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arpan31289
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2012 5:36 am
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Hi Guys,
Just took my GMAT yesterday and scored 750 (Q50, V41). This community has been very helpful to me and so would like to share a few points that I found useful during my prep and that hopefully will benefit others.
I prepared for about 2 months using the Manhattan series books which I think are the ideal source of preparation for this examination for they are comprehensive and pretty easy to understand.Among these books the most essential ones in my view are the Sentence Correction (needs at least 2 revisions to fully grasp the material but once through it will raise expertise to a very high level), Number Properties (Has some great tricks and concepts to deal with some staple GMAT problems) and inequalities. Reading Comprehension I believe can be skipped to a certain extent as I found that the book really did not add a lot of value by the techniques it discussed.
For the Critical Reasoning section I would recommend the PowerScore Verbal book over the Manhattan counterpart simply because the techniques in the Powerscore book are much easier to grasp and well laid out and by the time one finishes with it, it gives a confidence that one can tackle any CR question that GMAT throws up.
If you really want to polish off your performance with some difficult questions, the Kaplan 800 book would be ideal practice
I have practiced using several test series besides using the Grockit questions and the Kaplan test bank for daily practice. Both these databases are good but my sincere advice would be to keep away from the more difficult RC questions on Grockit and the easier Quant questions on the Kaplan database as it is highly unlikely that one will see either difficulty level on the actual GMAT.
My Ranking order for the accuracy of some test series to the actual GMAT would be
1. GMATPrep Software (pretty close but I have a feeling that the scores are slightly on the higher side and once you practice both the tests, you tend to see a significant number of repeat questions in subsequent attempts - ideally one should not take each test more than twice)
2. Manhattan GMAT Test Series - The Quant is much higher than the actual GMAT (though a few questions are of GMAT level). The Verbal level corresponds much more to the actual GMAT. I consistently scored in the 720-740 range in these tests whereas I usually scored about 770-780 on the GMATPrep
3. GMAT Club tests - The Quant section is God Level tough at first look :)Thats because the test focuses on a lot of essential nuances that other tests (and the GMAT will usually ignore). If one can score about 27/28 out of 37 questions correctly in each test, one is guaranteed to get 51 on the Quant in these and most probably on the GMAT too. The verbal is less of a demon though but still tough.
4. PowerPrep Test Series: Too simple in my opinion
One can get a 770 almost everytime with very little effort.
5. Kaplan GMAT Test, Grockit CAT and 800 Prep Series: All have similar difficulty levels with the Quant probably a tad more difficult than the actual GMAT and the verbal a tad easier. I believe each would throw up pretty similar scores on an average.
Hope this is useful.
Regards,
Arpan
Just took my GMAT yesterday and scored 750 (Q50, V41). This community has been very helpful to me and so would like to share a few points that I found useful during my prep and that hopefully will benefit others.
I prepared for about 2 months using the Manhattan series books which I think are the ideal source of preparation for this examination for they are comprehensive and pretty easy to understand.Among these books the most essential ones in my view are the Sentence Correction (needs at least 2 revisions to fully grasp the material but once through it will raise expertise to a very high level), Number Properties (Has some great tricks and concepts to deal with some staple GMAT problems) and inequalities. Reading Comprehension I believe can be skipped to a certain extent as I found that the book really did not add a lot of value by the techniques it discussed.
For the Critical Reasoning section I would recommend the PowerScore Verbal book over the Manhattan counterpart simply because the techniques in the Powerscore book are much easier to grasp and well laid out and by the time one finishes with it, it gives a confidence that one can tackle any CR question that GMAT throws up.
If you really want to polish off your performance with some difficult questions, the Kaplan 800 book would be ideal practice
I have practiced using several test series besides using the Grockit questions and the Kaplan test bank for daily practice. Both these databases are good but my sincere advice would be to keep away from the more difficult RC questions on Grockit and the easier Quant questions on the Kaplan database as it is highly unlikely that one will see either difficulty level on the actual GMAT.
My Ranking order for the accuracy of some test series to the actual GMAT would be
1. GMATPrep Software (pretty close but I have a feeling that the scores are slightly on the higher side and once you practice both the tests, you tend to see a significant number of repeat questions in subsequent attempts - ideally one should not take each test more than twice)
2. Manhattan GMAT Test Series - The Quant is much higher than the actual GMAT (though a few questions are of GMAT level). The Verbal level corresponds much more to the actual GMAT. I consistently scored in the 720-740 range in these tests whereas I usually scored about 770-780 on the GMATPrep
3. GMAT Club tests - The Quant section is God Level tough at first look :)Thats because the test focuses on a lot of essential nuances that other tests (and the GMAT will usually ignore). If one can score about 27/28 out of 37 questions correctly in each test, one is guaranteed to get 51 on the Quant in these and most probably on the GMAT too. The verbal is less of a demon though but still tough.
4. PowerPrep Test Series: Too simple in my opinion
One can get a 770 almost everytime with very little effort.5. Kaplan GMAT Test, Grockit CAT and 800 Prep Series: All have similar difficulty levels with the Quant probably a tad more difficult than the actual GMAT and the verbal a tad easier. I believe each would throw up pretty similar scores on an average.
Hope this is useful.
Regards,
Arpan
