After about about 3 months of preparation over the last 6 months (consistent in the last month), I have finally achieved my goal of 700+. While I am very happy with my overall score of 720, I am a tad disappointed with my quantitative score of 46. Being an engineer by profession and going by my GMAT Prep test scores I expected to score between 48-50 since I never scored less than 49 in the mocks. But here's the flipside - I never crossed or even touched 40 in any verbal CAT I took yet I managed an unbelievable 44! I think the OG books, BTG & Manhattan flashcards helped a lot as I was solely focusing on them in the last 3 days.
My advise to people preparing - embrace manhattan GMAT and OG completely. I only got one strategy guide - the sentence correction - since my initial diagnostic test in OG clearly showed that's where I lacked. Along with the strat guide came 6 CATs which are amazing - they are tougher than GMAT Prep so use it during the earlier and middle periods of your preparation. Towards the latter part focus almost exclusively on OG and OG review and GMAT Prep. And here's a tip - don't analyze GMAT Prep tests. Just use it as a meter to gauge where you are. This is because you can use the GMAT Prep CATs multiple times and only a few questions repeat and if you hadn't analyzed them the test will be 100% new each time. I took GMAT Prep 4 times and each time it felt like new. And oh yes it's true - the GMAT Prep is pretty close to the actual GMAT, I felt the quant was tougher and the verbal easier or equal but overall perhaps the real one's a tad tougher.
In hindsight I believe I should have bought a few more strat guides from MGMAT. But at least I read through their online tutorials completely. Between OG, OG Review, MGMAT guides and CATs you should be covered, I also practiced from Kaplan which is a good book but their CD tests and CATs are not representative at all.
In the end I believe only weeks and weeks of practice and testing yourself will help if you are an average scorer who wants to push past 700. Good luck!
My advise to people preparing - embrace manhattan GMAT and OG completely. I only got one strategy guide - the sentence correction - since my initial diagnostic test in OG clearly showed that's where I lacked. Along with the strat guide came 6 CATs which are amazing - they are tougher than GMAT Prep so use it during the earlier and middle periods of your preparation. Towards the latter part focus almost exclusively on OG and OG review and GMAT Prep. And here's a tip - don't analyze GMAT Prep tests. Just use it as a meter to gauge where you are. This is because you can use the GMAT Prep CATs multiple times and only a few questions repeat and if you hadn't analyzed them the test will be 100% new each time. I took GMAT Prep 4 times and each time it felt like new. And oh yes it's true - the GMAT Prep is pretty close to the actual GMAT, I felt the quant was tougher and the verbal easier or equal but overall perhaps the real one's a tad tougher.
In hindsight I believe I should have bought a few more strat guides from MGMAT. But at least I read through their online tutorials completely. Between OG, OG Review, MGMAT guides and CATs you should be covered, I also practiced from Kaplan which is a good book but their CD tests and CATs are not representative at all.
In the end I believe only weeks and weeks of practice and testing yourself will help if you are an average scorer who wants to push past 700. Good luck!
