Took the GMAT...and Cancelled My Scores.

Hi guys,

I've just wanted to share my experiences on taking the GMAT , so no one goes through what I've just been through. I wrote my GMAT this morning, and decided to cancel my score about 15 questions into the Quant. section. First, here's my background:

- Studied for about 2 months (total 150 - 200 hours)
- Fully completed OG, Kaplan, PR, Insiders Guide
- PP#1: 730 (without reading official guide)
- PP#2: 710 (about a third of the way through the guide)
- Kaplan CD: 610, 600, 600, 600
- Princeton Review: 720 , 710
- Aiming for a 700+ score

For the AWA, I was surprised that the Issue essay came first, instead of the Argument. No matter, both were straight from the OG, and were not too difficult.

For some reason, I was really nervous about the Quant. I have an engineering background, which makes this even more unusual. I did very well on the PP practice tests (#1: Q49 and #2: Q50), but I got totally RATTLED when I hit a question (#4 or #5)that I couldn't find an answer to (in the choices). So I started to doubt myself, redo my work, worry about the clock, and essentially freak out. This behavior started to perpetuate itself as more questions came around, even really simple ones that I'd had no problems solving in practice.

Believe me, this is not atypical test-taking behaviour for me, so I was really disturbed by how I reacted. I'm not sure how to make sure this does not happen again. In retrospect, I feel that I started to think more about how the questions were going to screw up my score, rather than focusing on the question itself. This cost me dearly (not to mention the $200).

I decided to stick around for the Verbal, which was actually quite reasonable, and very similar to the OG. If you can do the questions in the book, you'll be fine.

I feel I should emphasize that I don't think the Quant. on the real thing is any harder, so please don't get discouraged. It just looks a little different than some of the stuff in the OG (more steps, wordier, etc.). And that apparently was enough to throw me off.

Any suggestions folks? I feel like my effort in studying has been wasted, as I was really looking forward to getting this off my back. I am at a loss at what to do. Take a break for a few weeks? Schedule another exam right away?

Thanks for your input.