Not able to Kill GMAT devil

Hello everyone,

I have been a GC fan since long, although a silent one.

I have given GMAT 4 times, every year from past 4 years I dedicate myself in the service of GMAT
but yet not been able to climb the ladder past ever elusive 650.

My target is to achieve 700 mark or anywhere above it.

A brief about my past experiences.

First Attempt - July 2009 - 600 Q 44, V 28
--> First attempt was not taken seriously I just gave it with my friend who was preparing rigorously for GMAT and he eventually went on to score 740 and did MBA from ISB.

Second attempt - Oct. 2010 - Had done a decent preparation was scoring around 650 - 680 in GMATpreps, unfortunately went down with Viral 3 days before real GMAT and thus could score only 560 Q 39, V 25


Third Attempt - Sept - 2011 My first exhaustive preparation from May to Sept, I was doing pretty well. Covered most of the books efficiently and diligently. Completed Manhattan SC, CR and RC, Powerscore CR, OG 11, OG 12 and Verbal and Quant reviews as well.

MGMAT scores ranged from 640 to 720
GMATPREP scores ranged from 610 to 700

Was pretty confident of breaking the ceiling of 7XX but alas, Scored only 650 Q 49, V 33

Was damn shattered and decided will not give GMAT again and forget about MBA.

But my friends around me proved to be a great support and motivated me to give it one last try.

Fourth Attempt - August 2012 I started my preparations again in May 2012 and was concentrating heavily on Verbal so I started researching on Manhattan GMAT forums and learned alot from awesome Ron's insightful SC discussions.

To keep Quant on check attempted 14 VIP Sets questions and was scoring decently in them with 4/5 wrong at the max in some sets.

Concentrated solely on OG Verbal and GMATprep questions available in forums for Verbal part.

Based on various advices in the forum I even kept an error log in my copy, and used to revisit my mistakes every week and tried to evade them in future tests.

This seemed to have helped me alot in my practice tests.

In MGMAT free test scored - 720 Q 49 V 39
Free Kaplan socred - 690 Q 48 V 35

GMAT prep 1 - 640 Q 49 V 34 (3 weeks before GMAT)
GMAT prep 2 - 720 Q 50 V 37 (1 week before GMAT)


This GMAT prep 2 gave me much needed confidence and I revised everything in last 1 week religiously.

I hoped to done away with GMAT this time but ..... but....GMAT had its own plans.

I could again score only - 650, Q 47, V 36




Now I know I can very well beat this devil, I always go into the exam with enough confidence but somewhere while giving it, it drifts away from me and the problem is that even after attempting it 4 times , I am unable to decipher the real reason for not being able to beat it.

While giving GMAT in last 2 attempts, I always feel its going gud, I will score well, but that feeling of goodness, all goes awry when the SCORE SCREEN prompts 650....


To all those who are reading these post, please write back, what more analysis I need to do before I embark on one more GMAT journey, I dont know whether I will apply to any MBA program or not, but I want to defeat this devil , no matter what.

So please pour in with your advises and suggestions for my torn soul......