GMAT Strategy

Hi,

Heres a little about my background before I start shooting questions!

I have my GMAT scheduled for Dec 30th. I started my preparation back in mid-July ( I know 6 months of prep which is gen not advisable) but here is why I planned that way,when I took my GMAT Prep I , I got a 570. My Target score is 800 . And I believe I can get very close to it provided I have an excellent strategy. I have been really good [not excellent] at quant. So I knew from my GMAT Prep that all I needed was some brush up of math skills and practice to get into the "mode" of solving problems. And I see myself progressing. I knew I was afraid of Verbal so I attacked that section first starting with CR ( which was a nightmare to me). I have improved a LOT and see myself getting approx 80% of questions right. Earlier my accuracy was 50% I believe. Similarly I attacked the other sections of verbal as well and have a similar accuracy rate in SC and RC sections. I started writing tests once a week ONLY to build stamina. Its just not easy for me to sit through for 3 hrs as I start getting restless and mind starts losing focus. Now I see myself improving on that aspect.

I took a few practice tests in the past few weeks and here are my scores-

1) GMAT Prep in Aug - 630 [Q-44,V-32] [ had serious timing issues in both Q & V]
2) Princeton Review - 640 [Q-48, V-31] [ serious timing issues in verbal]
3) Princeton Review - 680[Q-47, V- 37] [ same as above for verbal]
4)Knewton Practise Test - 750[Q-48, V-45] [ I feel this test result was inflated especially verbal, partly because the free practise test that they provide picks problems directly from OG and just changes the names/etc, so the logic and choices are clearly identifiable if you've done those questions before] - no offense to the Knewton guys!

I will not take Manhattan/GMAT PREP Tests until next month as I believe them to be the most accurate tests in terms of predicting my score, so for practice I am using all the other ones. And the practice is not majorly to judge my scores alone, but majorly to put myself through rigorous exercise of sitting at one place for long hours and focussing on just 1 thing , which I have been really bad at.

So Right now I kind of see myself in the range of 650 ish. Could be more but I am not sure. I know I have another 2.5 months to go and I have a strong will to go upto 750 atleast , if someone can help me here.

Books I have referred / completed till now-

1)Manhattan all Quant Books, SC
2)OG Verbal Review(SC,CR)
3)OG Quant Review
4)Kaplan 800 [doing this one and getting lots of problems wrong even in quant]
5)1000 SC
6)1000 RC

Books to finish

1)OG 11 [starting this week]
2) OG 12

I have tons of other practice material which I will work on ONLY IF AND after I am thoroughly done with OG 11 & 12. I did not touch these as I wanted to use them to track my progress and I feel now is the right time to start this book.

Now, I have the following very important questions which if answered, I belive will help me work better towards improving my score to >750.

1)Verbal Timing is a very big issue. -

SC - I always see myself rushing thru last fw questions. I know one reason - I spend more than 1.5 minutes on SC, just so I dont get them wrong. If I spend less time, I fear I might make careless mistakes of not observing certain errors.

CR - I spend less time on assumption questions [around 1.5 minutes], but more than 2/2.5 minutes on weaken and inference questions. Though at the end of spending so much time , I end up getting them right.

RC - I have practiced only the 1000 RC document till now and feel that has given me stamina to solve long RC passages. However I am still slow in reading, taking 6.5 minutes on avg to read the passage and then >2 minutes for inference questions.

2) Quant- I believed I haven't yet solved the 700 range problems yet as I see myself getting stumped on "not so straightforward questions", many of them are from number properties.

3) What minor strategies I can incorporate in my preparation for all sections but especially my weak areas -CR and SC can help me reach the 750 + target ?

4) Is there anything I can do to emulate the exam center situation while doing the practice tests. I tend to get very nervous in such things at the last moment so I want to be prepared. Things like getting used to the scratch paper. Breaks etc. All those kinds of tips etc. I have read about the scratch paper in forums.

Right now for CR and RC, I write down A B C D E and scrathc them off while eliminating choices, which I think is time consuming too. I am trying my best to save time on as many things as possible to make sure I dont run out of time in verbal section.

After reading so many posts where Stacy and Ron have advised students to the minutest level of detail possible, I am confident that I will get very good advise from here.

And I wouldn't be lying if I say that while writing this post I have been trying to correct my sentences to conform with [or is it "to"?] SC rules of GMAT:). I am pretty sure I would have made many mistakes.

However, I eagerly look forward to an invaluable advise from one of the experts/instructors.

Thanks