My test is tomorrow!!

Best Of Luck....will wait for a debrief !!!

given your prep scores, you should rock it! GLHF!
Remember to do a celebratory dance in front of the invigilators, especially if they're pretty.

I second that!

All the best! Don't do anything stupid!
Destroy it!!!

May the force be with you!

I just got out of the test center. I screwed up the test today. I got my lowest verbal score ever - 37 today. When I hit the next button to see the scores, I couldn't believe what I saw - v37!

I don't know what went wrong exactly but by the time I was in question 2 in the verbal section, I had glassy eyes. My eyes were scanning the material, but my brain was not taking it in. It took me nearly 2 min to identify the division between few and less in a SC question! My comprehension of the RC passages was also quite poor. Either, I over did the prep in the last one week and burnt out or had stamina and concentration issues today. Nevertheless, I'm totally bummed My final score read 720(q50,v37), one of my lowest total scores and lowest verbal score.

In case you are curious, my prep scores are 750,760, both on gmatprep, 750, 710, 750, 780, 780 on mgmat. Intrestingly, my lowest verbal score until today was 39 on a day when I had very poor concentration and was very tired! I scored a 45 in all my other tests

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Damn! But you correctly identified I guess. Verbal is more difficult not because of the difficulty of the content but because of the added pressure, stamina and concentration issues. I would say that it was just a bad day

Nevertheless, you cannot say that your score is poor. 720 is awesome!!
Do post your test day experience.

Did you take all mock tests with AWA?
Did you take the mocks at the same time as your real test was scheduled?
Did you take breaks and eat/drink anything during them?

and-----
Were the verbal questions more difficult than those in GMATPrep ???
Did you see anything that you did not know at all and stumped you ??

Yeah, sorry to hear about you not getting the score you want. Probably a case of exam nerves. While 720 is nothing to scoff at, do you plan to retake? I only ask this cause you have a high probability of going past 750 if you do better on verbal. Bear in mind that you'll have to concurrently work on R1 applications if you are planning to apply this year. Also you have a fantastic GPA (in a US school?) and a still great if not out-of-sight GMAT score so not sure how much an incremental 30-50 points will help you vs the cost of practicing for a new exam.

If you're not applying this year or until R2, than take a breather and go rock that mother.

Akhil, get off your ass and back to work. You better break 750 for the two of us. Whatever you do, don't get test day jitters.

Haha you sound much more 'human' today that that day
I will try my best, rest assured!!

@openbox1 - Not sure what I want to do. I do agree that 720 is a good score, however, I feel its not truly representative of my abilities. All my mocks were 750 or above, except for one in which I scored below.

I don't think it was test day jitters that did me in today. Starting with the 2nd question on the verbal section, I couldn't keep my eyes on the screen. I was reading, re-reading and re-reading the content over and over again, but absorbed very little in. I don't have a strategy to do RC or CR. I normally read the question and look at the answer choices and pick the right one. But today I kept staring at the passages I walked back to the train station and I was still in a haze. It took a while, nearly an hour to clear up.

I took all my tests with AWA. I normally get tired, but I've not experienced the haze that I experienced today during the verbal section.

One thing though - my test was @ 5pm and the last caffeinated drink I had was @ 2pm. On a normal day, my last coffee is usually at around 6pm. I planned to get a coffee from a nearby Starbucks before the test, but that damn thing was closed! I walked around for 30 minutes near the test center looking for a coffee shop, but couldn't find one. Yes, yes this is San Francisco. Then I finally walked into a bar and got a red bull from the cocktail section instead. My verbal section started at around 7:45 pm and I was glassy eyed by question # 2 I feel the lack of caffeine may have played a big role. I was worried that drinking the red bull would make me jittery because of the excess caffeine, so I stayed away from it.

I did eat a chocolate, a couple of banana and drank 2 gatorades, but I guess if your brain is used to the caffeine, it expects the caffeine fix at a particular time of the day.

I don't think the verbal section was any harder. Some SCs were tricky. But then I was reading , re-reading and re-reading and absorbing very little material from the RC passage and CR arguments At around question 30, I wanted to end the test and walk away. I just couldn't concentrate. It past mid night, so I will do a more detailed debrief.

Good luck to you Akhil! Don't over practice and burn out though. If you have questions, shoot me an email.

Hmm SCs are very tricky. I am working through the GMATPrep documents and these questions are nothing like those in the OG. Much-much more advanced and complicated. The general consensus is SC is easy and can be cracked! But I think, SC is difficult especially for non-native speakers like me. I miss on out of errors of style!

Try to narrow down the cause for the fugue so it won't happen again. You want to find out why and make sure it absolutely won't be a factor next time if you retake because if you get a lower score, it will not look good, especially after retaking at 720.

Anyway, like you mention, your verbal score on the actual GMAT appears to be an extreme outlier and you've pretty much mastered the Quant, so do go ahead if you're confident. Again, main considerations are timing especially if you're applying R1 and haven't started on the apps. I'm looking at these questions from Columbia and Kellogg and its a pain in the ass to make them sound earnest, funny, relevant and "special" especially given the length constraints.

Akhilesh - I personally didn't find the GMATPrep doc SCs hard. Agreed, some were tricky, but they were OK for the most part. I completed the doc with 90% accuracy and some of my mistakes were careless errors stemming from wavering concentration. But today's test was a different beast. I was looking forward to the SCs - I badly wanted to see sparse text on the screen and take my eyes of the dense text.

It may have to do with the caffeine. The last caffeinated drink I had was at 2pm and on a normal day, the last drink is at 6pm. I think this may have played a big role.

Even if I retake, I'll not prepare as I did the first time. I've actually run out of material. I think if I solve problems for an hour a day and do 3-4 practice CATs, preferably 2 back to back CATs in a day, I should be ready. But first, I should identify and narrow down the cause of the fatigue that occurred today.

Yes, I agree the R1 deadlines are all coming up soon and I don't have a clue to some of the essays!

IMHO unless you are sure that you can hit at least a 760, there is no point in retaking. A 720, though probably below your true skill, is yet a really good score along with your work schedule etc.

And I think it has to do with caffeine. Experts say that you should never make any changes to your regular schedule before the test. But the inevitable happened.

This is the very reason, I have stopped consuming Caffeine in the morning - as my test is scheduled for 8 AM, and I plan to wake up at 5 AM everyday for last 2 weeks. I talked to 2 of my closest friends, who scored 760 and 780 resp. (8 AM schedule), and they had similar experience during their prep and both refrained from ANY caffeine - in-fact any non-natural stuff that you body could potentially reject - on the test day.

Caffeine takes about 45 mins - 1 hour to fully kick in. For a normal healthy "male" the half-life of Caffeine is 4-5 hrs (for "female it's 5-10 hrs") - BUT more is your metabolism, lower is the half life for you. As the caffeine's affect starts to decrease ~3-4 hrs of the intake, this phenomenon could in-fact have a reverse effect on few, and could lead to decrease in performance. For instance, I do heavy work-out regularly and my metabolism is VERY HIGH - there is NO energy drink in the world that can keep me awake, if I am tired and sleepy. I have even tried with 5 hr energy drink (perhaps the strongest out there) - and it doesn't even make me twitch, if I intend to sleep :p. So a lot depends on what works best for you. But that said, one can count on Caffeine for short term, BUT I high doubt for a normal "male" it will last for the duration of the test (4.5-5 hrs: if you have test at 8 AM, you will drink say at 7:15-7:30 AM ... test starts 8 AM... 15 mins instructions... Quant starts ~ 9:30AM Verbal starts ~10:45-11 ... Test ends ~12:15). BEST case for preparation is, I think, to not get used to caffeine (to be specific, because of its aforementioned effects) for tests - unless you want to overdose, which could have the reserve effect, yourself in the breaks. Normal high carbs energy drinks such as Gatorade are something good to get used to .

Try not to schedule a 6pm test as well. I made the same mistake and I while I was relaxing during the day (watching a few sitcoms), I still felt the tension increasing as I waited and waited and waited. Schedule a 9am or early afternoon session, get to the test center early (they let me start 1.5hrs early) and get it over with.

Caffeine is dependent on the individual I guess. I bought two redbulls (downed one after AWA and another after Quant) and didn't feel any impact one way or another.

Yo Abhi, good luck with your verbal practices. You've got a great steady improvement in your CATs. I suggest taking the Veritas and Knewton free sample tests (not now, but after more practice and definitely closer to exam day). Don't care about the score as their algos suck, but check what qtns you get wrong and your pacing as I heard their verbals are comparable in difficulty (not scoring) with the actual gmat. Their Quants should be a pushover, but take them anyways with the AWA so you can prep for actual exam conditions.

MGMAT CAT is very iffy in Verbal as per reviews by a lot of other forum members.

Might want to check out MGMAT SC / Aristotle SC / LSAT CR qtns to improve in SC and CR. Also, there are GREAT compilations of Verbal qtns in the respective sub-forums. You only need a 38-37 Verbal to break 700 and anything close to 40 with your Quant will land you in 750 territory. That coupled with 4.0 GPA at a top IIT (that's like the Ultra Elite Schools of India right?) is going to make you an uber Indian candidate.

Lastly, my mom says I'm cool too!