Finished GMAT!! 720 (Q49, V39) Suggestions/Advice provided

[lebronge]

The Official Guide is representative of the difficulty of both Verbal and Quant sections, in my opinion. As they are all retired questions, the Official Guide guides are really your bible to conquering the test. It's no coincidence that people stress taking the GMATPrep exams above all other exams. Hope that helps.

[CRAZY1]

hi
i am plaaning to go for gmat in july and have to start now,i have Official Guide 11 with me and lots of soft copy material
my study plan is here kindly give thy suggestions:
i have Official Guide 11 with me this is the first buk i have purchased. should i complete this first or purchase kaplan premier.
I am planning to complete Official Guide first n then manhattan SC andafter that i will do kaplan prem.
then
kaplan 800
then revision of og11.
please suggest.

720 Q49, V39 (95th percentile)

Finished the GMAT!! Glad that's over with, so glad that I don't have to take it for a second time. I've been frequently browsing this forum for the past couple of weeks, and have benefited from some of the advice/tips that were provided by other users.

As such, I hope to do the same by providing some anecdotal advice.

Some information about myself--recently graduated from college in US, will be entering the investment banking industry. Preparation time: 6 weeks, with about 20 hours per week devoted to studying.

Test day: be aggressive and paint a positive mental picture. This was stated elsewhere in the forum and it really is great advice. Picture receiving the score you want and never doubt yourself during the test.

I found the Quantitative section to be virtually identical in difficulty to GMATPrep software, and much easier relative to Manhattan GMAT's section. On verbal, the difficulty was very similar to that of Manhattan GMAT.

Thus, doing Official Guide problems would be essential in preparation, as they accurately portray the difficulty of the real exam.

Materials used: Manhattan GMAT 8 guides, Official Guide 11 (all 3 guides)

Practice exam scores:

Manhattan GMAT #1: 640 Q43, V34 (no studying done yet)
Manhattan GMAT #2: 680 Q48, V35 (2 weeks later)
Manhattan GMAT #3: 680 Q48, V34
Manhattan GMAT #4: 680 Q47, V35
Manhattan GMAT #5: 710 Q48, V39 (4 days before test)

GMATPrep #1: 680 Q48, V35
GMATPrep #2: 700 Q48, V38
GMATPrep #3: 750 Q50, V42 (saw repeats from Official Guide)

[lebronge]

I would suggest taking the diagnostic test from the OG11 and seeing which areas you need to focus on. Thereafter, strengthen your weaknesses and start to do problems in the book. You should work on Manhattan SC concurrently since that will help you boost your verbal score. Only after you have finished a significant portion of the Official Guide guides would I recommend you work with Kaplan 800.

[CRAZY1]

Thanks leborange for your earliest reply.
Regards,
Vivek

[Achiever83]

Great Score......Congratulations