal. Because my goal was 700+ and I got that on the last 3 GMATPrep/Powerprep tests, I got overconfident. This 650 was an absolutely critical factor to my score. It was a reality check of what could have happened)
MGMAT 1: 670
GMATPrep 1 (2nd time): 710
GMATPrep 2 (2nd time): 750

Resources I used:
- Started with Kaplan Premier
- Kaplan 800 (found math useful. Did not like verbal. Thought it introduced concepts and "rules" that overcomplicated the task)
- OG (mostly the orange book, but bought the section specific during last week of prep. Agree with most on the importance of studying OG. But, the questions before the last 50 are far too easy. If you run out of hard OG questions early in your prep, re-do GMATPrep tests to get the hard questions there)
- Manhattan SC (very helpful. Most of my notecards came from this book)
- Sahil's SC notes (these are great. Thanks, Sahil, whoever you are)

I prepped for 1.5 months. Work schedule made it difficult to study much during the weekdays, so focus was during the weekends. Don't study for too long. Not only will it make the pressure that much higher when you take the actual exam, I am certain that there are highly diminishing marginal returns to this process. Quality over quantity.

Lastly, make yourself a cd to listen to on your way to the center. Sing-a-longs, it'll take the edge off. I recommend the track "Don't you worry 'bout a thing" by Stevie Wonder.

I couldn't agree more the post buddy!
Congratulations!!
great tips especially the clock ON/OFF one.

You're inspiring the readers.

He JDESAI,
my belated congratulations about your score. Can you please inform what was your score breakdown?

Thanks and congrats again,