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After 4 months of serious preparation, I gave GMAT on 20-Nov-11 and got the score 730 (Q51, V37).
I have extensively used MGMAT and gmatclub.
First, many thanks BB @gmatclub. You don't know it but I have gone through so many of your posts to keep the head above the water.
Some background about myself. I am from India and my schooling was not in English. I guess that is reflected in verbal score. Anyway for last 11 years I have been working for international clients, spent 1.5 years in Europe, so I became very comfortable with English. GMAT tests your understanding of various nuances in the grammar. I think I fell short there.
I thought I was very good in quant because for the last 4 years, I have been technical architect for an IT product. Anyway just to make sure, I purchased gmatclub tests and I am so glad that I did it. Those tests blew me off. I scored 22 in first test. Shamefully I have to admit that was a slap in face. Those tests taught me a lot. I got rid of a bad habit of skipping the last line in quant (I solved for radius and question was asking for Diameter ). But after 1 months or so, I started scoring 33 to 35 correct answers in these tests. That surely helped.
Then I gave Kaplan CAT 1 and bombed by 580 (Q50, V26). Shocked from the result, I abandoned the studies for next 3-4 days. Did not have the courage to look at that score.
Anyway after few days, I found myself mindlessly browsing gmatclub again and I was reading one of the posts by BB where he mentioned "don't get fooled by lower scores in Kaplan". I understood what he meant or at least that is the interpretation I drew. So I started preparing again and gave Powerprep 1-740 (Q50, V40)...Yey!!!
Finally I tasted the blood (700+). I started preparing again and improved on Kaplan and scored 670 (Q50 V34).
Powerprep 2 was 740 (Q50, V40).
I gave 4 tests on MGMAT and scored around 730.
At this point of time I found that I was making mistakes in inequalities. I jumped back to MGMAT quant guide and scolded myself for skipping that section. That helped a lot as I got 5-6 questions on inequalities on real GMAT.
Verbal was a different story altogether. I feel that I should have spent 2 more months on reading Ron Purewal for SC alone. I understand the grammar now but on many occasion I selected the choice which sounded better. It hurts to see that my verbal dropped from 40 to 37.
Stacey advised to stay with problems for longer time. Now I understand that. My 2 cents are that do spend time in finding out why the wrong choices are wrong. No need to rush through 10 to 12 practice exams.
If I get 5+ marks on AWA, big credit will go to chineseburned. I will post later on this.
There is a ppt "Flashcards - Quantitative Review.ppt" in gmatclub. That was a good resource.
Thanks Ron, Stacey and BB.
Best of Luck to those who are trying.
Time to get busy with essays
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