..730....!!

I dont think anyone who has ever written GMAT and got a decent score can escape a 'How-___-GMAT' ..so here it comes on special request...my two cents on GMAT:

First the scoring, you get a GMAT score out of 800 and percentile , a sectionwise score and percentile and an essay score out of 6 and its percentile. Every bit is important. At 730 , my percentile was 97.

Basic preparation material:
Books: Kaplan, Official Guide . There are many other available but I used these two.
Cds: Kaplan CD , OG cd.
Miscellaneous : Many other softwares and tests are available on internet.

1. Practise.Practise.Practise.
Its a very easy test but the key goes in its format.At the time of the test, you start with writing 2 essays then a maths section and then english in the end. It would have been easier if essays were towards the end so that you could write with a peaceful mind but may be thats the reason,the GMAT guys dont hv it that way.So, get used to writing the test. Biggest mess up would be to fall short of time during the test.No one falls short of time.Everyone who gets a decent score completes all questions.The sections are independent with their own timings so do your time management for all the sections. Things like reading comprehension in english gobble up time without you realising it. Plus, you cannot go back to attempted questions so you tend to spend a little more time cross-checking your answer.GMAT gives you enough time for that but still you should be careful. Write as many Full tests as you can. Different softwares have different way of calculating the score (as its an adaptive test) you could have a metric of number of mistakes in every section to compare your performance. No amount of preparation is enough.

2. Quants
people writing GMAT from asia cannot afford to make even a single mistake in Quants section.Its quite easy and typically people get every question right.So the more mistakes you make the faster your percentile slides down. Prepare through section tests.

3.English
I found english tough. Typical questions are sentence correction,reading comprehension and logical analysis. Sentence correction is easiest out of these and RC toughest. A good score in verbal is a brownie for an asian mba aspirant. Prepare using grammer books , vocablary guides,section tests.

4.Essays
I didnt prepare for them but what i did was read up a lot of essays before i went for the exam . The structure of essay is important.It is rated by a computer as well as human raters. So it needs to conform to a certain style and contain some keywords which the E-rater would rate on.Plus they are analytical.They are actually a small business problem and you have to say why do you think the conclusion as presented in the question is right or wrong.

5.Where to start:
Diagnostic full test : write a full test. Dont feel too smug if you score very well.GMAT is still far far away. Identify your weak areas and do extra practise on those type of questions.

6.Take a date
You are not gonna be serious till you take a GMAT appointment.Take it in the morning or afternoon whichevr slot you are mentally most active in.

7.Make a schedule
Make a schedule of writing one full test every week starting at the time you have taken your actual GMAT appointment. Lets say you took an appointment for morning 9 AM.In actual GMAT, you would spend first 15 mins in filling your particulars ,next one hour on writing your essays.So, if you dont plan to practise writing the essay, you should start your mock test at around 10:15 AM. Programming your body clock really helps in managing exam stress and time taken to write the answers.
GMAT is a long test.One hour for two essays ,and two sections of 75 mins each. You should be accustomed to sitting that long.You get a break after the first section. I didnt see many people using the break though i helped myself to some water after quants.

8.During the exam.
Chill.Because of having to write the essays first, you would have regained control of your nerves when you start the sections.But as in adaptive tests, if you make mistakes in the beginning, your score plunges.Keep that in mind. There is no harm spending a little more time on the first five questions as long as you are confident of completing the section in time.
Dont draw conclusions.If you are getting one tough question after another doesnt mean you are doing well , at the same time all easy questions also doesnt mean you are marking everything wrong.GMAT throws in some dummy questions to test them for future exams.So simply go on solving without bothering about your performance.
Go prepared with the list of 5 schools you wanna send your score to.Save your precious dollars.
Even if your exam goes very bad (God forbid) dont cancel your scores.You can always rewrite and the universities will consider higher of the scores for you.universities specifically mention this on their website.

GMAT is a good exam.It doesnt expect anything extraordinary from you.It just tests your basics, your everyday maths and english.
All the best !