alas my own little GMAT journey

Hi all,

I had been a silent lurker, reading and not really contributing as I am not to that mark yet.

Registered for the GMAT sometime in Jul/Aug and took it just yesterday.

Kinda regreted not utilising the online resources of MGMAT and Kaplan earlier, only used them in the last weeks to the exam.

I took 1 month to go thru Quants and another mth to go thru Verbal. Then one month to practice the OG questions, doing them at short 10Q, 20Q bursts.

Underestimated Verbal until i started to take the CATs, realised Verbal is weak. Quants consistently above 40 and Verbal always low 20s.

Here are my CAT mock tests (in no order of taking):

MGMAT1 - Q43/V28/580
MGMAT2 - Q44/V23/560
MGMAT3 - Q45/V21/550
MGMAT4 - Q44/V30/600
MGMAT5 - Q46/V31/630

Kaplan1 - Q36/V27/550

GMATPrep1 - Q46/V25/580

Did GMATPrep2 on the morning of the exam (my exam was at 5pm) and scored a poor Q42/V23/540
Was nursing a flu/cold from the day before and body was aching plus a runny nose (leaking like a tap) so did not really focus well on the final mock.. Decided to close the books and went to zzzzz before the evening real exam.

Went to exam centre quite refreshed and excited. Brought two fruitbars and a bottle of water. Jumped around as one guy mentioned here to help get blood to the brain

Sat down and started the AWA. Seemed to go quite smooth as I finished both 5mins ahead of time. Went for break no.1, had fruitbar, sipped some water and went to wash face with cold water.

Next came Quants. Seems easy and I went thru qestn 1-30 like knife thru butter. Not sure if I fell into any GMAT traps but the workings seem to come naturally. Started to feel the questions were harder from qestn 31 onwards, had to guess a few from hereon. Seemed to get a lot of DS, more than PS. Finished 5mins before and went for break no.2. Went thru the same break exercise.

Next is Verbal. I was like ****?!!? Qestn1 onwards already very tough. SC was my strength and I struggled. CR was like gone. RC i think i had 4 passages and two were really bad. Bad time mgmt and i ended up rushing the last 5 qestns. Ended on the dot with probably 30seconds remaining Felt like I screwed Verbal totally.

Finally after all the survey and post exam admin, the results were made known: I scored Q46/V31/640.

Not a fantastic score but decent enough to kickstart my applicatn.

Now debating with myself if I should retake. But the fear is to do worst and make the overall look bad.

Well, I felt I was in bad shape during the actual GMAT. Runny nose, sore throat. Also felt I underestimated Verbal and did not put in as much efforts in preparing for it.

OK, thanks for reading, alas my own little GMAT journey. Thanks to the forum and I enjoyed and benefited most from the experience sharing from other GMATers which motivated me alot.