700-club ticket: 710(Q51,V34), AWA 5.0

I just took my GMAT here 9am this morning. The score is 710(94%), Q51(99%), V34(71%).

Comment on my score:

It is not as high as I expected it to be, but it is enough for me.
AWA: First is the argument essay, followed by the issue essay. For the argument, i felt I wrote pretty well. The issue essay is a rather broad topic, which means it is kinda hard to argue convincingly.

Quant: I didn't feel it difficult at all. I didn't meet those difficult questions as those in the GMATPrep. But there are a lot of tricky questions which can cause upset if not read and done carefully. And towards the end of the Quant section, the questions are getting easier. I guess the GMAT is giving up on me already. And i have about 7 min left when I finished it.

Verbal: I felt the questions are rather difficult after the 1st RC questions. So i was thinking I didn't do badly. But I was certain that I was not at my best, because I didn't feel as confident as I was doing the GMATPrep. At the end the score of 34 is a little disappointing, i would want it to be at least 36 or 39. Those CR questions are really difficult to me during the test. Now thinking back, perhaps my energy has dropped to minimum, and should I have eaten something before the Verbal. The last 5 verbal questiosn are guessed.

Exam environment
Overall it is a fairly good environment. But there was a guy doing some other *clicking* tests in the room. And he taps his mouse really hard and it is a little distracting sometimes. There was a lady taking Gmat as well. She started a little earlier and of course ended a little earlier as well. There are only 2 of us taking Gmat at that time.

I still feel a new environment affects the performance a little.

Test Preparation experience

It took me 4 months of preparation, but I was not very serious in the first month. I studied fundamentals during the first two months and practiced during the last 2. At first, I tried to study after work, but I couldn't concentrate and always fell asleep, so I decided to move the study before the work. (You can consider to do so if you have the same problem.) During the last 2 months, every day I got up at 6AM, studied until 8AM and went to work after that. So 2 hours of study each day and full CATs on weekends. When I am free in the office, I pop into Gmat Club as well.

The materials I used are:
PR 2007, Kaplan Premier, PR Math workout, Kaplan Verbal, Kaplan 800, and OG 11. The list order is my study order as well.

I did all PR CATS and all Kaplan CATs.
PR 4 Cats are: 690, 660, 690, 710(= true level, nearly all qn are new).
Kaplan cats are: 590, 660, 600, 610.
PowerPrep: 720, 730
GMATPrep1, 2: 770, 750.
GMATPrep re-install: 780, 790.
(Now you know why I am a little disappointed by my score, expected to be about 20-30 higher.)

Some advice
1. remember that accuracy is still the most important.
During my cats practice, there was a time I tried to improve my verbal timing, and I rushed the questions. That's the time I got 660 on my PR and 600 on the Kaplan. Later I experimented on taking accuracy more important than the timing, even if I may have to guess the last 3 to 4 questions. And it helped and I scored 710 on the last PR.

2. For Math, familiarize yourself with all the fundamentals first, then practice. Nothing more to explain on this.

3. For verbal, study the strategies in the books first, then do as many questions as possible. The strategies given by others are rigid, only through practice can you know how to use them. There are patterns in the RC, CR and SC questions, but the working pattern can only be discovered by yourself through practice. E.g. one thing I discovered is, that Pearson VUE does not like pronouns in SC even if there is a minimum of ambiguity - sometimes even stupid -, so u know when to use this trick.

4. GMATPrep is almost identical to the real GMAT in the topics covered and the software. However, it is not indicative of your real score if you have seen many of its questions, either in OG 11 or in the forum here.
For Quant section, I actually saw 1 or 2 questions I did before. But for Verbal, are are new. So if you see a lot of repeats in your GMATPrep Verbal, be prepared to subtract about 50 from its score to gage your level.

5. Participate in this forum, but bear in mind that some of the questions you do here will contaminate your GMATPrep score, even though some posts do not say it is from GMATPrep.


So, this summarized this special friend who has accompanied me for the past 4 months. Now I feel a little bit lost without it, but I will stick here and do more questions in math, SC and CR when I am free. The end of something means the start of another.