Wish I found this forum before, but busy professional that I am, I did not really spend that much time looking for info about the exam on the web. 
I am probably older (32) than most of the others in this forum. I have about 8 years of work experience as an engineer and a software development manager and am currently working as a senior manager in an enterprise software company. After a long delay and numerous INS screwups, I finally got my green card this year. I wanted to get over that hurdle before starting an MBA program. I am thinking of taking the EMBA route, but am still debating over it. Anyone else in my boat?
My GMAT preparation over the last month or so has been challenging. It was a constant juggling act of studying and familiy - yes, I am married and have a two-year old daughter - and work responsibilities. I do have a good track record at standard tests though, so was not too scared of the test. Long long time ago I cracked IIT JEE and scored a 2330 at GRE (800+800+730 in old format) prior to doing an MS in CS in USA. I kept thinking about those tests as happy old memories are good for morale. So go-for-800 was my mantra over the last month and it did help me to keep going in face of challenges at work and home.
As I am a CS guy with strong math background, Quant did not take much preparation, but one big warning. The questions were undoubedly tougher than what those I solved in the Kaplan, Princeton practice tests. Not sure how many of the tough ones were experimental though. I very rarely used to miss any quant in the practice tests, but couldn't crack 51 in the real one. There were a couple of DS questions I guessed 50/50 and I must have made one or two silly mistakes as well. Just a couple of tough DS misses do not explain Q:50, 95 percentile instead of 51/52 and 98/99 percentile I was expecting in Quant. Does anyone know how many I might have missed ? Still a little bummed about it. GMAT math is surely tougher than GRE math and I under-estimated it a little. Engineers and scientists, be wary.
In verbal, SC is where I spent most of the prep time. Kaplan 800 and Kaplan verbal workbooks were invaluable resources - must-reads for 700+ aspirants IMHO. The way they categorized and combined the common mistake patterns was extrremely helpful. Also did all OG SCs a couple of times. Still found some of the SCs challenging today - mainly the ones that were about style and expression. The ones on grammatical mistakes were straightforward in comparison. At least two of the choices were always very close on the hard ones and I must have missed a few.
I am a fast reader and have always been a voracious reader of both fiction and non-fiction, so did not spend a whole lot of time on RC. Honestly, none of the four passages posed a problem and I am sure I got them all right. The passages were unexpectedly straightforward and I am guessing I did not get passages from the easy bin as with 98 p in verbal, I could not have made too many mistakes prior to those sections. Some of the Kaplan passages in comarison were a lot more challenging.
Some of the CR questions were tricky and on at least a couple of them, I did not quite get the assumptions and the thrust of some of the options and had to guess. The paragraphs describing the argument were a bit obscure at times. On average, tougher than what I expected. I found Mark Stewart's '30 days to the GMAT Cat" to be particularly strong at CR. It helped me quite a bit.
General tips - try at least two or three complete simulated tests. Doing just one section is very different from taking a four and half hour test, particularly when you are 8 years out of school like I am. I worked quite a bit on my stamina. Have a solid 8 hour sleep the night before. And time management is probably the most critical part. I finished both the sections at the very last minute and am quite proud of that. On average, the rule: "One question - two minutes for Q" and "One question - one and a half minute for Verbal" worked for me. That probably helped me in getting 770 more than anything else.
Good luck to everyone here. Keep at it and you can beat it too.
EDIT: Got a 6/6 in AWA.
I am probably older (32) than most of the others in this forum. I have about 8 years of work experience as an engineer and a software development manager and am currently working as a senior manager in an enterprise software company. After a long delay and numerous INS screwups, I finally got my green card this year. I wanted to get over that hurdle before starting an MBA program. I am thinking of taking the EMBA route, but am still debating over it. Anyone else in my boat?
My GMAT preparation over the last month or so has been challenging. It was a constant juggling act of studying and familiy - yes, I am married and have a two-year old daughter - and work responsibilities. I do have a good track record at standard tests though, so was not too scared of the test. Long long time ago I cracked IIT JEE and scored a 2330 at GRE (800+800+730 in old format) prior to doing an MS in CS in USA. I kept thinking about those tests as happy old memories are good for morale. So go-for-800 was my mantra over the last month and it did help me to keep going in face of challenges at work and home.
As I am a CS guy with strong math background, Quant did not take much preparation, but one big warning. The questions were undoubedly tougher than what those I solved in the Kaplan, Princeton practice tests. Not sure how many of the tough ones were experimental though. I very rarely used to miss any quant in the practice tests, but couldn't crack 51 in the real one. There were a couple of DS questions I guessed 50/50 and I must have made one or two silly mistakes as well. Just a couple of tough DS misses do not explain Q:50, 95 percentile instead of 51/52 and 98/99 percentile I was expecting in Quant. Does anyone know how many I might have missed ? Still a little bummed about it. GMAT math is surely tougher than GRE math and I under-estimated it a little. Engineers and scientists, be wary.
In verbal, SC is where I spent most of the prep time. Kaplan 800 and Kaplan verbal workbooks were invaluable resources - must-reads for 700+ aspirants IMHO. The way they categorized and combined the common mistake patterns was extrremely helpful. Also did all OG SCs a couple of times. Still found some of the SCs challenging today - mainly the ones that were about style and expression. The ones on grammatical mistakes were straightforward in comparison. At least two of the choices were always very close on the hard ones and I must have missed a few.
I am a fast reader and have always been a voracious reader of both fiction and non-fiction, so did not spend a whole lot of time on RC. Honestly, none of the four passages posed a problem and I am sure I got them all right. The passages were unexpectedly straightforward and I am guessing I did not get passages from the easy bin as with 98 p in verbal, I could not have made too many mistakes prior to those sections. Some of the Kaplan passages in comarison were a lot more challenging.
Some of the CR questions were tricky and on at least a couple of them, I did not quite get the assumptions and the thrust of some of the options and had to guess. The paragraphs describing the argument were a bit obscure at times. On average, tougher than what I expected. I found Mark Stewart's '30 days to the GMAT Cat" to be particularly strong at CR. It helped me quite a bit.
General tips - try at least two or three complete simulated tests. Doing just one section is very different from taking a four and half hour test, particularly when you are 8 years out of school like I am. I worked quite a bit on my stamina. Have a solid 8 hour sleep the night before. And time management is probably the most critical part. I finished both the sections at the very last minute and am quite proud of that. On average, the rule: "One question - two minutes for Q" and "One question - one and a half minute for Verbal" worked for me. That probably helped me in getting 770 more than anything else.
Good luck to everyone here. Keep at it and you can beat it too.
EDIT: Got a 6/6 in AWA.
Last edited by dipanjan on Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sites 
comprehensive that i cant comment 
