How To Prepare for GMAT | Tips To Prepare

What's GMAT?

It is a normal aptitude test like any other. Just because you do well than your neighbor does not make you smarter, and vice versa. You do not need a 780 on GMAT. What I normally hear is 700 is a good score as far as MBA schools are concerned. After that, they will start looking at how well-rounded your overall application package is, rather than how much over 700 you managed to get

How To prepare for GMAT?

1. First, scan through the Princeton Review book to get an idea of the test and what it really 'tests'. Try some of their question bins.

2. Register at mba.com and download the 2 free Powerprep tests they offer. Take one of them. These are much easier than the real thing, but would give you a good idea of where you stand. For example, a score of 680-700 should tell you that you can manage 730+ in the real GMAT if you give yourself 2 months. You can take the second test maybe a month later to boost your confidence.

3. Start on the Official Guide (or OG as it is known in GMAT speak!). My strategy was to divide up the questions so I could simulate the actual test everytime. So I would take 15 questions from each verbal section (3 x 15 = 45) and 20 questions from the two Quant sections (2 x 20 = 40) and take them without too many breaks. You could start timing yourself as well.

4. Maintain an excel spreadsheet (or a 4 squire notebook for the technologically challenged) to keep tabs on your performance in each section. I tracked things like my success percentage, average time taken per question etc. and I also noted down the questions I got wrong or had the most difficulty with. Revisiting them later helped me gauge my improvement. The 900 odd questons in the OG main book should take you around 10-12 days at this rate.

5. Now you can move on to the Kaplan book and go through their strategy, tips and practice questions. You can also simultaneously start working on the OG Verbal and Quant supplementary books.

6. You can start taking tests whenever you are comfortable. Apart from the 8 tests in the Princeton and Kaplan CDs, I also bought the 9 real GMAT tests available at mba.com. They tend to repeat some OG questions, but I found them to be good practice. There are also couple of GMATPrep tests by Pearson VUE you are free to download from gmat.com. These are supposedly the closest approximations of the actual test, so you should keep them for the last week. As you can see, there are around 20 tests already listed here. Going at an inhuman rate of about one test every alternate day, you will need 40 days just to complete these tests. So the earlier you start with them the better.

7. The week before the test, take the 2 GMATPrep tests as mentioned earlier. You will probably end up with a similar score in the actual test unless you screw up real bad.

8. Somewhere along the way, you also need to prepare for the 2 AWA sections. I read some sample essays given in each of the books listed earlier, and started typing away on notepad. It helps to write the essay sections as well for the last 4-5 tests, just to improve your stamina and longevity.

Timeline To Prepare for GMAT:

The tricky part is when to schedule the test and how long do you need to prepare. If you can consistently manage 2 hours a day, then 2 months should be more than enough time to get a 700+ score. Ofcourse, I cannot generalize here, and people have different aptitudes for different things. So work it out for yourself. But one month into your prep, you should probably book your test date, so you cannot back out or procrastinate.

source of this info : internet