It was a mix of emotions for me. I never scored less than 48Q in any CAT that I took (Princeton(2),
MGMAT(3),PowerPrep(2), GMATPrep(2), GMATPrep-Retake(2) ), on the other hand I never got a verbal higher than 42. 40 looked like a ceiling when added to the fact that English is my second language.
Honestly, I believe I started very good, after the 10th Q I was getting serious analytical geometry and probability Qs. By the end of 12th Q I only spent 18 minutes. Noticing this was my biggest mistake. I got relaxed and maybe cocky thinking I had all the time in the world and spent waaaay too much time on 2-3 Qs, instead of just intelligently guessing 1 or 2 and moving on. I paid the price dearly by having only 2 minutes for the last 3 Qs, consequently just guessing them. This was the FIRST TIME, I could not finish a quant on time. FYI, my undergrad degree is in Civil Engineering and usually I get along well with math. That said, this was the toughest GMAT quant I've faced so far. Honestly, it was comaparable to
MGMAT quant sections.
I will buy and try the "Challenges" and then re-take the test within 5-6 weeks. I believe for people aiming 700+ or 750+ solving hard quant Qs is a necessity.
FYI, here's my study summary (3 mos, around 5 days a week, 2-2.5 hours a day)
Material used :-Kaplan Premiere (decent)
-Princeton Review (good tips but overall too simple)
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OG 11 (must)
-Official Verbal and Quant guides (must)
-Manhattan SC (good, very good)
-Princeton Verbal (definitely good)
-Manhattan Equations and Inequalities (too little explanation, weak in depth cover, very short book, but has some good points)
-Manhattan Number Properties - (same as above)
CATs taken (following official break rules)-GMATPrep 1:720 (after 2 weeks of study)
-Kaplan :590 (never took any other, ridicilous RC Qs)
-GMATPrep 2: 710
-Princeton 1 : 700
-Princeton 2 : 730
-PowerPrep1: 730-PowerPRep2: 720
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MGMAT 1 : 680
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MGMAT 2 : 680
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MGMAT 3 : 700
-GMATPRep 1 - Retake : 750
-GMATPRep 2 - Retake : 730Actual GMAT : 730Overall, your best bet of estimating your score is, as many here would verify, the GMATPRep software. On a sidenote regarding redundancy, quite honestly I did not have more than 2-3 overlapping Qs in my re-takes.
Word to the wise : Solve real hard and time consuming math questions. They are out there, more frequent than anticipated...
Good luck to you all, I'll be back with more after the (potential) re-take...
-MANYLANDER