I am a big fan of this section and of BTG. I read many great debriefs here that helped me to build my study plan and to choose which books to buy.
I was looking forward to post my GMAT story here. However, I thought it would be different from the one I am writing today.
I took the GMAT for the first time on last Thursday and got a 720 (Q46 V42). I am a little bit disappointed since my quant score was so low. I will retake the GMAT next month. I know that a 720 is a good score, but my quant score is bad. Moreover, I am confident that I can improve my quant score and consequently my overall score. Below I will share with you how I studied and what I will do in the next 4 weeks before my new exam.
First, I would like to thank:
1) The people from BTG for providing a great environment for information exchange.
2) The experts, who post good articles, questions and answer explanations. In special, I am very grateful to:
 Ron Purewall from MGMAT for his answer explanations and videos, called "Thursdays's with Ron", that are really awesome.
 Stacey Koprince from MGMAT for her great articles such as those in the Breaking Down a GMATPrep Problem series.
 David from Veritas for his explanations and many good questions that he creates himself and posts here.
3) All the people that make this community so awesome!!
Background info:
1) Non native speaker
2) BS in Economics (graduated seven years ago)
3) Entrepreneur
4) I will apply this year and I will target the top 5 programs in the US.
In August I began to browse this site, selecting the books I would buy, getting to know how the GMAT works, and devising my study plan. However, I could not start to study hard until the middle of November because I was really busy at work. In the beginning of November, I did my first CAT to know where I standed. Then, I took a 10-day vacation and went with my fiancée to a beach to rest my body and my mind so I could be prepared to work around 75 hours a week and to study others 25.
My study plan was based on the experiences of many successful test takers and tailored to my needs. I studied an average of 4 hours on weekdays and on Saturdays. On Sundays I did not study.
THE BOOKS I USED
MGMAT guide books - really great resources. I would recommend them for everyone. However, I did not use the RC guide.
OG 12 - did all the questions at least twice. Everyone must have this book.
OG Review 2nd Edition - did only the hardest questions of each section.
Kaplan Math Workbook - very basic, but it was good to refresh my math knowledge
Kaplan Verbal Workbook - very basic.
Doing Grammar - awesome book. It really teaches us how to analyze sentences and their structures.
Kaplan 800 - I just did some questions of this book, but it seems a good resource to review your skills before the test.
OTHER RESOURCES
"Thursdays with Ron" free videos - Ron is an incredible good instructor and his videos are a great resource. I watched some videos, but I intend to watch them all now.
Stacey Koprince articles - I printed every article she has posted on BTG and studied each one carefully. Her explanations are great!
BTG daily questions
MY CATs SCORES:
MGMAT 1: 670 (Q46 V35) - 11/03/2010 - I took this exam before beginning to study for the test.
MGMAT 2: 700 (Q47 V39) - 12/21/2010
MGMAT 3: 730 (Q45 V44) - 01/12/2011 - Timing issue in the quant section. Guessed randomly the last 5 question. Tried to answer the last one, but the time expired and I was penalized. After this exam, I read all articles about timing and practiced to improve.
GMATPrep1: 750 (Q50 V41) - 01/19/2011 - I found the quant section to be much easier than that of MGMAT. No timing issue.
MGMAT 4: 730 (Q48 V41). 01/22/2011 - I made many careless mistakes on the quant section. Since I had slept only 4 hours the night before this test, I thought (wrongly!) that I did not need to worry.
ACTUAL GMAT: 720 (Q46 V42)
Quant 46: When I finished the section, I thought I would score at least 48, but was expecting a 50. When I saw my score, I was really disappointed and did not know what had happened. However, now I believe that I probably made many careless mistakes in the beginning of the section. This score (75 percentile) really worries me because I will apply for the top 5 MBA programs in the US.
Verbal 42: I got a little bit anxious in the beginning of the section but I was able to concentrate and get a good score (the average of my last three mock exams).
AWA: I have not received my score yet, but I believe it will not be good. I am expecting something around 4.5. Is it enough or should I concentrate on improving my writing skills? Just received it. Got a 5.
720: a good but not a great score. It is 10 points below the median score of Harvard and Stanford. I believe I can improve it, so I am going to retake next month.
MY STUDY PLAN FOR THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS
GENERAL STRATEGY
1) Since I have four more weeks before the test, my target score will be 760.
2) I need to improve my math skills and get stable scores around 50 in my new mock tests.
3) For verbal, I will study sentence correction and critical reasoning further. My goal is to get a 46, a score that almost guarantees that I will get around 760 even if I get a 48 in quant. I will also read more science and astronomy articles because those are the ones I have more difficulty with.
4) AWA: I also need to improve my writing skills - as you can see
WEEKLY TASKS
Week 1:
1) Get some rest and rebuild my energy.
2) Write my GMAT experience (what I am doing right now!)
3) Review my notes of all MGMAT Guides
4) Do one set of 50 questions (10 PS, 10 DS, 10 SC, 10 CR, 10 RC)
5) Practice AWA
Week 2:
1) Review all advanced sections of MGMAT quant guides
2) Redo OG 12 e OG Review quant questions
3) Study PowerScore LSAT Critical Reasoning Bible
4) Review Doing Grammar
7) Take one new CAT (GMATPrep2)
8) Read bio science and astrophysics articles
Week 3:
1) Redo OG 12 e OG Review quant questions
2) Do OG 10 hard quant questions
3) Study PowerScore LSAT Critical Reasoning Bible
4) Review my notes for SC
5) Take one CAT (MGMAT)
Week 4:
1) Retake GMATPrep1 and GmatPrep2
2) GMATPrep practice questions
3) Review my Game Plan (as suggested in a great article by Stacey Koprince)
4) Do some K800 questions
I am sorry I wrote this much but I hope my experience will contribute a little bit to the people who are just getting started or to the people who could make the same errors I did such as not getting consistent scores in quant before taking the actual GMAT.
I would really appreciate any comment about my strategy for the next 4 weeks. Are my goals reachable? Or do you think I should play safe and concentrate much more on quant? How bad is a 4.5 score in the AWA? As I am a non-native speaker and have not written almost anything in English for the last 5 years, should I spend a lot of time to improve my writing skills?
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