Well I just got my AWA scores and was happy to get a perfect 6. I primarily just used the OG and the Manhattan sentence correction guide as I thought this was my biggest area of improvement as I started my studies 3 months ago. I had studied for a few months back in 2008 but got sidetracked for a long time and had all of this on hold.
It's funny because I actually exceeded my target score, but did much worse on the quant than I expected and better on the verbal than I expected. I have a very extensive background in quant and devoted almost none of my prepation to it, and it actually ended up hurting me on test day. Back in HS I scored a perfect 800 on my math SAT but did only a 640 on verbal, so I really though going into my prep that it would be a waste of time to do much math work. In addition to the SAT scores, I took quite a bit of math in undergraduate (calc 1,2,3, differential equations, probability theory, linear algebra) so I really just didn't think I needed much. Come test day, I wasn't prepared for some of the DS questions and just the time constraint in general made me suffer. There were many questions I probably could have figured out if I had more time or was working more efficiently, but I simply had to guess on quite a few of them in order to finish.
Overall I am happy, I just caution any GMAT test takers to review EVERYTHING even if you think it's a relative strength. It's probably not worth it to ratake at an overall 720 but I know I could have done better in the quant and if I kept my verbal right where it is I could be in the elite 750-760 range instead of just the very respectable 720 that I'm at. Oh well, I am glad it's over for now.
Any specific questions/comments are welcome, thanks to this forum as it was a huge help in my studies as well as my general knowledge of business school. I am actually doing an MS in finance that requires this test, I didn't need anywhere close to what I scored to get admitted. After I finish my MS degree in about a year and a half I may or may not decide to pursue an MBA at an elite school. We will see...
It's funny because I actually exceeded my target score, but did much worse on the quant than I expected and better on the verbal than I expected. I have a very extensive background in quant and devoted almost none of my prepation to it, and it actually ended up hurting me on test day. Back in HS I scored a perfect 800 on my math SAT but did only a 640 on verbal, so I really though going into my prep that it would be a waste of time to do much math work. In addition to the SAT scores, I took quite a bit of math in undergraduate (calc 1,2,3, differential equations, probability theory, linear algebra) so I really just didn't think I needed much. Come test day, I wasn't prepared for some of the DS questions and just the time constraint in general made me suffer. There were many questions I probably could have figured out if I had more time or was working more efficiently, but I simply had to guess on quite a few of them in order to finish.
Overall I am happy, I just caution any GMAT test takers to review EVERYTHING even if you think it's a relative strength. It's probably not worth it to ratake at an overall 720 but I know I could have done better in the quant and if I kept my verbal right where it is I could be in the elite 750-760 range instead of just the very respectable 720 that I'm at. Oh well, I am glad it's over for now.
Any specific questions/comments are welcome, thanks to this forum as it was a huge help in my studies as well as my general knowledge of business school. I am actually doing an MS in finance that requires this test, I didn't need anywhere close to what I scored to get admitted. After I finish my MS degree in about a year and a half I may or may not decide to pursue an MBA at an elite school. We will see...
