Hello
Having lurked around the site before my exams I think its only fair I share my experience.
For context, I got a 710 which was about 10/15 less than what my prep was geared to.
Started my prep in Jan this year (exam on 30 April) which across Jan, Feb and March was about five-six hours in the week and double that in a weekend.
January was spent mostly getting back to the basics and familarising myself with the exams, especially in the Math. Feb and March was spent working through the OG initially and then online tests - Manhattan GMAT and Kaplan.
I also bought the Sentence Correction and Geometry guides from Manhattan GMAT. They are both useful in getting your head around concepts.
I found the Manhattan GMAT tests more "rounded" than Kaplan - a wider spread of question types and difficulties (although the difference in difficulties could be because I only went for the "very hard" option in Kaplan). The explanations on the Manhattan GMAT software were better than Kaplan - more descriptive and well-written. My scores on Kaplan were consistently higher than Manhattan GMAT.
I took a two-week break before the exam when it was just prep (and hignfy reruns on Dave).I used the two-week period to do a few more online tests (did the 5 manhttan tests and probably the same in kaplan).
I also bought the official verbal and math guides which I worked my way through in this time. Can't stress enough how useful they were - funnily enough the style of questions in the official test mirror the official guide. If you're really confident just work backwards and do the first hundred questions from the end.
By far, the most useful tests were the official test you can download from mba.com. Ideal for the "penultimate day studying routine " too. The style of questions do match the style of the real questions and the scoring is pretty accurate too. If you haven't figured out by now, you can google this site for answers to the questions.
I only spent about 10 hours on the AWA and that probably came through in my score of 4.5. My advice for the AWA section is to just stick to a template of how you'd like your essay(s) to flow and pick three topics each from the mba.com official list. In the real exam my advice is to pick no more than four arguments / analysis - there's just not time for more.
My exam was at the pearson in Holborn(London). All very professional before and during the exam. Large room with airy cubicles, although it did permeate with the smell of a silent one, for a minute or so. I wouldn't worry too much about the sufficiency of paper. I've got quite large handwriting and I found it enough for my math section. I didn't use any in verbal.
Not sure how much of all the above is useful, but if you do want to take away something from this it'd be to complete the official books and prep tests.
Having lurked around the site before my exams I think its only fair I share my experience.
For context, I got a 710 which was about 10/15 less than what my prep was geared to.
Started my prep in Jan this year (exam on 30 April) which across Jan, Feb and March was about five-six hours in the week and double that in a weekend.
January was spent mostly getting back to the basics and familarising myself with the exams, especially in the Math. Feb and March was spent working through the OG initially and then online tests - Manhattan GMAT and Kaplan.
I also bought the Sentence Correction and Geometry guides from Manhattan GMAT. They are both useful in getting your head around concepts.
I found the Manhattan GMAT tests more "rounded" than Kaplan - a wider spread of question types and difficulties (although the difference in difficulties could be because I only went for the "very hard" option in Kaplan). The explanations on the Manhattan GMAT software were better than Kaplan - more descriptive and well-written. My scores on Kaplan were consistently higher than Manhattan GMAT.
I took a two-week break before the exam when it was just prep (and hignfy reruns on Dave).I used the two-week period to do a few more online tests (did the 5 manhttan tests and probably the same in kaplan).
I also bought the official verbal and math guides which I worked my way through in this time. Can't stress enough how useful they were - funnily enough the style of questions in the official test mirror the official guide. If you're really confident just work backwards and do the first hundred questions from the end.
By far, the most useful tests were the official test you can download from mba.com. Ideal for the "penultimate day studying routine " too. The style of questions do match the style of the real questions and the scoring is pretty accurate too. If you haven't figured out by now, you can google this site for answers to the questions.
I only spent about 10 hours on the AWA and that probably came through in my score of 4.5. My advice for the AWA section is to just stick to a template of how you'd like your essay(s) to flow and pick three topics each from the mba.com official list. In the real exam my advice is to pick no more than four arguments / analysis - there's just not time for more.
My exam was at the pearson in Holborn(London). All very professional before and during the exam. Large room with airy cubicles, although it did permeate with the smell of a silent one, for a minute or so. I wouldn't worry too much about the sufficiency of paper. I've got quite large handwriting and I found it enough for my math section. I didn't use any in verbal.
Not sure how much of all the above is useful, but if you do want to take away something from this it'd be to complete the official books and prep tests.
