Prep advice

1. fit in a little exercise. The brain works better when the blood is flowing.

2. Take the GMAT Prep test and see what score you get. Go through all of the answers and make sure you understand why you got them right or wrong. If you ran out of time, use a stopwatch to get your timing in order.

3. Work on your weak areas the most, even though they're the least fun. But realize you can't know everything. There were some questions I worked on over and over, and finally realized that I'd never be able to do them in under three minutes if they came up on the test. I would actually make a notation that said 'Never in a million years'. I decided that was okay because I wasn't shooting for a 800.

4. Plan the test for late enough in the day so that you can sleep in. Lots of people have such jitters that they toss and turn all night, and a good night's sleep is crucial.

The Game Plan

i did some extensive research on books and materials - just thought of sharing it with the folks out here in our forum.

here are some listing of commonly recommended books

Broadly speaking you should pick the GMAT strategy and book that works best for your needs and areas of weaknesses, but the following books are a must for any GMAT test taker:
Official Guide 11th Edition or 10th Edition
Official Guide Quantitative
Official Guide Verbal

The Princeton Review books give some excellent starting points and strategies - so if you are a newbie like me, then PR (Which CAT tests - GMAT prep) can give you the jump start you need.
Princeton Review Math Workout
Princeton Review Verbal Workout
Princeton Review Cracking the GMAT

Once we know the basic strategies and gone through the OG, I am hoping I should be fairly confident of the "kinds" of questions asked in GMAT. Now the focus is on practice and so - any specialized books or coaching classes type books will give you that practice like:

Manhattan GMAT Sentence Correction or other special topics
Veritas Full Course Notes - all Verbal topic books
Veritas Full Course Notes - all Math topic books
Kaplan Verbal Workout for verbal practice

Once you are practicing hard, and timing etc - one should start taking full length CAT tests and also look into some advanced material from
GMAT 800 by Kaplan (Advanced PREP for Advanced Students)

Obviously - its hard to go through so many books and so much material - it is not only expensive to get all of these books but also it takes lot of practice, dedication and time to get through them successfully.
But a balance across different categories is perhaps a good way to go..

we will see how GMAT takes us through the MBA wave.

TestMagic

I joined TestMagic. Its an awesome network of folks who are in the same boat as me. I am just starting my GMAT preparation with them - based on the debriefs and startegies posted there - I am already knowing a lot about the hard work involved in doing well in GMAT. I hope to make some great buddies through the forum and share our experiences through the ups and downs of preparation for b-school.

Go TM Go!

Difficulties I am facing on GMAT

I am having two main difficulties on a GMAT exam – building the stamina for the test and building the expertise/strategies for success on the material.

Stamina:

• Poor attention span - so I get tired/zleepy very quickly
• Keep reading the questions over and over = so precious time on test is wasted
• My target score is 700+
• I have the fear of failure

A friend on testmagic forum suggested "A set back is a set up for a comeback!" I like dat.

Expertise on content & strategies for success on test:

• Certain math concepts not very clear – so preconceived notions on them
• Cannot identify sentence correction rules with the questions easily
• Too much material available at hand – don’t know what to focus on, prioritizing the reading material
• The ONLINE test material answers do NOT have explanations
• No proper notes on how to refer back to something that is wrong – so mistakes get repeated again and again
• No resource available to explain the mistakes – learning on your own model does not work for the GMAT – need an group to learn the material with - so I have joined testmagic and hoping to find my buddies there.
• Balance of work and b-school preparation is totally busted

GMAT format

GMAT has three components – writing, quantitative, verbal. The format of the test is as:

Analysis of an Issue – 30 minutes
Analysis of an Argument – 30 minutes
Break – 10 minutes
Quantitative – 75 minutes, 37 Questions
Break – 10 minutes
Verbal – 75 minutes, 41 Questions

TOTAL TEST TIME: 240 minutes = 4 hours

Quantitative Section – there are two types of questions – problem solving and data sufficiency

Verbal Section – there are three types of questions – sentence correction, reading comprehension, critical reasoning