710(94percentile) DID IT!!

[MBAspirant]

I gave GMAT on 26th and got a score of 710(Q47, V40). I am so thrilled!
I must say the main credit to my 700+ score goes to this forum and to Eric in particular. If I had not read the very inspiring success stories of Eric and so many others, I might not have aimed this high!
Thanks a lot to this great forum and Best of Luck to the rest of the future GMAT takers.
We all can beat it!!

[aim-wsc]

congratulations MBAspirant

now let your Success story inspire others.... i mean how about debriefing ?

[MBAspirant]

While my last few practice GMAT scores made me think that I was going to make it to 740 , I knew it was probably due to repetitions.
Anyway, though my score is no chart buster, I guess it should help me get selected into some decent colleges.

My preperation strategy was very simple. Since I have been out of college and in fact of any professional field(to be with my kid) for more than 3 years, I decided I needed to focus on both Quant and Verbal.
Duration of prep: 2 months

Books referred: OG11, Kaplan with CD, Kaplan 800

Strategy:

1. Gave the first GMATPrep test. Got a decent 670. Guessed 2 months would be enough to reach 700+.
2. Finished Kaplan cover to cover first. Gave a practice test every week on the same time as actual appointment. Kaplan scores were truely horrible and very depressing :roll: Kept notes from every test and also a separate notebook of all the wrong problems.
3. Second month, started Kaplan 800 and OG together. Finished both a week before the actual test. (I had the whole day to study, so managed it somehow!).
4. Made sure that the last week was only for OG11. Repeated the tough bin problems and took the GMAT Prep test a number of times to make sure I get new questions. I think it really helped.
5. Two days before the exam gave a final GMAT Prep and scored a 770!!Ofcourse I knew it was hugely inflated!

Since my exam center was in a different city, I could only revise my notes(very helpful to prepare them) on the last day.

Actual Exam: My AWA was good (I scored 5/6). Argument was tougher than the issue though and I had to leave the last sentence of the argument essay incomplete. (Lesson: Always finish the essay 5 min before time to enable revision) .
I was stumped by a number of questions in the Quant section- this explains my unsatisfactory performance in this section.
To my relief I found Verbal considerably easier and was happy to get the highest score I ever got in any practice exams.

The final score actually made me pretty happy and I rushed to give the good news to my husband!!