**First time post, took GMAT twice, both 640, need help**

Hello all,

This is my first time posting on this forum after reading other people's experiences in their GMAT journeys, and is hoping that I could share mine as well as get some serious help.

I am currently an application developer at a financial firm. I got my computer engineering undergraduate degree from Columbia two years ago. I am 24 years old and a non-native English speaker (born in Hong Kong), but literature courses were my strongest areas at school. I have always wanted to apply for an MBA at Columbia because I want to change my career, geer it towards finance and management, and eventually secure a job in Asia. I strongly believed that an MBA degree can open many more opportunities for my future. I am aiming to apply early decision to Columbia's full-time MBA program for Fall 2009, which application period is from July 2008 to October 2008.

From last year I have been doing a few problems daily, if not once per two days, and this was really just to get familiarized with the test. My materials consist of OG 11 and Kaplan 800. Two weeks before my first exam on May 29, 2008 was when I really started die-hard studying. I studied through the very end of the day before exam. I did through all of Kaplan 800, downloaded GMATPrep and took its two practice exams several times. I did not get through all of OG 11 because I thought it had too many problems and most of them were too easy. Day before, I simply browsed through OG for tips on the AWA section, which I didn't even bother spending more than a hour on. I took my first GMAT test and scored 640, 40Q & 38V. I did NOT even get to problem 25 on the quantitative section when time was up, but I found verbal to relatively easier. I noticed that my math really sucked.

I scheduled my next test to be today, July 5th, 2008. From there on, I purchased all of the GMAT Club Challenges and up to now went through 17 quant sections and 3 verbal sections. The quant sections were extremely difficult for me even up till the 17th, and I never turned on the timer when doing them because I knew I would not finish on time, and often ended up spending up to 2 hours on each quant test. As a supplementary material I purchased the Winner's Guide to GMAT Math Part II from www.winningprep.com, which gave me some help on numerical properties, combinations and permutations, and probability. Only a week before exam I began the verbal sections in the Challenges, and they were still relatively easier for me compared to the quant sections. As the day approached, I pulled back up GMATPrep and redid the two exams again and again. I found my speed greatly increased, or I found myself know-when-to-stop-and-guess more frequently when doing the quant sections. I was scoring from 690 to 750 but I know this is overestimating my abilities because most of the problems I did before were re-encountered.

On my second exam day, today, I was at full stamina when I brushed through the usual AWA section, and when I got to the quant section I managed to finish on time (partly by guessing answers, and literally random clicking on the last two questions), and I felt relieved that it was over. However, on to the verbal section, although I was breezing through the problems, I found myself more light-hearted than ever. Some questions I found obvious answers, but some of them I found few possible answers but didn't spend much time on double-checking. I kept thinking that since I finished the quant section, at least I will not be worse than last time on the verbal section.

When I got my score report this morning, though relieved to see that my score didn't go down, but I was shocked to see 640 again, 47Q & 31V. My quant was greatly improved, but I messed up on the verbal section.

Originally I thought today would be the beginning of freedom, as I planned to start my application for Columbia early and after my second exam, but with this score I see no hope. Recovering from disappointment, I decide to take the exam the third time in early August so that I can meet the deadline. Getting a higher score after taking the GMAT three times should definitely look better than the 640 on my application. This means I need to really brush up and aim for 700 or above in this month.



Before I humbly ask for help from all the veterans in this forum, I have several questions that I would like to clarify:
1) I read from other threads that finishing the OG 11 is a must, but to be honest I'd rather spend time on a few hard quant questions than on 200+ straightforward math questions. It was solely because of this I didn't even bother going to the verbal section of this book. Maybe I am utterly wrong?
2) Many people say the first 10 questions on the GMAT are the holy grail in determining the difficulties of following problems. If you get the first few questions wrong, most likely you will get problems of lower score and ultimately score lower on the exam. However, when I failed to answer some of the first 10 questions in the GMATPrep tests, I still scored high given that the problems later on were solved correctly. Is this myth even true?
3) Many people say that finishing the test is much more important since uncompleted questions will cause greater penalties on your score. Should I have to finish the test even if that means I have to do random clicking if unfortunately I run into a 10-problems-left-but-only-1-min-to-complete situation?

Thank you all for your time listening to my story, and if possible, any help is appreciated...

Thanks again,
TFA