I don't know if I can call it a beat but this is what I was hoping to get and I got it. So, am happy.
Q - Scaled Score 48; Percentile 83
V - Scaled Score 40; Percentile 89
Total - 710; Percentile 92
My story -
I thought of taking GMAT in the last week of 2009 and logged into mba.com and took the test date (Feb 26, 2010) right then because I knew I wouldn't study if I didn't have a target date in mind. I wasn't planning on preparing much more than attempting to solve the questions you see online when you Google "free GMAT questions". My wife and a friend scared me that I needed to prepare more than that and made me purchase the Official Guides. Until last night I had finished about 30% of each of those. I purchased Manhattan 6 CAT series and took 5 of them. I scored in the 600s in all of them, the highest being 680. I did the GMAT Prep tests in the CD and scored 660 and 700 on those. After I was done I reviewed the questions I did wrong on all these 7 tests. Quite often, though, I didn't agree with the answers or the explanations, especially in RC and Analytical Reasoning.
I prepared for 7-8 weeks and only on weekends; except the 3 days before the exam when I took off from work. I didn't study more than 4-6 hours on any day. This is all there is to tell.
Moral of the story -
First of all, don't be scared of this test. It is actually a lot of fun! If you were a decent enough student through high school and can spend just enough time to brush up all that you learnt, you will do fine! Don't read any more than that into it. Don't be scared by all these tutoring companies posting tips and articles to scare you into hiring them.
Another observation from my personal experience - unless you have many months to prepare, focus only on improving your Sentence Correction and Quantitative problem solving. Don't waste time in RC or Analytical. The latter don't get better with practice as easily.
Q - Scaled Score 48; Percentile 83
V - Scaled Score 40; Percentile 89
Total - 710; Percentile 92
My story -
I thought of taking GMAT in the last week of 2009 and logged into mba.com and took the test date (Feb 26, 2010) right then because I knew I wouldn't study if I didn't have a target date in mind. I wasn't planning on preparing much more than attempting to solve the questions you see online when you Google "free GMAT questions". My wife and a friend scared me that I needed to prepare more than that and made me purchase the Official Guides. Until last night I had finished about 30% of each of those. I purchased Manhattan 6 CAT series and took 5 of them. I scored in the 600s in all of them, the highest being 680. I did the GMAT Prep tests in the CD and scored 660 and 700 on those. After I was done I reviewed the questions I did wrong on all these 7 tests. Quite often, though, I didn't agree with the answers or the explanations, especially in RC and Analytical Reasoning.
I prepared for 7-8 weeks and only on weekends; except the 3 days before the exam when I took off from work. I didn't study more than 4-6 hours on any day. This is all there is to tell.
Moral of the story -
First of all, don't be scared of this test. It is actually a lot of fun! If you were a decent enough student through high school and can spend just enough time to brush up all that you learnt, you will do fine! Don't read any more than that into it. Don't be scared by all these tutoring companies posting tips and articles to scare you into hiring them.
Another observation from my personal experience - unless you have many months to prepare, focus only on improving your Sentence Correction and Quantitative problem solving. Don't waste time in RC or Analytical. The latter don't get better with practice as easily.
