My GMAT Prep...

Dear Readers,
today i take you through my GMAT preparation. Before that let me just tell you guys that i am a software engineer by profession working more in project management out of our office in Bangalore. My job is tough and demands full attention the entire day. With this background i knew that i had to really carve out time to spend on GMAT preps. I had two options
a. Join a crash course
b. Do it all on my own. I had time on the weekends and then everyday late at night.

Somehow i have never trusted these coaching centers that have mushroomed all over Bangalore. I decided on option b. I promised myself that i will dedicate my evenings and weekends for GMAT preps. The next 7 weeks were full of maths, verbal, sample q's etc...

Stuff i used :
For the GMAT prep i used the following books and found them pretty useful.
Books
1. The Official Guide for GMAT® Review, 11th Edition
2. Kaplan GMAT 800, 2006-2007 (Kaplan Gmat 800)
I wish to tell you here that I felt the Official guide was a little easier for the Maths part than the Kaplan GMAT 800.


Sample Tests:
1. MBA prep (from www.mba.com)
2. Gmatter(www.gmatter.biz)
3. Gmattest.exe (www.800score.com/download4.html)


How i prepared :
The first thing i did was take the sample test from the Official guide. I wanted to know where i stood. I realized i had nearly forgotten all my maths formulae and that my verbal skills were not as good as my English. Very good - I just realized that i was at the foot of Mt. Everest.
Week 1.
I spent the next week brushing up my maths fundas. Slowly my high schools days unfolded in my memory and I was recollecting formulae for Simple interest, Mensuration and Geometry.
To be honest i was never a whiz-kid with respect to Maths at school. Getting 70% in every quarter was a dream i chased like wild.

Week 2.
I started off with the questions on the official guide. Looked pretty easy in the beginning. Things were going off smooth , i only had to find out the time after i came back tired from the tidings at office. I made an answer template in excel and took a number of printouts that i used to fill in the answers from the tests. I put my template here so that some of you can use it.
















That's my answer template !

It will be helpful towards the end of your preparation if you file these answer sheets somewhere carefully.

Weeks 3, 4 went on like this and I was getting used to the Quant stuff. With every test I was feeling better and better.

I was somewhat done with the maths when i moved on the verbals. Now people , one word of caution - Do not underestimate the verbal part even if you have good a English speaking prowess. Give equal importance to everything . For the verbal part i felt the official guide was really useful. As soon as i started the verbals i realized that critical reasoning and reading comprehension were really challenging. I stepped up the number of study hours from 2 to 4 everyday. I knew i was in for tougher times ahead. GMAT 800 also has some good verbal parts but the official guide was really comprehensive and more GMAT like.

3 weeks was what i had for the English part and i used it all. Even in the end i was not still not comfortable to the extent i would have liked. Anyway there was no more time and i had already booked a slot for the GMAT. The test was only 1.5 weeks ahead.

Mock tests & last minute preps in the next post.

CIAO.