Coughed my way to 690(Q47 V38)

Just back from the exam. I could whine all day about how I could have performed better in Quant, but it is what it is and I am ready to move on. My nerves got the better of me in quant today. I have scored 49's and 50's in all my practice tests.

Short debrief for all you wonderful folks......

I really cudn't sleep the previous night despite going to bed at 8 p.m. To add to my misery, I caught a bad cough on Tue. I just cudn't recover in time. I was coughing a lot in the first part of the exam but in general, I was able to keep my focus.

AWA

In my opinion,this section is a waste of time. It only tests you on endurance closer to the end of the exam. It went fairly well. I had a template in mind and cut it from my brain and pasted it on the screen. I replaced all the blah blah blahs with important points.
If you consider your english vocabulary to be reasonable and can write a few lines on any general topic thrown at you, you are good here.
However, Practice a few exams with AWA. It will train you to stay focused during the last 10 questions in verbal.


Quant

Well, as I mentioned I underperformed and my bad cough teamed up with distraction. I really did not have any difficulty solving most questions. I did not see any probability questions and that was probably the clue that I made some careless errors.
There were a number of questions on mean, median ,coordinate geometry ,sequence, abt 5 in geometry.

Verbal

Verbal was good. I think I screwed up in the last RC. I got an RC around Q36 and just didn't have enough time to follow my systematic approach. Moreover, I was trying to get over with the exam so that I could come out and cough with full freedom.

If you are past 3 RC's and you anticipate the last RC at the end of the section, pace yourself well to have some extra time for the last RC.

Well, I am a non-native english speaker and I really worked hard in Verbal. I identified early in my preparation that SC was the way to go. To all the non-natives out there, "SC can be mastered". I will be more specific on the details later. SC was my strength in verbal. My hit ratio on practice was close to 95%. I highly recommend Sondenso's GMATPREP SC document. It has some of the most difficult SC questions you will see on the test.


Practice tests

MGMAT1-5 --> 680-740
GMATPREP1- 690
GMATPREP2- 720
Gmatclub tests - no. of correct (27-32)- I took all 25 tests


Participate in the forum guys. There is a lot to learn from the posts. Most of the questions posted here are pretty challenging and have been posted because one of us couldn't find a way to solve them. For example, look at some of the techniques used by our own quant gurus(Walker, Durgesh, Oski, abhi_sen and others) and try to apply their techniques to different problems. Posts by JallenMorris have several useful detailed explanations in the verbal forum.

Last but not the least, I want to thank all GMATCLUB members who stood by me during my preparation. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! and feel free to ask me any questions you have.

Also,Please let me know how competitive is a 690(80/80 split)?
I am planning to apply to the following schools

INSEAD - Is this a stretch? Will INSEAD even look at a 690?
ISB
OXFORD
CAMBRIDGE
MBS
AGSM
National University of Singapore.

I appreciate your opinions