I took the GMAT this past Saturday and came away extremely frustrated and embarrassed by the result. Like many my weakness lies with the Quantitative section, so I focused most of my studying efforts towards that section. For background, I don't need a high GMAT score, >500 and >30th percentile on Quantitative.
I had been studying and doing practice problems for a few months and had an average of 540 on three practice tests (GMAT Prep x2 and Kaplan). I did poorly (470) on the second practice test, but I chalked that up to overexertion on that particular day. Even still, on that particular test I at least finished above 30th percentile on the Quantitative and it was actually the verbal that held me down that day. On all three practice tests my Quantitative percentile was over 33% and my verbal boosted my overall score. After my third practice test, I received a score of 580 and was satisfied with that. I figured given the information I had after taking three practice tests I thought I knew what to expect on the actual test day, WRONG.
I honestly don't know what happened. I think it might have been that heightened stress of knowing it was game day and the lights were on for real this time. I also got a very poor nights sleep before and had probably pushed myself too hard the night before as well as that whole week before. I didn't feel tired during the test as the adrenaline was flowing and I didn't necessarily feel overwhelmed by the questions either, but the results would beg to differ. I had been using
Magoosh as my primary studying tool and overall I think it's a pretty good resource for the money. However, I really struggled to consistently follow their study schedule as I travel quite a bit for work. I also often felt the daily recommended work from
Magoosh's daily schedule was too much to digest in a single day. Usually it would take me two days of actual work to complete one of their scheduled days.
I also think I lack a lot of the fundamental understandings of the GMAT math. Like so many I haven't done this type of math since junior high and high school, about half my life ago now. I guess it could be possible that I was just far more lucky for the questions I guessed on the practice tests than on the actual test. That seems unlikely to me though given I had "good enough" Quant. scores on all three of the practice tests.
I'm just so confused and frustrated now and pretty down about the whole thing. I don't know what to do next as I'm at a bit of a crossroads with regards to starting a program this fall. My contact from the main program I'm interested in suggested I retake but I just feel so deflated from this experience and what if I fall flat on my face again? That's another 3-4 weeks of time spent studying and stressing as well as another $250+ spent on the test itself. Another thing to note is I didn't do very well on the verbal section of the real test either. I actually felt quite confident during the test but was shocked when I saw how poorly I did. As I said before, my verbal is what had been carrying me to a high 500 score on previous practice tests.
Any and all advice and feedback is much appreciated.