I just Beat The GMAT!

I took my GMAT today (21/09) morning and scored a 730 (96 percentile). Here goes a quick debrief on my preparation, with some observations on the real test thrown in. Do pardon the structural/grammatical errors as I write this with a sense of liberation!

Preparation

I started preparing for GMAT by the beginning of August and had roughly 7 weeks in order to get ready for the D day. I had just quit my job and had the advantage of preparing full time for the exam.

I am an engineering graduate and had done a lot of math at the university level. Hence I did not find GMAT quant really intimidating. However, I still had trouble with the dicey data sufficiency questions and spent a lot of time on these questions.

However, from my diagnostic test I was quick to realize that verbal was clearly my weakness, given the fact that I was a non-native English speaker. I decided to take one section at a time and started with sentence correction. There were 2 reasons for choosing SC to be tacked first:
1. SC is the only section which is rule based. If you know the rules in grammar and know the idioms, it's just about applying them to the sentence. Purely mechanical stuff!
2. You can rush through SC questions in your GMAT if you are clear with the rules. So more time spent on practicing these questions results in saving significant time during your exam.
Once I had solved some 300 questions in SC, I started focusing on CR. I had the Powerscore bible but somehow found that the methodical approach prescribed in the book demanded a longer time for me in the exam. After solving about 300 questions in CR, I began to focus on RC questions.

For verbal sections, the latest OG is a great place to start with. I completed all the questions in OG12 and moved on to the official verbal guide. After this, I solved some questions in the 1000 series and tried to solve questions posted on BTG and other forums, just to increase the breadth of question sources. Finally, I looked into older editions of the OG and solved questions hitherto encountered.

Last few days: I spent the last 4-5 days only on GMATprep and reviewing some OG questions. I can assert that no GMAT resources available on this planet is as closely representative of the real test as these two are.

Study Material

1. OG 12
2. Official verbal guide
3. Manhattan SC guide
4. OG Older editions
5. Questions posted on BTG, MGMAT and other forums

Practice Tests

All the practice tests were taken in the same time pattern as the real exam and were taken in a span of 15 days.

1. 800score.com - 730
2. MGMAT CAT 3 - 730
3. MGMAT CAT 4 - 730
4. MGMAT CAT 5 - 730
5. GMATprep 1 - 720
6. MGMAT CAT 6 - 780
7. GMATprep 2 - 730

Some Observations on the GMAT

- I found the quant section in the exam to be a little more calculation intensive than that in the OG or even in the GMATprep

- There is a good chance that you would not get even a single question from a quant topic.

- I got 4 RC passages in the verbal section and 2 of them were quite long with 4 paragraphs. This was again in contrast with the passages (at the comparable score level) which appeared in GMATprep. The solace though was that the questions for long passages were relatively simpler.

- I took only MGMAT tests for practice exams after reading feedback from various forums on MGMAT's near accurate scoring algorithm. I found that the questions in quant in GMAT were trickier than that in the MGMAT tests, though the latter were certainly calculation intensive. Also in CR questions in the GMAT, I was confused between 2-3 answer choices after eliminating the other options whereas in the MGMAT tests, I could somehow narrow down easily to the answer by eliminating the other 4 choices.

Some To do's/Not to do's

- Please spend the last 4-5 days on GMATprep and the OG. Do take repeated tests and you are sure to find new questions in GMAtprep. This strategy was very helpful as it helped me get a feel of the real questions in the exam.

- Do not try to guess your performance in the exam by looking at a difficulty level of a question. Somewhere towards the end of my quant section, the test threw up a very simple question which merely needed me to compute a sum!

- If you feel you aren't doing well in the middle of the exam, just chuck that idea out of your mind. Halfway through my verbal section, I felt that I was doing miserably and that my verbal score would end up in the low 30's. It was not to be.

- Get a new scratch work booklet after your quant section even if you have enough space in the booklet that was given in the beginning of your test. Helps you save time in case you need to get a new booklet in the middle of the verbal section.

- During the breaks, tell yourself that you did really well in the just concluded section, irrespective of how you actually performed. This helps you get in with a clear mind while beginning the next section.

- Finally, just before the test begins, tell yourself a couple of lines: 1. " This test is not going to be my future. Life is much beyond these 4 hours". 2. " This is just another practice test for the GMAT". I repeated these sentences atleast five times before beginning my test and they did help me stay composed throughout the course of the exam. The GMAT is more of a psychological endurance test than anything else. So, if you are going to find ways to keep yourself calm and collected during those 4 hours, you have won three-fourths of the battle.

I hope I have got a good score and also hope I did not waste some valuable server space here. My wishes to everyone who is planning to beat the GMAT in the near future.

Congratulations.Short and very helpful debrief!!!!

Congrats on the great score!
I luv the part where you say, "This test is not going to be my future. Life is much beyond these 4 hours"..
That's what I have been saying to myself since yday, and for the first time this morning I woke up without having any GMAT dreams