690 (Q47, V38): Still a long way to go, but it feels good

First of all, I want to thank those guys who made possible such a good forum, I believe that it helped me quite much.

About the exam, well, the AWA part was easier than I thought, the argument thing was about business and the other was related to an issue not difficult to support. For international students like me, I would recommend working hard with 10 essays, that's enough.

Getting into this forum, I became aware that quantitative was being harder and harder, and well, you all are right; I almost did not finish on time. Tough questions, requiring fast calculations, lots of possitive/negative and even/odd questions. Don't focus too much on comb/perm/probability questions, I just got two and they were far easier than what I have seen here. Practice hard on arithmetic and algebra, be quick with your calculations, and you will do fine; don't overdo geometry problems, they were a joke.

Surprisingly, verbal was not so hard. Just one boldfaced question, only a 70-line reading (by the way, all of them were much friendlier than Kaplan's, so, don't feel scared if you make mistakes on the latter), basically inference/assumption questions on CR, SC was sometimes a nightmare, sometimes easy. I used the clock not to leave any question unanswered.

In addition, I would like to make the following suggestions from my personal experience:

1- Don't take too much time preparing for the test (my mistake), because it becomes too stressful. It's much better to inmerse into studying for a month than to study interruptedly for a long time span. Avoid spending lots of money in private classes, since there are good books available and there are great websites on the Internet.

2- Kaplan's scores are deceptive, don't trust them, hence, don't lose confidence. However, it's very helpful with numbers, since their problems are a bit harder. I also recommend the Verbal Workbook, it helped my scores to improve quite a lot.

3- During the test, forget about eating, there will be no time, just have a good breakfast.

4- Try to take the least possible with you, they give you the papers and pencils.

5- Don't worry much about doing specially right the first questions, otherwise, you may go into time trouble, which gets you more nervous. You could get into a lethal vicious circle.

6- Never cancel your scores, you could feel happily surprised (as I did) with them. What big thing do you have to lose?

7- Try to read the whole of every RC passage, but of course don't waste time with details. There were many questions about things in the middle of a paragraph.

Previous tests:
Kaplan: 560, 550, 550, 640
PP1: 710, PP2: 650

Finally, guys, do I stand any chance for one of the Top-10?

690 GMAT first time
3.5 years of working experience in a medium-sized company as its financial assistant, however, being influential in some of the company's decissions and having people under my charge
3.1-3.2 GPA (I have an Economics degree, the hardest career in my university)
27 years old

If you have any more questions, I'd be glad to answer them.

Take care you all and don't lose confidence.