Haha, thanks for the wishes and advice! =)
Anyway, my original plan was to take my final fresh CAT (
MGMAT #6) today and GmatPrep #2 on Friday before my D-Day on Tuesday. I tried to simulate the experience today as much as possible. My test next week is scheduled for noon. I didn't want to wake up at 10:00am as I would on test day but chose to wake up at 8:00am to get in a couple of hours in the morning. I guess it's not an exact simulation oh well.
I decided that this time I would use a foreign desktop computer instead of my laptop with which I usually take my CATs. I went to the store in the morning to buy some performance enhancing drugs (i.e. 5 hour energy) in accordance with GMAC's substance abuse policy and a banana, then headed to my alma mater's library computer lab to sit in for the exam. I approached the security guard at the desk and asked him what room the GMATs were being given and he gave me a quizzical look (okay I didn't really ask him, but I should have
). Got all pumped and sat down, opened up the
MGMAT site, and THE SITE WAS DOWN!! Gah... I was so pissed and just studied notes for the next 30 minutes. Luckily the site came back up soon...
I figured it'd be good to finally do an AWA to get ready for the 4-hour nightmare. I thought they went fairly well... I actually ran out of time mid-sentence editing the second one resulting in a typo (i think more entertainment became mententertainment or something), but whatever. If you're really bored and want to comment on them they're here
mgmat-cat-awa-82716.html#p620026 . I figure being a native speaker I should at least get a 5.5...
After the 1 hour AWA I gave myself 8 minutes, went to the bathroom, and took 1/2 my bottle of (mental) steroids. I had been reviewing my gmatclub and
mgmat quant questions pretty intensely the past couple of days and I promised myself that I would REALLY concentrate on every question. Whereas before I would just skip over and guess on an
MGMAT question that seemed too difficult (reasoning that it would take too much time), this time I really tried to solve every single one and double checked. I kept a good pace using
MGMAT's 15-minute interval strategy and ended up finishing with a couple of minutes left. I felt very confident as I only had to guess on 2 questions, 1 of which was an area of weakness (difficult prob. question, still need to review).
I took a look at the timer as I left the computer and forced myself to use the bathroom again, eat a banana (even though I wasn't hungry), and finished my 5-hour energy bottle. I was actually pretty excited at this point since I knew I did really well on quant and was looking forward to a high practice test score (lol... yes only a practice test score but whatever).
I had gone through a lot of sterny's gmatprep sc document so I was very confident with SCs. I know it's probably not the best idea to review hardcore SCs this late in the game but I figure they're an official source and I simply had to review them. Anyway, I got a couple of ridiculously difficult CRs halfway through and an RC with answer choices that I felt were identical. I also had a bit of trouble keeping time but luckily my last 6 or so questions were all SCs and I finished with like 20 seconds left...
Clicked on the score praying for a 750+ and was ecstatic when i saw Q51 V45 780! Woot. Pretty excited about this practice score since it was a fresh set and it was the first time I had hit Q51 (and I was complaining about never hitting 51 yesterday!). At the very least this gives me confidence that I'm capable of getting a 51.
Anyway, I figure I'll take the next couple of hours off and start reviewing later this evening. I'm on a silly high since I'm pretty happy with my result but it's only a practice test...
Random comment- Yesterday night I had a dream I got a 740 on my gmat... I don't know why but I was posting my debrief on gmatclub but couldn't damn remember my breakdown. It was driving me absolutely crazy... then I woke up. Yikes I'm going crazy