GMAT Prep: My First GMAT Preparation

I started preparing for GMAT in early January 2009. I wanted to prepare for 3 months which is what most people agree upon. I wanted to take my GMAT exam in the first or second week of April. Between my full time job and my GMAT preparation, I could see the challenges that lay ahead of me. I had been thinking about taking my GMAT and applying to Business Schools for quite some time and hence I had done some home work about the GMAT. After talking to some friends of mine, I had decide to use the following books.

The Princeton Review
Kaplan Premier 2009
Kaplan 800
The Official Guide 11th Edition - Review
The Official Guide 11th - Verbal Review

With these books, I felt I had all the right material I needed to crack the GMAT.

January 2009
I started with Princeton Review. I went through the introduction and math section fairly quickly. I spent more time towards the end on the data sufficiency part as I felt that section I little bit challenging. I then moved on to the verbal section which took me some time. I was done with Princeton Review in three weeks. I took the warm up test and scored 34 out 40 questions. I solved the questions in Bin 1, 2 and 3 and decided to take the practice tests later.

February 2009
I moved onto Kaplan Premier toward the end of January and worked on it for the next 5 weeks. It was almost towards the end of February when I finished Kaplan Premier. I took my first Kaplan exam and scored a 580. I asked a few friends of mine and they said not to worry as Kaplan is usually difficult to score high. I started working on the Kaplan 800 and focused mostly on the verbal. I took the second Kaplan exam and score 590. I later took the third one and scored 595. I was getting a little worried.

March 2009
I started working on the The Official Guide - GMAT Review. I only went through the Math section. I then went through The Official Guide - GMAT Verbal Review which took me like a week. I was now getting close to my GMAT exam date.

April 2009
I had already registered on the mba.com site. I scheduled my GMAT exam on Monday, April 13, 2009. I downloaded the GMAT prep software and became faimiliar with the software. I was going though Kaplan 800 to go through some tough problems. On Friday, April 10, 2009, I took the first GMAT prep exam and scored a 660. I was haapy to see a score higher than 650. I decide to work some more and took the my second GMAT Prep exam on Sunday morning, April 12, 2009 and scored a 640. I now panicked as I had hope to see something closer to 700. I went through the answers and noticed a lot of silly mistakes. I felt if I could minimize these then I would do well. But this result had totally shaken me.

April 13, 2009
My GMAT exam was schedule at 8:00 am. I reached the testing center at 7:00 am. The testing center did not open until 7:30 am. I went upstairs at 7:45 am. I started my exam roughly at 8:10 am. I went through the AWAs as usual. I took I break and ate half a protein bar. I went in the exam room and took the Quants. I felt I had performed well. I took a break and came out and finished the remaning protein bar. I went in the exam room and took the verbal. I finished the GMAT exam and now I was on the screen that asked me if I wanted it to report my scores. I took a deep breath and selected the report scores and clicked continue. 640! Oh my god! I was devastated. I could not believe it. I was crestfallen. I came out and took the print out from the lady at the front desk. I came downstairs and called my wife. I told her my score. She told me not to worry too much. But I knew I could do better.

May 2009
As you know from my earlier blog, the Chicago chat session and the open house session, made me realize that I should take my GMAT again. In my next blog, we will discuss what went wrong. So stay tuned and thanks for visiting.