Important links

Ok, so I'm having loads of trouble copy pasting previous posts, and now even the links from the MS Word document I saved! :-(

Anyway, here are the most important links I've found for the GMAT over a 1.5 month period:-

PREPARATION (Theory)

1. All free GMAT resources on Manhattan GMAT including Math theory notes and FLASHCARDS (Print AND online version!)
2. Mental Math practice: GMAT Hacks (I think this is too basic for any Indian, esp one who's already studied for CAT before) and Gmatix (WOW! Killer site for improving calculation speed. A math calculation gym, literally!!!)
3. Platinum GMAT's Math theory notes (pretty good website for basic understanding of math concepts, and their questions are pretty find for a basic level; not good enough review for geometry though)
4. More Math concept building sites: Purple Math , Paul's Online Math Notes and Novapress GMAT Math 
5. Test Prep Preview - gives you questions on topic to help asses your weakness, and then directs you to resources to help build on that topic 
6. LearnHub's lessons on GMAT theory (their math lesson on geometry sucks, there's nothing there...good site for other stuff though)
7. GMAT Grammar theory
8. Worksheet for math formulas
9. Very Basic Math Review (with very basic diagnostic, and basic concepts and problems)
10. RicksMath's Geometry Review
11. Geometry formula practice sheet by saruba on GMATClub :)
12. GMAT Math book - a GMATClub Open Project (I have gone through a couple of chapters, and it really is brilliant)
13. GMAT Grammar Book by the one and only GMATClub!

 PREPARATION (Practice Questions)

1. How to do practice problems: GMAT Hacks & MGMAT way
2. GMAT Timer (I love this thing!)
3. Weekly GMAT Question: MGMAT (these are good questions, claimed to be 700+ level; a tip: save questions you found challenging with the answers, because they won't be available once the week has gone by!) & ScoreChase
4. GMAT Quant question of the day: GMAT Quant blog , TakeGMAT , GMATHacks (good questions) , GMATClub (NEW)
5. Question Challenges from Kaplan
6. GMAT Club's Math & Verbal tests (need to register to access them)
7. GMAT Challenge Quiz collection at GMATClub
8. WinningPrep's Free GMAT Verbal & Math test
9. Grockit.com

MISC

1. 790 on GMAT post!
2. 770 GMAT blogger 
3. GMAT Wings' 12 week study plan
4. GMATClub's Math collection - this is for Math Prep: theory & questions!!!
5. Beat The GMAT's 60-Day Study Plan

FREE TESTS

1. MGMAT free test
2. Veritas Prep free test
3. GMATClub's diagnostic test (go here to find GMATClub's list of all GMAT tests, including paid ones)
4. Platinum GMAT's free prac test

I'll keep adding more as and when I find them. I haven't gone through ALL of the above links in detail so I'll update this list with my comments as I go through it. Your own experiences/ratings/opinions are also welcome! :-)

Till then...

Continue believing!

Note: I will make the new additions to the list bold so that you can keep a check on the latest updates. New comments on tested links will be made italic.

UPDATE: 2015 is here, and I'm going to go through this list and update it soon. In the meantime, here's a mini (looks like it's going to be) useful set of links - 

• this link on Beat The GMAT's Avengers Guide looks seriously useful. Must check it out.
• get BTG flashcards here.
• And of course, this resource list by BTG is amazing.
• gmat club's premium membership

My First Post

Yes yes, my post title is a cliche. So is my blog name, blog description, and this list will eventually include a whole host of cliche posts with cliche contents, so much so that even the comments other people start leaving on the same posts will be cliche!
I think I should change the name of this post to "Cliche", just so that the cliche content of this post is reduced by atleast a small amount.
See, THIS is why blogging about my GMAT prep is a bad idea. I love to write! And, unfortunately for you first-post readers, I haven't written any non-financial-update-report matter in many months!
Getting back to the point, I think it's pointless to tell you why I made this blog. Everyone knows the answer to that.

What I would like to tell you is this:

1. I gave my CAT (Common Admission Test) last year, and got an 80 percentile, with a 94 percentile in the Verbal section *jumps with joy*, and obviously horrendous percentiles in Math & DI (Data Interpretation). I had joined T.I.M.E. coaching classes, but was irregular in attending the same. When I finally got serious in August 2008, I did put in a whole month's worth of serious prep time. But, I eventually realised I wanted to score well on my college exams in October instead, so I said goodbye to CAT 2008 then.

2. Because of #1, I expected myself to be better at GMAT Verbal than Math (I sucked at CAT Math). Although I have till date not solved a single official GMAT question (read: from the Official Guide for GMAT Review), I did realise that my speed at solving Verbal questions (specially RC) is kind of...slow, to put it mildly.

3. I know #2 because I have read the theory/review sections from Princeton Review's (PR) "Cracking the GMAT with DVD" 2010 edition.

• I found their RC (Reading Comprehension) strategy pretty helpful (it helped me increase my speed with RC...but only to an extent). But, I read on a blog today that Kaplan's RC strategy should be incorporated into PR's to get the best way of doing RC. I shall look into this later. Please remind me!
• I still haven't gone through all of CR (Critical Reasoning) because it got kind of borrr*yawn*iiinnnng.
• SC (Sentence Correction) seemed mostly pretty basic (that's 2 adjectives in a row...is that correct?). I hope this will be my strength, because I believe my grammar is pretty good (loved Wren & Martin as a kid!). I think I'll have to read up on the rules for grammar & an idioms list for this.
• I gave a warm-up test from PR where the Math questions I got wrong were mostly Data Sufficiency (DS) questions. I found that my problem was skipping to Statement (II) before reading (I) properly, and my eagerness to mark (C) as the correct option. Pretty basic, careless mistakes...
• The Math review from PR seemed pretty unsatisfactory to me. So I went on an internet-surfing-hunt to find the 'perfect' Math review. I found a couple of helpful links/notes...I shall upload them here soon, or provide links to them.

4. My target GMAT score is 800.

5. I believe in The Secret (Rhonda Byrnes book).

6. I want to get into ISB Hyderabad to start my MBA in April 2011.

7. I want to give GMAT only ONCE because it costs Rs.10,000! And also to stop waking up at 5 am every morning.

I have been reading up on the GMAT for more then a month now. I have realised one thing - if you give yourself 4-5 months to prepare for the GMAT, your first 1-2 months are going to go sllllooooooooowww. Therefore, I am 'planning' on giving the GMAT by December end now, so that I can start pushing along my preparations.

I started waking up at 5 am in the morning to study for GMAT before I went to work (I leave home by 8-8:30) because I'm too tired to study by the time I come back home (usually 7 pm). I was totally into this routine for about 1.5-2 weeks, when I gave that damn Warm-up test, and ended up doing a lot worse than I would've liked. I know, I know...that's no excuse for not studying for MORE THAN A WEEK! But, as luck would have it, I've been getting fever the last 2 nights, so all plans of getting back into action have been kicked aside once again.

However, the second I'm physically up to waking up early and studying again, I shall get back to my GMAT preparations.

Remind me to add my previous posts here, flashcards from Manhattan GMAT & Beat The GMAT, notes from MGMAT, math review from the guy who scored a 790, list of quant formulae, tough quant problems.

Till then, I think anyone interested in the GMAT will thoroughly enjoy www.gmathacks.com It's an amazing website with amazing insights into the GMAT! I currently subscribe to their "GMAT Question a Day", but I stopped solving them when I couldn't get ONE question. This seems to be a trend with me :-(

Enjoy the site! And I hope you enjoy my blog!