Done (730: Q49, V41) UPDATE: AWA 6.0

Just back from my exam, with a splitting headache and frustration at those wretched markers which made it impossible for me to write anything legible during the math section. I know a lot of you have said that the markers are a non-issue, but I think my left-handedness played a negative role, and had an impact I was not prepared for.

Here's a summary of my exam experience today:

Got up about 10am (the test was scheduled at 2pm). Eggs and toast for breakfast with a large mug of coffee. This was followed by a light reading up of my error logs and some music.

Got to the centre at 1:30, and went through the usual security crap. Nothing eventful there. Wrote the AWA with minimum brainpower, just telling myself to conserve the energy for later. I actually liked the AWA section because it got rid of any nervousness that I might have harboured prior to the start of the exam.

I was fine on timing during the math section, but this may have had something to do with the fact that I found all the questions easy. Which in turn IMO was related to those apologies for writing instruments. Needless to say, my hand was black soon enough. I certainly think this played a part in my inability to hit a 50 in quant. After all, trying to solve half the problems in your head (which I did) is never fun, and most certainly never easy. A lot of the problems were very similar to what one sees in the Challenges on here. Bottom line is, I messed up...oh well...

I washed my hands during the break, and went back in after chugging a Red Bull (no idea if it actually helps). I did not have any stamina issues during this section, and it was only after I was all done did I feel a headache brewing. I don't know if I put too much pressure on myself thinking about the exam, but 41 in verbal was closer to my lower scores on practice tests. If you ask me what I found difficult or easy, I'd say that CR was the hardest, mostly because I thought the answer choices were not perfect fits. SC was a breeze for the most part, and I'm pretty sure I did well on it. RC was ok, no killer passages.

And now here I am writing this. I've come a long way from getting 31-32 in verbal to a 41 on the real thing. I am happy, and I feel a sense of accomplishment. I also have this strange feeling .... hmm...you know the feeling when you're trying to sneeze but you can't? I feel like that Why? Because I feel I could have done better by 20-30 points. Also because I belong to the dreaded "Indian IT male" profile, a 730, despite being a 97 percentile, is possibly just 10 points over the average score for my pool of appplicants at Haas or UCLA.

Which brings us to the question: Am I going to retake? Well, I don't know. I certainly will think about it. I think I can pull 20 points over what I got, but not sure about 30. I'm on vacation from tomorrow, and will ponder over it on my return.

I want to thank everyone here on this forum for well...just everything to do with my prep You guys are the best!

My prep:
about 4 months of hard work:-

Math:
challenges, GMATPrep, 4GMAT book, this forum

Verbal:
MGMAT SC, SC/RC/CR1000, LSAT PrepTests


My scores:
GMATPrep 1: 760, retake 770
GMATPrep 2: 760, retake 780
MGMAT 1: 570 (no studies done here),
MGMAT 2: 710
MGMAT 3: 730

I'll be here, heading out for now....

Update: Back from vacation, official results in the mail, got a 6 in AWA, am a little surprised, as I did not practice any essays. Spent no time dwelling on my results during my time off.