I took the exam on 5/18 and scored a 750 (50Q, 41V), far exceeding my expectations. Honestly, I would have been happy with 700 - I am really happy the last 2-3 weeks of intense preparation paid off.
Below I will explain the test day experience and my preparation:
Preparation
It all begin at the end of Jan, 2007, when I enrolled in a Manhattan GMAT course. Prior to the 1st class, I took a MGMAT CAT test and scored 580 (41Q, 30V), which I considered quite a good score considering 2007 is my 10th year out of high school.
Throughout the 9 week course, I would say I put in a reasonable to low amount of study, mainly due to work commitments (quite a bit of travel and longish hours). In late Feb I took another MGMAT CAT and scored 640 (43Q, 35V). An improvement had been made, which was encouraging - as I said above, the amount of study was not great.
After the course, I studied with more effort and took another MGMAT CAT at the start of April, this time scoring 690 (47Q, 37V). In this exam I ran out of time and had to guess on about 4-5 questions in both the Quant and Verbal sections. That was something I needed to keep an eye on.
My preparation took a little hit for the next 2 weeks as I had a couple of mates in town and a few celebrations were to be had (the Cricket World Cup was a huge factor in the lack of study). Nonetheless, I took another MGMAT CAT in the middle of April and scored 680 (46Q, 36V). The final match of the Cricket World Cup was on 4/28 and Australia was in the final; this caused me to do a decent amount of sporadic studying from the middle of April to the end of April. Australia won, so in my mind, it was worth it.
I decided to re-dedicate myself to the GMAT and make one final push. On the 30th of April, I set the exam date for 5/18 and put in 2-3 hrs a night each weekday and 6-8 hrs each Saturday and Sunday.
On May 4 I took a GMAT Prep exam, and scored 710 (48Q, 38V). I found the math to be easier than MGMAT and the Verbal to be more challenging (I found I had to guess on more than usual). Then on May 12 I took another GMAT Prep exam and scored 700 (44Q, 42V).
I would say the following about the books I used:
1. OG 11th Ed (Orange book): Absolutely essential. Gives you a good idea of the way the questions are written.
2. OG 11th Ed Verbal and Quant (Purple and Green books): Same as above (more practise).
3. MGMAT strategy guides: The books were all fantastic except for RC and CR - to be honest I looked at them once and never again - I felt the diagramming technique took too much time, and most of the suggestions in the books were common sense - I am an auditor by trade and this may be a reason I found the CR questions not TOO challenging. Again though, the rest of the books were really, really good I thought.
4. www.beatthegmat.com: I used some of the free resources from this website, such as Spidey's and Sunil's notes for Verbal - they were helpful and gave me a a different perspective.
About the MGMAT course:
My instructors were Dan Gonzalez and Jadran Lee. They were absolutely amazing. You know when you get that feeling like someone is really trying to help you and really wants you to succeed? Yeah, that is the feeling I got from them. To be honest, unless the rest of the MGMAT instructors are as amazing as them, I am not sure if the class is worth taking - they certainly made it worth taking. So, a huge massive thank you to both of them! Thanks guys, pretty sure I couldn't have done it without your help and insight.
Days leading upto the exam
During my extended sporadic preparation, I did something that was really helpful to me during the last few days before the big day. I had made notes of all the Math Strategy Guides and the Sentence Correction Guide, in the form of questions. Examples of some questions I wrote are:
"What do you think if you see a Right Triangle inside a Circle?"
"Relation of an inscribed angle to the central angle?"
"How do you deal with an unknown in the denominator of an inequality equation? What about when absolute value is added?"
I did this because I wanted to be tested without looking at the Strategy guides. Specifically, I didn't want any answers visible when I thought about the question. I would test myself on the way to work, back from work, basically at all times so that I knew this stuff well and I could recollect it very fast (in every practise test I had taken so far, I struggled with time).
So, in the days leading upto the exam, I just revised. My exam was on a Friday and Thursday night I decided to look at the AWA stuff for 1 hr (I literally had spent 1 hr in preparing for this part of the exam - however, I was not too worried as I had seen an example of a 6/6 essay and although I thought it was good, I didn't think it spectacular). Oh yeah, also I read through a couple "relaxation" articles related to the GMAT - I wouldn't recommend this for you future GMAT takers.
I hadn't thought about nerves and I wasn't anxious until I read these articles!
GMAT Test Day
My exam was at 11am. Suprisingly, I managed to get to sleep easily the night before and woke up pretty fresh at about 7am. I made some breakfast, turned on the telly, and went outside and threw the ball around for our pet dog to fetch (she is the most awesome dog, a Siberian Husky, and I am willing to test her intelligence against any other dog out there).
After I explained to Assisi (that is her name, named after a little village in Italy) I was feeling a little anxiety about the GMAT, she just stared right back at me with a "What on Earth are you talking about" look. I think that really made me realise how silly it was for me to be worried or anxious. Sure, it was important, but I had prepared and I was ready - I was going to kill the exam and that was the frame of mind I took into the exam. I said to myself, "Are there going to be any weird questions that I wouldn't understand or wouldn't be able to do? Maybe. But those are the experimental questions." (I am easily fooled, which helps).
Anyways, before you knew it, it was time for me to head out. I get to the exam centre, and it begins.
I felt the argument essay was really easy - flaws galore. The issue essay was very difficult. I really battled picking a side to argue against, but ended up choosing the one that I could come up with more/better arguments for (even if 1 of them was made up).
Quant: I thought the first 6-7 questions were not difficult at all. In fact, I had done them in 9 minutes, which was awesome as I now had minutes to spare! I noticed the exam was not like the MGMAT CATs where if you got the 1st question correct, the 2nd question jumped to a 700-800 level question. I am pretty certain this was not the in the actual exam. Incidentally, I initially thought this when I took the GMAT Prep practise exams as well.
It was a good thing I had time to spare as the middle of the exam was brutal - all my "extra" time was lost and before you knew it, I had 5 questions left and 7 minutes to do them in.
Luckily for me, one of those questions was a difficult combinatorics/probability question and so I just decided to randomly guess and this saved me close to 2 minutes.
I took the 10 minute break and I spent the majority of this time in the bathroom, where I pep-talked myself into a positive frame of mind. This may sound weird, but comments such as "Are you going to let the GMAT beat you? Nope, I don't think so" came out.
Anyways, I stepped back into the room and was ready to take on Verbal.
Verbal: The 1st question floored me. I had narrowed it down to 2 answers, but just couldn't make a decision. In the end, I guessed, and had lost valueable seconds in making that decision. I think I guessed correctly, because the next question was really tough! After question 5, I felt the GMAT was onto me and knew my strengths and weaknesses - they were throwing everything I didn't know at me! (at least that is what it felt like). In the end, I had to rush through the last 4 questions, and VERY luckily for me 2 of them were Sentence Correction. That allowed me to save some time. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I had to randomly guess 2 of the last 4.
In the end though, I am extremely happy with my score. It was my first and last time taking the GMAT, and hopefully anyone who reads this will get something out of it.
My last few pieces of advise on how to score well on the GMAT.
1. Do not rely on tricks/strategies alone. Try to learn the material as best you can (not just memorisation either - try to UNDERSTAND why, etc) and then apply the strategies in tandem.
2. Buy the OG books. Practise these and know why a certain answer is correct. It is imperitive to know WHY, not just which answer is correct.
3. Inhale the MGMAT SC Strategy Guide. If you can recite the contents, you are where you need to be.
4. The MGMAT Math Guides have everything you need to know for the math content.
5. Question Banks on MGMAT website - work them. The explanations are better than fantastic.
6. Utilise forums such as this one or www.beatthegmat.com. The internet has revolutionised the way we learn - take advantage of all the free help out there.
7. Seriously, relax. It really is just an exam. If you are stressing out about it, think about the millions who are dying everyday due to hunger. If you don't score as well as you want, try to understand why you didn't, correct it, and re-take.
I hope this will help someone out there. Sorry about the fact that it is rather long winded.
I hadn't intended it to be when I began typing!
Oh and one more thing - I am planning to be an active participant on this forum, hoping to help others as best I can. I may not know all the material extremely well, but I think I am reasonably good in some question types - if nothing else, I can at least help with those wanting to know about the feelings on the actual day!
Good luck!!
) if I use diagramming.