smacs

I'd suggest you check the student profiles of the schools you want to attend. If both the average GMAT and the average GPA are much higher than yours, it might be a tough road to get accepted. I'd suggest studying your ass off and re-writing the GMAT. If you can really impress with the GMAT, and also impress with your essays and work experience, they might overlook a less than stellar GPA. You say you're afraid that you won't be able to get a higher score on the GMAT. How much did you study the first time? -sm-

Congrats, Sidharth! Great score! -sm-

The real test *seemed* tougher than the PowerPreps, but I scored better on the real test. I assume that it seemed tougher because I was doing better and received harder questions. Kaplan's Quant questions seemed like the toughest of the ones I came across. I'd recommend Kaplan's GMAT 800 for both Quant and Verbal, but it naturally has a limited number of questions in it.

I went to Prometric on Argyle St. I got there at 8:45am...there was jack-hammering going on RIGHT below us. Loudest thing I've ever heard. Fortunately, they finished up right at 9:00, but then it sounded like they were carting rubble up on some sort of conveyor belt. The centre had ear-muff style ear plugs which drowned it out, so once I started, I didn't hear a thing, but man, was I worried going in!! I'd suggest getting there early (or even popping by in advance) to get your bearings and locate washrooms, etc. As part of the Kaplan course that I took, you could do a practice test AT the facility which helped a lot. The content of the test was Kaplan content, so the score is misleading, but it gets you comfortable with the environment and the process so you can concentrate on the test when you do it for real. Good luck, Tareks!!

Way to go Amiit!

Most of my verbal studying concentrated on learning the techniques for attacking the questions (Kaplan's books are good for that) and then practicing as much as possible. For SC, if I was unsure about a grammatical structure, I'd look up the rule, memorize it and continue with more practice questions. -sm-

I didn't find many practice questions that were much more difficult than the GMAT 800 book. If you can find tougher ones, I'd encourage you to do them...the tougher the better for practicing, I'd say.

Those test are part of the Kaplan online course. I don't know if they're available elsewhere (ex: maybe you can buy them from Kaplan as standalone tests).

Prado, I've heard that the Official Guide is the best, though I didn't use it. My main book was Kaplan's GMAT 800 -- it has all the tough questions. Consider not having English as your first language as an asset, rather than a liability. Many native-speakers have preconceptions about how to use the language, but if you study your grammer properly, you'll be able to identify the correct structures by sight, rather than by intuition (which is often incorrect). I suspect that when you speak or hear Portuguese, you don't think about the grammer. You probably just use whatever sounds right, but if people generally use the wrong structure, then you're in trouble. A classic example in English is the "there is/there are" structure. I constantly hear people (even academics and news reporters) say things like, "It's evident that there's all sorts of books about this subject available to the public." (Of course this should read, "It's evident that there ARE all sorts of books..."). It's a structure that is abused so often that people are used to it and have trouble identifying it. All that to say, learn the grammer rules cold. Study hard, and practice, practice, practice.

Sure gsbawa, My background is graphic design and computer animation, though in recent years I've been more and more on the business and management side of cartoon and video game production. I certainly don't have a math or business foundation, just whatever I've picked up on the job. Ok, I think my profile is shared now...not positive though. -sm-

Re: Vocabulary Questions...there weren't vocab questions, but perhaps you mean Sentence Correction? Fotunately, these have always been my forte. Unfortunately, that makes it a bit difficult for me to give advice on it, because I really just went through each choice, and selected the one that sounded correct to me. Having said that, there were times when I had to dig deeper and examine the structure more closely to pick up on pronouns, verbs, etc. If you're not great with grammar, learn the rules cold, and then practice. Re: Critical Reasoning, read the question stem first so you know what you're looking for in the passage. Also, understand the different ways that the testers try to trip you up. The wrong choices will often deal with issues that are beyond the scope of the passage, or will actually do the opposite of what the question is asking (ex: strengthening the argument rather than weakening). Like everything, it really comes down to practising, and then figuring out what when wrong when you got the answer wrong (that's key...don't skimp on reviewing the correct, and incorrect answers to see why their right or wrong). -sm-

As far as hours, I was pulling about 3 hours per week night, and 10-12 per day on the weekends. I dropped that to about 2 hours and 4-6 hours over the last week so I wouldn't burn out. I actually didn't use the [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], though from what I understand it's good stuff. I found Kaplan good for the Quantitative, because their questions are so hard...good training (like a weighted bat ;) If you're looking for harder problems, check out Kaplan's GMAT 800...pretty good stuff! Good luck padthai650!! -sm-

A few things: 1) Rest - I prepared well enough in advance that I wasn't cramming yesterday (or all week for that matter). I've had +8 hours of sleep for the last 6 or 7 days, which helped today. 2) Diet - Ate a good breakfast this morning, and had an energy bar that I nibbled my way through on the breaks. 3) Review - I meticulously went over all the questions that I got wrong on all my practice tests to avoid making the same mistakes on test day 4) Balance - You'll see in my practice scores that I *have* done better on each section in the past, but today I was consistent in BOTH sections. Over the past few days, I made a point of reviewing both verbal and quantitative, even though I felt that I needed more work on the math stuff. The result was an acceptable score on each section which does you more good than a top score in one and a mediocre score on the other. -sm-

I'm really only applying to the University of Toronto. I'm planning on doing it part-time, as I'm already working here in the city. It's a long 3 1/2 years, but after the GMAT, it can't be that tough, right ;)

Ok, I can finally breathe! I just got back from the test centre...I'm thrilled! As I was writing, I didn't feel good about the quantitative section, but felt very good about the verbal. Perceptions can be misleading, I guess. FYI, this score is much higher than what I was getting on the practice tests (this is my first official test). Quantitative: 49 (90%), Verbal: 47 (99%), Total: 770 (99%) :D I haven't been too active in the forums (a couple questions here and there), but I found them very useful. Thanks, everyone, for all your insight! Some notes on my prep... I did the online Kaplan course, went through Kaplan's GMAT 2005, and GMAT 800 books, and "The Ultimate Math Refresher Workbook". I also did the 2 PowerPrep tests. All in, I studied nearly every night + all day Saturday and Sunday for about 5 weeks. Here are the results from my practice tests over the past few weeks: Kaplan Diagnostic (660, Q38, V42) Kaplan non-CAT Test A (720, Q50, V43) Kaplan non-CAT Test B (670, Q45, V36) Kaplan non-CAT Test C (700, Q49, V38) Kaplan non-CAT Test D (730, Q53, V40) Kaplan non-CAT Test E (700, Q55, V32) Kaplan non-CAT Test F (720, Q50, V43) Kaplan CAT Test 1 (610, Q39, V55) Kaplan CAT Test 2 (640, Q37, V39) Kaplan CAT Test 3 (580, Q36, V33) Kaplan CAT Test 4 (620, Q35, V39) Kaplan CAT Test 5 (590, Q32, V38) PowerPrep 1 (720, Q46, V42) PowerPrep 2 (730, Q49, V41) In general, I found the PowerPrep tests to be most realistic. Hope that helps! Now, on to my application (it's due next week!!!) -sm-