680 (q=48, V=34)

[pharmindo]

Just got back from the test today. I feel pretty good about my score, but I really screwed up my verbal part. Not sure if I need to retake ??? Any suggestions are welcomed, and let me know if anyone is interested to hear my debrief. My score was not stellar, so I'm not sure if my preparation experience is worth to share. Oh, I would like to thank tictactoe/piyush, CTG1983, Erin, 800Bob, manish, and everyone else that have been very helpful !! You guys are great !
Off to do some outdoor stuff now !!

[rapsadoodle_doo]

congrats!!! great score ... would love to hear your debrief

[salama]

thats a great score do let us know your test experience, was the difficulty level the same as GMATPrep and were the questions similar to GMATPrep.

Thanks

[Clintonn]

Hey Man, Great score no need to retake; I'll take that anyday. Would love to hear your debreif.

[gschmilinsky]

Congrats on your score. Very interested in hearing your debrief? What do you think worked and what didn't? How did the test compare to practice tests? thanks

[pharmindo]

Okay, I just got up from good night sleep !! So here is my debrief:

Preparation:
Early this year I started to think seriously about going to B-school, so I started browsing around on the internet and found TM. I think this is one of the best thing that happened to me since I can really find lots of info here. I started my GMAT and TOEFL preparation in March. First I thought I could get TOEFL test done by April or early May, so I thought I would study TOEFL first and get it out of my way, then start GMAT.

It turned out that the TOEFL test centers nearby where I live were quite full and I couldn't get in until June 10th, so I needed to change my strategy. I decided to study GMAT first for 2 months and then switched to TOEFL (just gave 4 weeks for this one) and switched back to GMAT. Not sure if this had any effects on my score or not, but I didn't really have much choices. I have very limited funding, cannot afford to join any GMAT classes, so I just focused on TM and books. Besides, I also have full-time job, so juggling between studying and working was really quite a challenge.

Books that I bought:
- Kaplan GMAT 2006
- Official Guide 11th
- Manhattan SC

I knew that I'm good at math and lacking on verbal since English is not my first language, but it's been more than 7 years since I left college, so I needed to brush up both sides. First I did the diagnostic questions in Official Guide 11th, scored "average" in almost all of them, except RC (above avg) and DS (below avg !!). Therefore I decided to take care of my math skills first by using Official Guide 11th question sets and Kaplan. I found that Kaplan 2006 is not really as hard, it's slightly harder than Official Guide 11 but the question sets in CD are really good to measure your ability under time constraint.

I spent about 4 weeks in math (2 weeks each for personal statement and DS), then started verbal. The main difficulty when studying verbal part was that there are not many good practice questions out there. Official Guide is the best, but it only has so many questions and the questions are one level below the real GMAT test (at least that was my experience... ). SC is my biggest weakness, so I used Manhattan SC to get basic understanding on every aspect of SC and used Official Guide 11th to practice. I also tried Kaplan, but its verbal part is pretty bad, if not terrible. The questions in Kaplan are "weird", I think some of the SCs are just wrong (there are no correct answers).

I took Kaplan Higher Score CAT just before I switched over to TOEFL materials and I got 550 . This really blew my confidence, after 4 weeks preps and there I was, only 550.

I got my TOEFL done early June, but I got bad cold for 1 week. After that I reviewed math and verbal briefly, then took CAT2, got 620 . This cheered me up a little, but I knew that I still needed to work on my verbal. At this point I became very good at CR, but my RC was deteriorating. I got a bit frustrated because it seemed like when I improved one part, I lost the other and so on. I reviewed Official Guide 11 again for the second time and spent more time at TM reading others' debrief and practice, practice, practice. I found a lot of useful information from tictaktoe's and CTG's debriefs. I liked the docs titled "root out your root problem" from CTG, I think it's a must see, very useful on my real GMAT test !

I did slightly different thing that most people here, I saved GMAT Prep for the last part of my studying plan, thinking that I wanted to save the best for last... I did GMAT Prep 3 days and one day before my test date, both got 690, but some of the questions (maybe 2-4) were exactly the same as the ones in Official Guide 11, so my score didn't really reflect my true ability. I spent the rest of my last day doing a bit of exercise outdoor, watching TV, trying to rest my mind from the nervousness of GMAT....

Will be back with test experience...

[CTG1983]

CONGRATS dude. U did it in style.

[pharmindo]

Now here is my test experience:

I was scheduled at 9.00 AM, arrived about 45 min early. The place was nice, very quiet, and everyone was very helpful. They let me start as soon as I finished reading the test rules and got my picture and fingerprint taken.

AWA was quite a breeze. I got an argument first and I'm pretty sure I have read the question somewhere, maybe in Official Guide 11th, so I didn't have much trouble on it. The issue was not really difficult, but it was so general and "broad". I'm not a good writer, so I don't expect too much out of my AWA (eventhough now with my low verbal score, I kinda hope I get lucky in AWA somehow... ), I just hope I will get at least 4.0.

Took 10 min break, I spent it by going to bathroom, eating a choco bar and drinking a diet ice tea. I did some stretching a bit too to clear up my head and get ready for quant.

Quant: first question was medium difficulty I think, it was some kind of equation type of thing; the second one was more difficult and I stucked on the third one. I started to get panicked, so I just did some random guess, then I got an easier one next. I regained my composure on the fourth question, and I just tried to pace myself by keeping the timer on and checking my progress every now and then, and I ended up using the whole 75 minutes. I finally guessed on my last question (had about 2 minutes left when I first started it) since it asked me to create some kind of algebraic formula. I felt quite confident when I finished quant and overall, I think the quant part in the real GMAT is at about the same difficulty as GMATPrep. I got around 3-4 geometry, some number theories, but I think I got quite a lot of algebra equation with the exponential and square root.

Took another 10 min break, went to bathroom again, ate 2 choco bars and drank.

Verbal: I got SC as my first question, a not-too-bad one, and then a tough CR and another tough CR. I started to panick again because I just did some guesses on the last two questions and then came the dreadful RC. It was weird passage, about 600 word long, and I had to re-read it 3 times before I could even get a grip on what it was saying. I think this was when I started to do bad and depleted my score considerably. I got about 3-4 RCs, some of them were pretty weird: one was only around 150-words long (one paragraph) and the first question asked about which one will weaken the argument...
I have to agree with what other people said here that verbal in real GMAT is a bit harder than GMAT Prep. I also didn't pace myself well here, ended with extra 8 minutes or so.

That's about it. I am not sure if it worth to retake it or not. I plan to go to U of Minnesota Carlson and my score is above average there, but I also want to try shooting at Wharton. A bit of my profile:
- Indonesian citizen, female, 32 y.o (boy, I'm old !! ), currently US Permanent residence
- undergrad major in pharmacy, GPA 3.7
- 6+ yrs work experience, mainly in marketing as brand manager in multinational co.
- not really a lot of extras, involved in community service as chief of education and medication in remote area

Any suggestions if I should retake ? Or should I just say goodbye to Wharton ?

[pharmindo]

CONGRATS dude. U did it in style.

Thanks ! And thanks to everyone else for your warm congrats !!

[pharmindo]

Just viewed my AWA score online today. It's a 6.0 !!! YAY !! Far more than I expected !!