Test history:
Beggining of February: GMATPrep 1 1st attempt - 33Q 43V (i think) 640
April 11: MGMAT #1 Free - 49Q 37V 710 (some very badly formulated V questions)
April 13: GMATPrep 2 1st attempt - 48Q 46V 760
April 15: GMATPrep 1 2nd attempt (I had forgotten all the questions, though, so it was like a 1st attempt) 48Q 51V 770
April 21: The Real Thing 50Q 47V 770
Preparation:
English is my 3rd language, but in a sense it is my 3rd native language, so the 42 on V in the beginning was just reassuring (reading lots of literature and philosophy is useful in real life? who would have thought!), and the overwhelming majority of my mistakes were in SC, which I think is easier to actively study than CR or RC.
I think it would be really hard to study for RC/CR..they seem disproportionately easy to me, with the correct answer being painfully obvious in the majority of questions. Reading some philosophy intro books, debating books, or similar material should be helpful for those having problems in these areas.
Anyway, I decided to dedicate about 90% of my studying time to quant, 8% to SC, and 1% each on CR and RC (I did the last OG problems for each, and some in Kaplan 800). I hadn't done geometry for 6 years (and I sucked at it in HS), and the only math I had used since was extremely basic, so I knew I had very large potential for improvement. I also read that a 80-100 point increase is normal for people with rusty math skills. Thus I set my goal for a minimum of 720. My targets for each section were a 46 V and 47 Q (80th percentile), which would obviously put me higher than 720 but that was just the absolute minimum anyway.
First of all, a piece of advice I see everywhere is to make a study schedule or plan or routine and stick to it. I completely disregarded it. I don't advise anyone else to do so. The thing is, if I'm not in the mood for GMAT studying, I won't exert myself, and I won't learn much. Some days I'm in the mood for GMAT, others I'm in the mood for economics for uni, other's I'm just in the mood to chill. So I do whatever comes naturally. This meant that my GMAT studying was sporadic and in bursts: I would spend 15 hours over two days on the GMAT, then stay away from it for some days, a week, or even more.
Anyway, I went through GMATHacks Math Bible once, reading everything and doing all the problems. Then I redid the sections I was having trouble with. I moved on the the official books, keeping an error log, and reading the solutions to the problems I didn't solve right. I then waited roughly two weeks and redid the problems I did wrong on the first try: this allowed me to forget the correct answer and focus on if I had learned how to solve the problems or not.
I moved on to Kaplan 800, at which time I did the free MGMAT CAT which I got 710/49Q/37V on. I made a lot of Q mistakes, and the problems seemed relatively easy, which made me think the 49 was somewhat inflated, and many V questions were very VERY badly written which partly explains how I went from 42 to 37 in V. Don't beat yourself up about a low V score on the MGMAT test.
Two days after that, and after doing a bit of V work I did GMATPrep 2 for the first time. This was the first GMATPrep I did after studying so I didn't really know what to expect..scoring 760/48Q/46V was a pleasant surprise!. Some really silly mistakes on Q (always read the questions and answers. This sounds silly, but I lost 3-4 questions on every practice test because I didn't read the questions and/or answers properly), but I was really happy with my score. Only 2 wrong answers on V pushed me down to 46..wow.
Two days after that, 48Q/51V/770, again lots of silly mistakes on Q. I had 20 minutes over, though, so I hoped that on test day I could make that 48 into a 49 or 50 simply by spending more time reading the questions and answers and checking my calculations.
An important tip: after you've got the fundamentals down, never study things that you understand and can solve easily. It's just a waste of time. If you are at the 600-level, do 700+ level questions. You can only learn by doing things wrong.
I'm not sure about the total amount of time I spent on preparation, but it's probably somewhere between 200 and 300 hours.
Material used:
The 3 OGs
GMATHacks Math Bible (very good, especially for people like me who are weak on math fundamentals)
MGMAT SC (didn't spend a lot of time with it, but it's pretty nice)
Kaplan 800 (not really 800-level stuff, but still not bad)
This forum..just browsing around in the PS/DS sections is very helpful.
gmatclub tests (these are really tough, a nice challenge.)
Test day:
Luckily I don't get stressed by this kind of thing, and being relaxed is very helpful. I had a chocolate bar and an orange juice with me. The test center didn't let me use my own earplugs but they gave me a pair that was much better.
I felt AWA was pretty easy, and it kind of got my brain running, which was good. I didn't take a break between AWA and quant.
Quant was pretty easy, too. The best I had scored on gmatprep was 49 and I got a 50. I guess I managed to focus and avoid silly mistakes. There were a couple problems that didn't look like anything I had seen before, but they were easily solvable by applying fundamentals or simply "getting" the problem logic. I finished with 8 minutes to spare.
Took a break, drank my juice.
I had scored a 51 on gmatprep on verbal so I expected similar results. However, the level of difficulty was INSANE. There were questions that were way beyond anything I had ever seen in terms of difficulty. 2-3 questions with the "least bad" kind of choices were particularly vicious, as all the answers were ridiculously wrong, and I didn't really know what to choose. I think I made two SC mistakes, resulting in a 47 in the end. I finished with 23 minutes left on the clock.
I also got a 4 on AWA, which I thought I aced. Strange, but I don't think it matters much.
Anyway, if you've got any questions I'll stay around for a while to answer them
