PR CAT 1: 590
PR CAT 2: 650
GMAT Prep 1: 620 40Q/36V (1 month before the test)
GMAT Prep 2: 710 47Q/40V (3 days before the test)
Resources used:
OG and supplements
GMAT Math Bible
Jeff's OG and Quant supplement explanations
MGMAT SC
ARCO AWA book
GMAT Prep
I studied for everyday for 8 weeks straight. Three hours on weeknights and 6-8 hours on the weekends. I did every problem in the OG and supplements multiple times, keeping a log of comments for each question whether I got it right or wrong. I also forced myself to solve quant problems multiple ways if they could be. After I exhausted the OG, I ran GMAT Prep multiple times, taking screenshots of problems to solve. Anything I got wrong, I googled the answer and learned from it.
Exam Day
AWA
I didn't prep for this too much. All I did was make a brief outline of each of the Issue questions just so I wouldn't get shoot a blank on exam day. Started off with an argument question. I got an decent question and wrote 5 paragraphs. Next, I got one of the 5 issue questions that I had hoped to avoid
. Only wrote two points, neither of which were all that great.
Quant
I thought it was very representative of GMAT Prep. I got what I thought was an easy first question until I calculated it out. Unfortunately, it wasn't among the answer choices. Four minutes later, I guessed and moved on. I saw one problem that was extremely close to a GMAT Prep question. In fact, I think it was basically the same question with different numbers. I had 4 questions left with 8 minutes left but spend 5 minutes making up numbers and plugging in to solve one of the questions. This caused me to have to rush through the last 3 questions, two of which I know I got wrong. I actually struggled with a lot of these questions. I was expecting a low or mid 40's score, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the 49.
Verbal
I was a bit freaked out by reading all posts of people who thought verbal had increased in difficulty. Fortunately, I thought it was pretty much the same as OG and GMAT Prep. In fact, it seemed slightly easier. Perhaps I was just able to focus better. MGMAT sentence correction really helped here, although I found that I still relied on my ear to eliminate a lot of answers which didn't sound "quite right".
Overall, the best advice I can give is to first learn the basic math and grammar rules. Then start doing the problems in the OG. For quant, learn to solve each problem in as many ways as you can (algebraically, make up numbers to plug in, logic, etc.). When doing verbal questions, instead of just choosing the right answer, go through all the choices and write down why it is incorrect. For instance, A is wrong because it is irrelevant to the conclusion, B is wrong because it is out of scope, C is wrong because it weakens the conclusion, D is correct because it strenghtens the conclusion. Also, when you analyzing SC, read the correct answer several times so you get use to "GMAT English".
PR CAT 2: 650
GMAT Prep 1: 620 40Q/36V (1 month before the test)
GMAT Prep 2: 710 47Q/40V (3 days before the test)
Resources used:
OG and supplements
GMAT Math Bible
Jeff's OG and Quant supplement explanations
MGMAT SC
ARCO AWA book
GMAT Prep
I studied for everyday for 8 weeks straight. Three hours on weeknights and 6-8 hours on the weekends. I did every problem in the OG and supplements multiple times, keeping a log of comments for each question whether I got it right or wrong. I also forced myself to solve quant problems multiple ways if they could be. After I exhausted the OG, I ran GMAT Prep multiple times, taking screenshots of problems to solve. Anything I got wrong, I googled the answer and learned from it.
Exam Day
AWA
I didn't prep for this too much. All I did was make a brief outline of each of the Issue questions just so I wouldn't get shoot a blank on exam day. Started off with an argument question. I got an decent question and wrote 5 paragraphs. Next, I got one of the 5 issue questions that I had hoped to avoid
. Only wrote two points, neither of which were all that great.Quant
I thought it was very representative of GMAT Prep. I got what I thought was an easy first question until I calculated it out. Unfortunately, it wasn't among the answer choices. Four minutes later, I guessed and moved on. I saw one problem that was extremely close to a GMAT Prep question. In fact, I think it was basically the same question with different numbers. I had 4 questions left with 8 minutes left but spend 5 minutes making up numbers and plugging in to solve one of the questions. This caused me to have to rush through the last 3 questions, two of which I know I got wrong. I actually struggled with a lot of these questions. I was expecting a low or mid 40's score, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the 49.
Verbal
I was a bit freaked out by reading all posts of people who thought verbal had increased in difficulty. Fortunately, I thought it was pretty much the same as OG and GMAT Prep. In fact, it seemed slightly easier. Perhaps I was just able to focus better. MGMAT sentence correction really helped here, although I found that I still relied on my ear to eliminate a lot of answers which didn't sound "quite right".
Overall, the best advice I can give is to first learn the basic math and grammar rules. Then start doing the problems in the OG. For quant, learn to solve each problem in as many ways as you can (algebraically, make up numbers to plug in, logic, etc.). When doing verbal questions, instead of just choosing the right answer, go through all the choices and write down why it is incorrect. For instance, A is wrong because it is irrelevant to the conclusion, B is wrong because it is out of scope, C is wrong because it weakens the conclusion, D is correct because it strenghtens the conclusion. Also, when you analyzing SC, read the correct answer several times so you get use to "GMAT English".
