I got a 640 (Q47, V32) on my first attempt. This was shocking, I had not prepared that much, maybe around 60-80 hours total, but here are the results from my practice tests:
GMAT Official - 710
Kaplan CAT 2 - 750
Kaplan CAT 1 - 97% on Quantitative
Kaplan CAT 5 - 97% on Quantitative
(I didn't complete the full test on the last 2)
On the actual GMAT my percentile was 73 for Q and 64 for Verbal, when I have never scored less than 90 percentile on either section on practice tests. The funny part is I thought my actual one went really well! I couldn't sleep well the night before and it bothers me a lot when I don't sleep well, but never thought it was going so badly.
So I have literally 3 weeks to salvage my Masters applications, and I wanted to get some solid advice on how I can spend my time to maximize my results. I've heard some fantastic stories on these forums, and with some help maybe I can be one too
I'll try to ask some specific questions, but general advice is more than welcome!
1] In practicing
OG questions, how does one actually improve? Do you track the types of questions and types of mistakes, etc? Any good method to do this? Many times I have felt, especially with SC, that the explanations are too complex - I could have never thought like that myself... So not even sure if I'm getting better. And would you recommend I do all questions from all sections? Or focus on harder ones?
2] What tests should I take? Manhattan? Kaplan? I feel like Kaplan overestimated my scores..
3] Where to get a good grasp of theory / fundamentals? I feel like I did a lot of work on strategy, but nothing at all on the actual theory/fundamentals. Especially with SC, that remains a big problem area.
Verbal is clearly the bigger problem area, SC and RC seem to be my weaknesses in that order. Anyway, please do advise and point me to resources that you found especially helpful - timing strategies, idioms, etc. I haven't fully explored this site so even links to that would help. Sorry if I'm being too general, I have only 3 weeks and I feel confident that I can do a much better job. But I've never been clear on how to devote my time, so please do help!