Debrief of my 730 (44Q, 46V) (practice tests started at 630)

I've learned so much from these boards, and have been continuously inspired by people's stories that I thought I should share my GMAT experience.

I tested in Gardena, CA, today at 12pm and ended up with a 730, Quant 44 and Verbal 46.

I started studying in earnest about a month and a half ago (dabbling here and there prior to then). I took the MasterGMAT.com course (which I'll write a separate review about, as I have some choice words for it) and went through the vaunted MGMAT Sentence Correction book. I also did some prep on the GMATClub iPad app.

In the first diagnostic test I took, I got a 630. I was pretty concerned about how much I could conceivably improve. I found the verbal relatively straightforward, but struggled with data sufficiency.

My background is in engineering, but it's been 5 years since I graduated. I took an online statistics course over the summer through Stanford which definitely helped refresh my memory a little bit, but I had a lot of work to do.

I settled on the Master GMAT course because of the self-pacing, the price and the fact that I generally didn't like most classroom videos on GMAT topics (there was a podcast that had great succinct, informative videos I'd watch on the iPad). I'd rather read about it. I got through all the "topics" in the course, but didn't complete all the practice problems.

Instead, I spent the last week before my test taking the GMAT Prep exams. I received a 750 on the first one (Q48, V43), and then a 750 two days later on the second one (Q49, V42).

This was all after work, when I was exhausted. When reviewing my mistakes, I saw that I made a lot of fatigue-related mistakes. Especially in verbal, when the words started blurring by the end of the section.

Each time, I ran out of time on the Quant portion and was "okay" in the Verbal.

On test day, I faced the same circumstances.

I guessed on a number of math questions for the sake of time, and time actually ran out before I submitted my last answer (I had it checked, though - does the test take this, anyone know?).

I found the verbal to be relatively straightforward and easy. I saw "complete the sentence" questions that I hadn't seen before, but they were similarly straightforward and easy. I finished just in time.

I'm okay with my final score, although a little concerned that the Quant is so low, especially given how I've performed on practice exams. I rushed through the last few questions because of time, and remember realizing that I misread a DS question that I rushed JUST as I moved on to the next one.

Thanks again to everyone who contributes to the forum, and best of luck to everyone else who has yet to take the exam. Happy to take any questions or share my experience with MasterGMAT and the actual test.

I'm personally contemplating possibly retaking and would love to hear everyone's perspective on this (I'd like to go into management consulting afterwards, and wouldn't want a "low" quant score to be a hindrance, especially since it's "learnable").