First off, Thank you to all of you.
[u][b]About the test:[/b][/u]Nothing out of the ordinary. Actually I take that back, there was something unusual....I had already seen both my essay topics. :-) The Issue topic and the argument topic were both from the AWA topic list that ETS offers for free on mba.com. Incidentally, these topics were among the few topics that I had actually chosen for practice. Therefore, getting through these topics was a breeze :-) So, I recommend that you guys atleast familiarize yourselves with the topics, even if you just have to mentally pick points that you think will fit into the essay.
[u][b]Quant:[/b][/u]The quant section was alright, slightly tougher than
OG, but not nearly as bad as some of the posts on this site :-). Work through
OG, rote learn all the pointers in Kaplan, and you should be well equipped. I got a Probability problem as my second question, and one more Combination problem somewhere in the middle, neither was difficult. However, I did receive some nasty DS problems that left me scratching my head for a while, especially towards the end. It was surprising though that my first 15 questions were relatively simple. Anyway, I used up maximum amount of time on Qs 25-32, and before I knew it, that darn timer started blinking. I just guessed the last four. I was totally disappointed with my Quant section and was inclined to walk away, but somehow, I pulled it together, and thought that I will give verbal a shot. Keep in mind that Verbal is my weakness. Especially CR.
[u][b]Verbal:[/b][/u]
[b]SCs: [/b]The megabank of SCs that was posted by bigB was a blessing in disguise. I strongly recommend that each of you thouroughly understand each and every problem in that document. Even though there are a few typos here and there, the answer choices on an overwhelming majority are right. Working through this really boosted my confidence up a notch. In the actual exam, the questions were identical to some of the questions on the document. No new concept was tested. Most of my questions were on misplaced modifiers, comparisons, and relative clauses. There was one tough one on subjenctive mood.
[b]CRs: [/b]The dreaded CR question finally popped up as question no 3. This, however, was a relatively easy assumption question. The rest were a combination of assumption, and strengthe-weaken questions. I did receive one conclusion question. NO BOLD FACE QUESTIONS:-)
[b]RCs: [/b]Most surprising that I got 4 essays with an average length of only 45 lines. None of the essays were back to back, and none of them were more than 65 lines long. I didn't know whether that meant a good thing or a bad thing. Anyway, some of the questions were really tricky, and required me to go back to each essay atleast 3 times. What a waste of precious time. Thankfully, my SCs were simple and allowed me to make up time.
Well now that you've come this far, I will tell you my score: seven hundred and twenty. I scored forty nine on quant and forty on verbal. Although it isn't what I expected, I realize that it isn't all that bad either.
[b]Bottom line[/b]: Thank you to all of you. Especially bigB for that AWESOME post.