Preparation for the test was pretty much confined to OG and MGMAT. MGMAT's sentence correction guide was a real life-saver. Helped me get a better understanding of where i was committing a lot of "silly-mistakes". I took the MGMAT cat's along the way. Preparation time was about 6 weeks prior to the test date. Concentrated on finishing OG11 and making sure I understood where and why I went wrong. Did most of the questions from the OG-Verbal review.
My scores during prep were in this order:
GMAT prep 1: 680, MGMAT CAT's (1-5): 610, 640, 680, 670, 660, GMAT prep 2: 700, MGMAT CAT-6: 730, GMAT prep 1(retest): 700 Official Gmat 710
Getting the three 700's in the last week was a great boost, i was otherwise quite disappointed with MGMAT's 600's earlier. Scored consistently ~47-49 in quant and ~32-36 in verbal. Was hoping to get a surprise big score on the big day
Test day went well and without incident. The questions, I felt, were very close to the GMAT prep ones. Definitely tougher than the OG11 questions, especially in Quant. Got scared couple of times when there were ridiculously easy questions towards the end, but well they might have been experimentals or maybe the GMAT's CAT algorithm is different from what's assumed.
My advice on prep would be to be thorough with all the materials that are release by GMAT, be it OG's, the verbal/quant reviews or GMAT prep. Take the GMAT prep multiple times, they have a decent sized pool there. This gives you the best picture, but be warned, the real deal is a bit tougher too. MGMAT's SC guide is great too. Also, start practicing the essays in advance. Make sure you write the essays while taking the CAT's, that is preparation enough. (Don't have my AWA score yet, hope it was ok). If you are looking for a study group, Grockit will be a nice place to start. Though not conventional, its great to find company. I was frequent on it till the questions started repeated way too much. But it helped in being a good kickstart at the beginning (everyone needs one) because of the helpful people there, the tips from instructors and a generally engaging experience
Also, make sure you frequent Beat the GMAT! Lot of good tips, advice based on experience and resources come up. Tough to get these if you are not in college. Also, people are kind enough to rate and evaluate your essays. Where else can you find such nice people
All the best y'all.
