Practice Test Marathon...

I am down with fever. So I went crazy and took three practice tests back to back yesterday - GMAT Prep 2, GMAT Life by CATPREP, and Manhattan CAT2.

Quant scores: 47, 51, and 47.
Verbal scores: 35, 42, and 40.

The above scores just show how different various tests are. Though I got a disappointing score in GMAT prep2, I identified my weak areas in quant. Verbal, I am unable to focus - could be because of my fever. I just hope I will be able to concentrate in the real GMAT, which is less than a week away.

Taking off till I get rid of the fever. I just hope I have enough time to brush up my weak areas, and to solidify my strong areas... 

Sentence Correction in my pocket...

Sentence Correction was the apparent problem area for me when I started my preparation. I am done with the preparation part of it finally. I think I am pretty comfortable at it now. Though my speed in solving SC questions leaves something to be desired, I don't have the bandwidth to work on it. But, no complaints whatsoever. I am pretty happy with my progress :)

Materials used:

1. Manhattan SC guide.
2. Aristotle SC guide.
3. Total GMAT verbal.
4. GMAT Official Guide 12th edition(OG).
5. Aristotle's one minute explanation to the OG SC questions - very useful.

What have I done:

1. First I went through the Basic part of the Manhattan SC guide. At the end of every chapter, I solved the corresponding questions from OG. 
2. Then I read Aristotle SC guide cover to cover - except the chapter on idioms. Solved 100 questions given at the end of the book.
3. Then I read Sentence Correction part of Total GMAT verbal. Solved 60 odd questions from it.
4. Read the advanced part of the Manhattan SC guide.
5. Solved all the OG questions in untimed conditions.
6. Took the SC portion of the OG diagnostic test under timed conditions.

SC Scores

1. SC OG score: 128 correct out of 140.
2. SC OG diagnostic score: 15 correct out of 18.

A word on Idioms:

I skipped idioms chapters in both Manhattan and Aristotle guides. I think I already know the most tested idioms anyway as I have seen quite a few in the OG questions. I Hope not memorizing idioms won't come back to haunt me in the exam.

PS: I know, I know; the heading of the blog is a run-on sentence :)

To get the creative juices flowing...

Desperately felt that a break from the preparation is needed; creative juices were just not flowing :) So took a five day break from GMAT. Will resume the prep tomorrow. Would like to think this as a "decisive" break ;)

Meanwhile, I attended the MBA tour and UCLA's info session.

MBA tour complicated my already existing problem of finding the best-fit schools. There are simply TOO MANY good schools to choose from. I will have to take a pretty hard look at Rottman and UC Davis.

UCLA is simply irresistible  - people, location, culture, RA/TAships, scholarships, hassle free loan process, and the list goes on. 

GMAT Prep I Retake 720 (Q48, V40)

Finally a sigh of relief. After taking three Veritas tests and scoring in the 600's, I started doubting my abilities and went for the big one - GMAT prep I; scored 720. Moral of the story - don't take scores awarded by test prep companies seriously. Use the tests to improve your timing and strategy.

Even though 720 is a good score, I am really disappointed as I have done many mistakes in quant - 13 mistakes altogether(11 in DS, 2 in PS). Clearly Data Sufficiency is killing me. Now what do I do to tackle Data Sufficiency? Anyway, I haven't done much for the verbal till now. I will concentrate on it for now.

The road ahead: GMAT

OK, I booked the date with the destiny. On October 10th, 2011, I will try to tame the GMAT beast(hopefully, not the other way round). That leaves me with a month to do my magic. I am hoping to spend 4 hours a day.

After taking GMAT prep1 and scoring 710, I analyzed the results and came up with the following plan.

To read

1. Total GMAT Math by Jeff Sackmann
2. Manhattan Sentence Correction guide
3. Manhattan Advaced quant strategy suppliment

To practice

1. Veritas prep Sentence correction guides - 2
2. Veritas prep Data Sufficiency booklet
3. Jamboree Sentence correction sets
4. GMAC Official guides 10th, 11th and 12th editions
5. GMAC Official reviews - both verbal and quant
6. GMAC paper tests

Mock CATs

1. GMAT prep - both one and two, twice.
2. Manhattan GMAT - 7 tests
3. Veritas prep - 5 tests

I am overwhelmed by the amount of study I need to do. Can I do it?

update: The new test date is November 4th, 2011. Had to post-pone the exam as my passport didn't arrive in time.