680 (49 Q, 34 V) Debrief

I finally took the GMAT on 24.07.2013 after postponing it twice. It didn't go as well as I'd expected it to at the beginning of my journey. I studied for two months but I'd been attending classes since last October.

I am in my final year of engineering and took the GMAT for ISB YLP. Unfortunately, I'll have to apply to ISB with 680 only. I'm a national level sportsperson so that might make up for my score. Will definitely take the GMAT again for other schools.

What went wrong?
1) I WAS NERVOUS.

The first hour of the exam went well. IR was pretty simple as compared to MGMAT IR. Quant started well. After 20 questions I felt I was behind time because I didn't remember Quant has 37 questions not 41 , then rushed and perhaps got a couple wrong. The last five questions were pretty simple and I thought I've ruined my quant. THIS IS THE WORST MISTAKE YOU CAN EVER DO. DO NOT EVER TRY JUDGING THE LEVEL BY THE QUESTIONS...I got a 49 in quant which is okay because I never scored more than that in GMATPREP. (I still think I can work towards a 51 because I've never been bad at quant)
But I got so nervous. I was pretty sure I won't be able to cross 700. That is when I lost the battle. I couldn't relax in the break as well.
Verbal started on a good note. I could spot the errors in the SC questions, RC I could comprehend but CR I wasn't sure. In all of my CATs I'd scored less on SC but CR was never a problem. I'd improved in RC from 60 pc accuracy to 90 pc. I skipped some CR questions because I simply couldn't understand and I think I was too sad about quant. Lat 5 questions I could not focus. I could hear my heart pounding and I didn't want to click on the show score screen. I HATED THE SURVEY.

2) I took about 5 CATs and I never tried getting my timing right. I used to see the score, get disheartened, analyze some mistakes, move on to the next. Last 3 days before the exam, I did timed sets of GMATPrep questions. My accuracy was around 85 to 90 pc. However, I still was unsure about my timing for Verbal on the D-Day but did not want to try something at the eleventh hour.

3) Quantity > Quality. Because I had two complete months to study, I did all kinds of questions but never did an in depth analysis of half of them. I solved the OG, OG Verbal Workbook, Kaplan 800, Pen and Paper questions from this forum, GMATPrep questions (document again from GMATCLub). I maintained no error log as well. Should change my approach for the next attempt. Going to focus on only OG and WB for Verbal.

What makes me sad is that two more points on Verbal and I could have crossed 700.

I'd always thought I would post my debrief with tons of exclamation marks but oh well, next time.

Meanwhile, help me devise a strategy to break the 700 barrier soon!

Finally, I'd like to thank Bunuel and other contributors in the Quant forum. I went from Q47 to Q49 because of your posts.