I just Beat The GMAT!

costarica wrote:You are a freak of nature my friend!!! Congratulations!!!

trooper wrote:Thanks a lot guys!

Break down my prep in case it helps you guys:

Materials Used:
- OG 11
- Kaplan CD
- GMATprep (Practice Tests)
- Kaplan 800

I started with the official guide and can't stress enough how useful that book was. I think just going through the 1 - 2 page summaries and doing plenty of questions helped me a lot at the beginning. I probably worked through ~75% of verbal and ~50% of quant questions through that book. I struggled with SC sometimes and wasn't completely confident on DS, but was pretty strong on the other stuff. I probably spent 1+ months into this since I was fairly busy at work.

I took my first CAT test at this point, a diagnostic on the Kaplan CD (I got it from a friend, but I believe it comes with the Kaplan book). I had a 680 on the diagnostic and with the assumption that I can push that another 50 pts, I registered to take the test (giving myself about 5 weeks of more prep time).

From here on I completely focused on taking as many CATs as I could get my hands on. I occasionally reviewed the lessons and exercises on the Kaplan CD (probably went through them twice) just to re-enforce the basics. I think going through the lessons particularly helps iron out issues with SC, since SC basically centers around a few key concepts.

I listed the Kaplan 800 book because I bought it, though I didn't spend a lot of time on it. Just spent a day or so browsing through the lessons and a few practice questions. Looked generally useful, but wouldn't say added much value to me.

Test day was all about 2 cups of coffee and a calm head. I will say though, 4 hours of testing can get very tiring (I never did the essays during practice). Also, I really could not have guessed that my score would be that high. So if you're not sure how your first section went, don't let it dishearten you for the rest of the test.