First attempt 550

Hi everyone,
I'm an italian guy, today I did my first attempt, and the result is very low: 550 Q44 V22.
The result of the test has surprised me because on the past 5 simulation my score was higher: 2 weeks ago I took 590, then 600, 590 and the last two days before the test I took 610 and 650 (but the last one was flawed because I had seen some verbal question)
So I expected at least 600.. I really don't understand why the score is so low, I wasn't nervous on the test and the level of the question was similar to the level of the simulation tests.

However I will retry by 2-3 months, my target is at least 650, and I know that for reach this result I need to work a lot on verbal. The next week I'm leaving for Australia where I will remain for at least five months and where I hope to improve a lot my english, and consequently the verbal section.
I have three questions:
1) for the non native english who reach 35-40 in the verbal section, when they are reading a RC passage or a CR question, they translate the passage from english to their native language or they just think direct in english and then consume less time?
2) do you think that study for the gmat and work in a english country are a better way to improve my result then continued to study in Italy?
3) I listen some opinions (even on this forum) that the difficult of Gmat and the result that one obtains in a certain country could be different if the same person does the same test in another country because the overall level of the people who take the test in the first country is different to the level of the people who take the test in the second country. So if you take the test in a non native english country your percentile in the verbal section will be higher than if you take the test in a native english county. Are these voices real?