First attempt-680:Getting ready to retake

Hi folks,

Some of you might be knowing me by now. I have been active on the site for the last one month. Came back from the exam few minutes back. Got a 680(85%). (Q:49-86%;V:35-73%). AWA:6(91%)

Have been clocking 680-720 on the GMAT prep consistently in the last one month. Was hoping I could beat the 700 margin on the test day. Alas, had to settle for a 680.

[highlight]Coming to my preparation:[/highlight]

First opened OG 12 in June. Spent some time on week days only,now and then, since May to Sept. Only towards mid Sept,I became serious and started to devote quality time for the GMAT.

OG's have been my best friends till I came across this site. Could get hold of OG 10,11 & 12 Verbal. So have been working on them. Though I created my acc on GMAT club in July, I was never active till November. When I was trying to search for some blogs on the net, I repeatedly tumbled onto this site. Then wondered, I think I am a member of this site as I keep getting updates from this site to my mail. Unfortunately, it was only 20 days before my exam.Then started to dig deep into the site and found volumes of information.

Learnt about the power score CR bible and RC 99 from this site 3 weeks before my exam. Ordered them immediately and started to work on them. Power score CR is by far the best book I have come across for the GMAT. The amount of detail it gives on how to answer the CR is amazing. Very sad that I couldn't get my hands onto the book a month earlier.

The passages from RC99 are a pretty good selection. Found the last 33 hard passages a bit too hard to my liking and didn't do them.

For SC, I followed Manhattan SC book. Its a very good book, but fails to provide quality practice questions. SC was and still my main weakness. OG was my main source of questions.

Coming to Quant, being a structural Engineer, I didn't spend much time on Q. Found the questions of Bunel very very useful, especially the 700+ questions. Went through OG qant, NOVA GMAT bible Quant.

[highlight]Tests:[/highlight]

I gave MGMAT and 800 series. Best performance was 680 and worse was 620 on MGMAT. On 800 tests, consistently got around 670. The explanations given by MGMAT for few of the questions was very impressive and learnt a few tricks from those solutions. So I am pretty sure, the Quant material of Manhattan would be very useful.

[highlight]Test Day[/highlight]

Had my exam at 12.00 hrs UAE time. Reached the exam center by 11.30. AWA was routine topics. Didn't have much of a problem.

Q started off well. Got some few tricky questions around the questions 15-25. Tricky, but not tough. Got a Q on parabolas as my 36th q. So assumed that I was doing good. Guessed around 2 questions of the total 37 questions.

V started off with few SC then CR's and then got a couple of medium size RC's. Got one bold type CR's. Made me think that I was doing good. Then around the 25th question, got a very nasty RC. It was very lengthy and I wasted a lot of time on that. As a result of which, I was left with only 18 min for my last 12 questions. Had to hurry up and didn't read the last RC in detail and answered the questions. The last of my 3 questions I read superficially and answered. I think I was doing reasonably well in Verbal till that nasty RC, which upset my timing.

Had to spend another half an hour answering those stupid mock questions. Just breezed through them to the score page. Was hoping to see a 7 digit score. But felt short.

[highlight]Lesson's Learnt:[/highlight]

I need to improve my timing a bit. Even in Quant, rushed through few of the questions. Verbal, definitely time was the factor which got down a 700+ to 680 on the test.
SC was and is my weakness.
Didn't use error log at all.

[highlight]Plan of actions:[/highlight]

Planning to do the GMAT club quant tests. Want to get that one more point in Q if possible. ( Hope I get some discount offer. )
I need some quality material for SC's Would apprecaite some suggestions on this front. More so, i need some good collection of questions. To start with, planning to work on the 1000 SC's.
Will need to work on improving my accuracy on CR.
I have the LSAT RC material. Didn't have time to work on it earlier. Plan to finish it off.
Plan to systematically use error log and analyze my results this time.

I am definitely gonna retake the test in a months time. Have a lot of commitments from the job front in the coming month. So wont be able to take it in December and it has to be some time in Jan. Was desperately trying to get a good score so that I could apply for the second round. Will try my luck with a school or two from the lower tier, just to get a feel of essay writing and all.

Yeah, my post doesn't sound very entertaining. Folks who have already taken the exam and clocked a 680 or 690 would know. Almost there, but not really. Was hoping to crack the 700 mark. A bit disappointed. But I wont give up.

Hope my post is useful to some of you folks. Will appreciate suggestions and help on the SC front. I think I can manage the CR and RC. Can I subscribe to,only verbal part of Manhattan or Kewton material? I definitely don't need the quant part. Please advise.

Regards,
Praveen