Final attempt at GMAT. [2 Years, 4 Attempts].

It has been a long journey for me that has spanned over 2 years. Arguably, the first year of my preparation I never really understood what the test was all about but in the last 12 months I was under the impression that I am getting better in terms of understanding the concepts.

Thought I will give one last attempt before I close this chapter. Took 1.5 months sabbatical from work and I started from the basics (Quants & Verbal). Gave 3 ''complete'' Veritas practice tests and scored 620 in all 3. (Q-43/44 , V-32/33). Reset my earlier subscription of Exam Pack 1 and scored a 650 [Q-41,V-39] & 690 [Q-47,V-37]. (Knew answers to 2-3 verbal questions but knew none of the answers for the quantitative questions beforehand). Bought the exam pack 2 and got scores of 600 & 570. Confidence was running low during these tests and I was furious with myself for picking answer choices that didn't make any sense to me during review.

Test day experience:

AWA: The argument was quite lengthy & complicated. But I had memorized ChineseBurned's AWA template, so managed just fine.

IR: I had a strategy that I will only solve questions which appeared as low hanging fruits. I was lucky that the first 8 questions were all graphical related. Solved them correctly and guessed the last 4 questions. Scored a 5 in this section.

Quantitative: Quants was never my forte and honestly speaking I just wanted to make sure that I don't get nervous and commit silly mistakes. Most of the questions were based on ratios & percentages, word problems, Time & Distance, Overlapping sets, Exponents. I knew that I was not doing well because I didn't see any complicated questions. Finished the section on time.

Verbal: Always thought that verbal was my strong point, but somehow I never really felt I was in control of the section. There was no way I could even judge my performance, unlike quants, had this sinking feeling mid way that it is all over.

Final score: 580. [Quantitative - 42, Verbal - 28].

This forum has been very helpful. Folks such as Bunuel, EmpowergmatRichCohen, Daagh, sayantanc2k, mikemcgarry, veritasprepkarishma and many others give such fantastic explanations to questions and offer various ways to approach a question.

It was a dream/obsession for me to get that magical ''700+'' score but I have come to realize that perhaps it is not for all.