700-740 in Prep, 630 actual, 42Q, 34V

After 3 solid months of studying pretty much every day, 4-6 hours a day, I took GMAT this past Saturday and I'm not at all happy with my result. I know I can do better so I plan to take it over in a month or two and I will make this thread my daily journal (after I take a few days for R&R). I thought that on a bad day the worst I could possibly do was 660 but my nerves got the best of me. During the test I knew that I wasn't doing as well as I could have but I was shocked to see 630 starring at me when it was all over.

The week before the test I started to feel very nervous and began to doubt myself - even though I was getting 700-740 consistently on GMATPrep and on the MGMAT prep tests. I had a very intense event happen in my personal life about two weeks before - that threw me off a bit but I don't think that it was the cause of my poor performance. The day before the test I didn't do any studying and just took care of a bunch of other responsibilities hoping that that would relax me; it worked but it all came back as soon as I entered the test center.

I slept well, planned my meal times perfectly, and got to the center 30 minutes before the test. It was much smaller than I was expecting - there were only 10-12 seats and each one was filled. I think everyone else was writing GMAT, and we all started at the same time.

AWA was exactly what I expected. I'm not sure what my score is yet but this part of the test went very smoothly. I used a template similar to those posted here and on a few other sites. I finished both with about 7-10 minutes left and I spent the rest of the time adding bits and pieces and trying to make the wording more effective.

I was really worried about nature calling and hunger striking so I had a plan for my breaks and stuck to it: bathroom, splash of water on the face and a Cliff Bar. Both of my breaks took about 7 minutes.

QUANT went okay but I knew there were some things I missed that I should have gotten right. My quant range in prep was between 42 and 47 so I'm not overly shocked with my quant result. I messed up a few easy questions. I think in my prep I spent too much time doing prep tests and practice questions and not enough time on understanding each type of question. I will definitely make that my focus for the next time around. The questions were a bit harder than any I'd seen in OG10-12 or GMATPrep, and the wording was slightly different.

Bathroom, splash of water on the face, Cliff bar.

I'm absolutely stunned with my verbal result because verbal was always my strong area in prep. I think the worst I ever got in prep was 38 and I was usually above 42. I got what I found to be very difficult RC questions, but maybe they just seemed difficult because I was so nervous that I couldn't read. I mean I could read but I couldn't focus on what I was reading and couldn't really remember more than 4 words at a time. That probably impacted my CR too, but I think I did very well on SC. I was getting some very difficult SC questions but I felt as though I was knocking them down.

I've done all the GMATPrep and 6 MGMAT prep tests (twice!) so I'm going to have to find other options for practicing the test. I'm going to really work on understanding every piece of material and not just practice questions. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my nerves but I'm hoping that I'll be a bit more relaxed the second time around. I'm open to any suggestions for my prep, especially anything to help with my nerves and any additional material I might benefit from. I've listed below all of the most of the materials I have already used.

OG10-12
OG Verbal 1st ed.
OG Quant 1st ed.
MGMAT SC (2003), Number Properties (newest one), Word Translations (2003), Equations/Inequalities/VIC's (2003), Geometry (2003)
Sacksmann Math Bible
CR Bible (only read the first 40 or so pages...will read the whole thing this time)
Kaplan GMAT 800
Disclosed Exams
GMATPrep
GMAT Club (forum and tests)
PR Cracking the GMAT