I took the gmat two days ago and scored 780, q50, v47. I spent the last 4 months putting myself through a pretty rigorous regime that involved preparing for a couple of hours every day, allowing myself 2-3 days off in total during that period. In my opinion, succeeding with gmat is all about determination and using good materials.
I started out with Kaplan and Gmathacks, revised for a few weeks, took gmat focus, and scored 44-49. Having scored in the 98th percentile for the gmat about 9 years ago (back then I was doing mba, now doing phd and old results no longer count), I knew I could improve. I looked around this site and read a great post by a guy who had scored 770. Much of what follows is based on his approach.
Quantitative
-I used all MGMAT math books as starting point. It's way better than any other prep companies in my view and particularly good on number props, geometry, and prob/comb, although I think it over-emphasizes the importance of the latter. I would not use any other non-official material than this except for that of Ian Stewart (more below).
-OG 12 questions, but use them after you have got the basics.
-Gmat Focus. Similar to real thing. I got 44-49 (a couple of weeks in), 46-50 (a couple of months in), 48-51 (2 weeks before test).
-Mathematician and private tutor Ian Stewart provided me with his own proprietary and customized questions which can be as hard as you ask him to make them. If you can get him, you will have the pleasure of working with someone who is truly gifted and mindblowingly fast, with a great sense of how to teach.
Verbal
A lot of people say work on your weakness or work on your strength. I think to get a really high overall score, work on verbal. It's rarer to have high verbal than high quant, so you get more bang for the buck when you combine them. If English is your mother tongue, there is no reason you cannot get 51 on this section with some serious practice.
-Reading Comp: LSAT actual past questions. You can get them on Amazon. They are harder than the hardest GMAT I saw, but very similar in nature. For structure, I used Powerscore, which was excellent. And OG 12 of course for question practice.
-Sentence Correction: Doing Grammar, by Max Morenberg, and MGMAT. I could not have used one without the other. The first one taught me grammar like nothing I have seen before, the second how to apply that knowledge on the gmat. Using only MGMAT might leave you vulnerable at the highest level, where they seem to consciously pick on tricks and common rules (I got one question like this, where you are tempted based on a basic rule, but where some overriding principle lets you go with a better choice). But don't get me wrong, MGMAT is a great source too. In fact, using only the grammar book doesn't give you the sharpness to catch errors that you get from MGMAT. I used OG 12 and the purple verbal book for question practice. Key to good verbal is getting SC down to about 1min per question so you can spend the additional time on CR and potentially RC. If you really learn your grammar, this is probably the easiest part of the test.
-Critical Reasoning: I didn't find any of the teaching guides helpful on this topic, and I looked at quite a few (mgmat, powerscore, kaplan). This was a problem, and it's where I think I made all my verbal mistakes on the real gmat. I relied on OG and LSAT for questions, mainly the latter because it's tougher mentally. And more than anything, it gave me confidence on test day. After doing LSAT CR questions, the gmat questions began to appear a little 'wordy' and the actual logic a little easier. I didn't get a single boldface question on the actual test.
AWA
I wrote 3 sets of essays under timed circumstances beforehand. I found it useful to have a guide for the arguments. My guide was the following template (literally): weak analogies, correlation vs causation, necessary versus sufficient, statistical problems such as bias, relevance and sample size, and things changing over time. Key is not to waste energy in this section on test day.
I found gmatprep to be a reliable indicator. I got 760 on the first one (2 months in to my preparation)....i then retook it and only got 730 a couple of weeks later. Then I got 770 on the second one (3 months in). In the final month, I used hard math problems and combined them with tough LSAT RC/CR passages and SC from OG/purple book to create mini-gmats (25 math problems and 25 verbal) which I would do 3-4 times per week, under onerous circumstances (eg. taking a horrendous-looking RC passage from LSAT but only using 3 questions from it to force myself into timing problems). That way I was always short on time, always having to cut my losses, and always struggling. Similar on math, I would take 25 hard questions, to ensure that I wasn't using time on easy ones to make up for harder ones. Towards the end of these sessions, I was getting 70% of the math right and 80-90% of the verbal.
Good luck! bottom line: you more or less decide your score. it's then about finding out how much work you need to get there. Plus a bit of luck
I started out with Kaplan and Gmathacks, revised for a few weeks, took gmat focus, and scored 44-49. Having scored in the 98th percentile for the gmat about 9 years ago (back then I was doing mba, now doing phd and old results no longer count), I knew I could improve. I looked around this site and read a great post by a guy who had scored 770. Much of what follows is based on his approach.
Quantitative
-I used all MGMAT math books as starting point. It's way better than any other prep companies in my view and particularly good on number props, geometry, and prob/comb, although I think it over-emphasizes the importance of the latter. I would not use any other non-official material than this except for that of Ian Stewart (more below).
-OG 12 questions, but use them after you have got the basics.
-Gmat Focus. Similar to real thing. I got 44-49 (a couple of weeks in), 46-50 (a couple of months in), 48-51 (2 weeks before test).
-Mathematician and private tutor Ian Stewart provided me with his own proprietary and customized questions which can be as hard as you ask him to make them. If you can get him, you will have the pleasure of working with someone who is truly gifted and mindblowingly fast, with a great sense of how to teach.
Verbal
A lot of people say work on your weakness or work on your strength. I think to get a really high overall score, work on verbal. It's rarer to have high verbal than high quant, so you get more bang for the buck when you combine them. If English is your mother tongue, there is no reason you cannot get 51 on this section with some serious practice.
-Reading Comp: LSAT actual past questions. You can get them on Amazon. They are harder than the hardest GMAT I saw, but very similar in nature. For structure, I used Powerscore, which was excellent. And OG 12 of course for question practice.
-Sentence Correction: Doing Grammar, by Max Morenberg, and MGMAT. I could not have used one without the other. The first one taught me grammar like nothing I have seen before, the second how to apply that knowledge on the gmat. Using only MGMAT might leave you vulnerable at the highest level, where they seem to consciously pick on tricks and common rules (I got one question like this, where you are tempted based on a basic rule, but where some overriding principle lets you go with a better choice). But don't get me wrong, MGMAT is a great source too. In fact, using only the grammar book doesn't give you the sharpness to catch errors that you get from MGMAT. I used OG 12 and the purple verbal book for question practice. Key to good verbal is getting SC down to about 1min per question so you can spend the additional time on CR and potentially RC. If you really learn your grammar, this is probably the easiest part of the test.
-Critical Reasoning: I didn't find any of the teaching guides helpful on this topic, and I looked at quite a few (mgmat, powerscore, kaplan). This was a problem, and it's where I think I made all my verbal mistakes on the real gmat. I relied on OG and LSAT for questions, mainly the latter because it's tougher mentally. And more than anything, it gave me confidence on test day. After doing LSAT CR questions, the gmat questions began to appear a little 'wordy' and the actual logic a little easier. I didn't get a single boldface question on the actual test.
AWA
I wrote 3 sets of essays under timed circumstances beforehand. I found it useful to have a guide for the arguments. My guide was the following template (literally): weak analogies, correlation vs causation, necessary versus sufficient, statistical problems such as bias, relevance and sample size, and things changing over time. Key is not to waste energy in this section on test day.
I found gmatprep to be a reliable indicator. I got 760 on the first one (2 months in to my preparation)....i then retook it and only got 730 a couple of weeks later. Then I got 770 on the second one (3 months in). In the final month, I used hard math problems and combined them with tough LSAT RC/CR passages and SC from OG/purple book to create mini-gmats (25 math problems and 25 verbal) which I would do 3-4 times per week, under onerous circumstances (eg. taking a horrendous-looking RC passage from LSAT but only using 3 questions from it to force myself into timing problems). That way I was always short on time, always having to cut my losses, and always struggling. Similar on math, I would take 25 hard questions, to ensure that I wasn't using time on easy ones to make up for harder ones. Towards the end of these sessions, I was getting 70% of the math right and 80-90% of the verbal.
Good luck! bottom line: you more or less decide your score. it's then about finding out how much work you need to get there. Plus a bit of luck
