Thanks a lot guys...sorry replying a bit late, but i was somewhat busy with work!!
I just wanted to share my experience with the GMAT. My date with the beast started this January, when i finally decided that something got to be done in order to give the stagnant life a push. Though, i heard of this forum long back, i actively started participating after January only. Downloaded GMATprep, did first CAT (with essays, always do so, don't skip them not even in single test), and scored a dysmal 640 (Q50,V27). I knew straight away where i need to improve. Brought OG11 and OG-verbal. finished quant early, and believe me, it was piece of cake. But i found verbal tough to handle, although OG explanations are superb and best in lot. I used to select a pool of 15-20 questions and do them under strict time conditions (1.75 min/question). This really helped me to develop pace, especially in RC's. Continued studying at snail's pace till mid-march and then i thought it's high time that i should give the GMAT in April 1st or 2nd week. But manhattan free CAT opened my eyes. Even after finishing OG, i could increase my score to a mere 650.
I looked into the prepartion and interrogated myself. I was heading nowhere. In the meantime, i continued to gain valuable points by actively participating in the discussions in this forum and finally booked the date for 9th July, with 3 months left for final push. For first two months, i literally did nothing apart from visiting beatthegmat and solving random questions in all the three verbal sections.
June 1st week, i knew i had to start serious stuff. Immediately i took up Manhattan SC and CR books, and man!! They are awesome. The 5 CATs, which you get along with them are really really helpful. I hinged solely on these books and OGs for final frontier. The quality of MGMAT CATs are awsome, but i have to admit sometimes their quant gets over the head, although verbal is pretty similar to what one can expect in real test.
My MGMAT CAT scores were 670, 690, 700 and 710. My strategy was usually to study for 5 days, review my mistakes, and give one full-length test. With 1 week left, i tried GMATprep2 and scored 720 (Q49,V39) and MGMAT 6- 780 (i wish it were the real test)
. I was at my native for 15 days before the exam so travelled a lot 4 days before the D-Day to come back to Chennai, where i am currently staying.
Test Day - AWA went smooth, and so was Quant. But i was surprised to see not even a single work-rate question and only one probability question. I didn't realized it earlier, but i got atleast 5-6 statistics questions (artithmetic mean, median), some of them very easy, 1 was super tough. Best tthing about quant is that even if you had to guess 3-4 questions, you know that 49-51 is within the grasp, if you are confident about rest of the questions. That's what i did, i planned not to waste time in questions i knew i would not be able to solve. But overall quant was pretty cool, not above OG level, definitely not.
Took a break, not for a single moment i realized that i overshot the time limit of 10 minutes. Before the break, the proctor told me that he will remind after 9 minutes, but that never happened. Started verbal with clock beating me already, and got 2 tough SCs initially (Now i think they were pretty easy, i made them tough). All the strategies, all the thoughts, processes of elimination, went for a toss. Took few deep breaths, started fresh, but i knew i was fighting a lost battle. I thought it'd be better to be absolutely sure of next few questions, and took a lot of time answering them. Fortunately, i got a pretty easy RC (regarding some annual crops and perennial crops, i had seen the passage earlier, can't remember where). I was amazed to see this SC -
https://www.beatthegmat.com/idiom-t38010.html, exactly the same. But again lady luck turned away, got a brutal RC (some probability, conjuction fallacy passage), which killed a lot of time. With 11 minutes left and i was wandering at 31st question, i hoped to finish the section somehow. But the tide again turned in my favor and got a pretty simple RC (only 2 paragraph, easy questions, i guess that was not counted)
and few simple CRs. But all-in-all verbal was nowhere i was expecting it to be.
Anyways, completed formalities and clicked on report score. I was hiding my face like that 'grudge' girl (Japanese version), and not expecting more than 670-680. But, i was AMAZED to see a 710. I never thought i could break the mark with the haphazard verbal section. Overall, i am pretty satisfied with my score.
Here is a guy who once cracked 2100 rank in JEE and got IIT-K (Indians here would know what this means), and left the course in first year because he thought by preparing again, he could achieve even better rank, but ended up graduating from a mediocre college. He didn't realize that opportunity doesn't often knock the door often. That guy went into deep pit after that, so deep that there was no way to get furthur down. But now he has got a ladder to step out of that pit, and has successfully took the first step.
:)But he has a long way to go!!!
So guys, that was my story. i sincerely hope to be as active as i can in this forum and i am againlooking forward to some more great advice from all of you.
All the best for your future endeavors!!
Panicked a bit, and got two super cruel SC's at first place. Although at the end i managed to finish the section 30 seconds before scheduled end, i was rushing heavily towards the end, with 11 minutes left for 11 questions..
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