From 550 to 710 (Q48,V40) AWA 6.0, my strategy

I started studying in August 2010 but soon had 6 classes (I am still an undergrad). It was very hard for me to study during the semester, but was still able to manage my time to work on my exam one or two days per week. I took it in November, got a miserable score in quant 650 Q42,V38 which I felt I didnt deserve so I took a second time and GOT A 710 ! GMAT has been a unique experience and I am really fortunate that I ended up scoring a score that will allow me to pursue my goals. I think anyone can get above 650 with some motivation.

My Background: non native speaker, studying engineering at a top uni. I am used to intense math but never really studied english. Well well this is very curious I got a better score in verbal than in quant in my two exams !! It shows GMAT is not about your previous knowledge but on your capacity to learn new concepts and more importantly to imitate the way test makers think !!

I didnt keep track of my all my scores but I will try to explain what material I used and the strategy that to use that I would advise. I lost a lot of time studying useless stuff.

- MGMAT: Great source , NO DOUBT the best of all those companies !!
Buy the SC book its great, I bought most of the other books they have.
The RC was pretty good, it was my weakest point so I guessed it helped me.
I didn't try the CR.
The MGMAT Math books, I found they were not very useful if you have a strong background in math. They are very short so while you are it why not just get the entire collection... (I should be sponsored !!)

Each book comes with an access to 6 cats, and they are great, they are the only ones that I would JUDGE accurate as you will see in the rest of my post.
The math part is harder than reality so except to get easier questions and a better score if you are very aggressive when doing the actual GMAT or a GMATprep. The verbal is quiet accurate, I learned a lot from it.
The best way to learn from those CATs is to redo the questions you missed without looking at the answer. GMAT questions are so easy when you have unlimited time. You will run short of CATs very early.
I suggest this order: use your MGMAT then your oldGMATprep, and then you GMATprep. That gives you 10 CATS way enough if you dont have too much time on your hand, if you still have some spare time I'd suggest to repeat the GMATprep instead of being shocked by a poor grade with one of the other companies.
What I mean by the oldGMATprep is the old software (2007 I think). My experience from the old gmatprep (thttps://www.gorillatestprep.com/gmat_resources.html) is that it is way easier than reality in quant and verbal. Don't forget GMAT gets harder every year, the proof: percentile ranks change every year and not in the favorable direction for test takers !!

- KNEWTON: Ohlalala I have mixed feeling about Knewton.
First, their CAT sucks, you can try one for free. Enjoy the experience ... NOT.
I registered for their online class ($600 in August). I was convinced by the relative cheap price and by the 50 points money back guarantee. This is especially useful if you already scored a high score on the real test or if like in my case you score a great score in their first practice.
I got 640 on the first cat so my guarantee was that they if I didn't have 680 on the real test (which happened on the first time so I got my money back). This is the most absurd thing :I didn't get on any other KNEWTON CAT a score above 640 while I was getting score in the 650-680 in GMATprep and MGMAT. I believe Knewton created ridiculously low scores on its CAT so you are sure of getting 50+ on the real exam.
About the course itself, pretty interesting, good chatroom, very good instructors, but pure academic those guys have NOTHING to do with B-schools, a bunch of them never wrote GMAT actually !! The course is USELESS if you are already at a high level which wasnt the case for me ...But you will not get over 700 just by doing the knewton course...you will not a lot more.
The practice questions available were not too bad, the explanation were pretty good but they weren't timed so it does not prepare you well for the exam.

- Princeton: CAT is way off, two days before my real GMAT 710 V40 a I got a 650 V32 so yeah dont believe them but its still good practice if you are short of CATs. The math is way way way too easy.

- BTG questions: the interface is very convenient. the math questions are either too easy or too hard, the verbal is pretty good. Its pretty convenient if you want something you can login for anywhere and just do a bunch of problems.

- PowerScore; buy the CR Bible, its almost a real bible because we all know that GMAT test makers have the strangest logic and you need to be taught how to think like them.

- OG 12: the real stuff !! The questions are way too easy in quant if you are aiming at scoring above 43, you wont find that many interesting questions (1 of 10 from my experience)
The problem when you do OG12, is that you are going to have a LOT of repeats with the old version of GMATPrep so coordinate well your action plan.

MasterGMAT who are those guys ? Their CAT is horrendous.

Strategy wise.
Be extremely aggressive during the exam don't be scared to focus on the first 20 questions so that the test knows you are high scorer.
By making a lot of mistakes at the beginning you very little chance of scoring high. And I know this from my first experience; I got a Q42 while I am an engineering student !!!
I didn't have any additional knowledge for my second exam but I completely changed my strategy, I focused very carefully at the beginning taking up to 3minutes for the hardest of the first 15 questions !!

AWA: : If you went to studied your undergrad in English: don't stress, don't learn the structure given in some posts, just read them. Just write a lot but in a very structured way: intro, arg1, arg2, arg3, arg4, conclusion.
Try to reach at least 500 words, and re-re-read yourself: leave 6 minutes to reread.

The gmat is probably the most fun and useful test you can have. Use it to improve your skills. I improved my grammar, my ability to get information from a complex text and to reason in a very Cartesian way. My math skills also improved I am now extremely quick at doing things that I have always done using a calculator.

Also don't stress if you get a bad score on your preparation you are just doing something wrong, figure it out, if you understand things during preparation you are not stupid you are just doing the exam the wrong way. I am sure that if you went through an intense bachelor you have been through more intense and harder material, you have enough time to do GMAT, not finishing the questions in time is the proof that you are not ready. My engineering exams are actually more painful to prepare and a lot more difficult to finish in time. If the GMAT went extremely and you knew how to answer the exam that means you didn't provoke the exam, you are score will be lower than your capacities. If you have been challenged but obtained a low score you are simply not ready to obtain a high score period.

Believe what people tell you on this forum ! Those firms (KNEWTON, MGMAT and GMAC) they are full of ****, they are FOR-PROFIT corporations and most of the tutors are extremely smart people that didn't even need to study that much for the exam :
Getting above 750 is a proof that you either have no life or/and that you actually belong to the 1% smartest people
This is is why a lot of schools are not that attracted to people with ridiculous scores as it shows that either the rest of the application will be as outstanding as the score or that the person has nothing better to do and prepared the exam for months.

I hope this helps, I learned a lot from the postings, this forum is great. I always dreamed of writing this post. Its really ecstasy when you see the score on the screen, after feeling your heart beat like crazy during the couple of minutes to fill background information.

OH yeah and one last thing. Dont spend two days on combinatorics, these type of question will not even appear once in your test. While you are sure of having number properties and geometry for example.

This topic has expert replies