GMAT 760 - 8 IR, 50Q, 42V - DEBRIEF :)

Hey everyone,

I haven't been too active on the forum, even though I spent so much time looking up questions (and answers! - Thanks Bunuel).

I feel like following the tradition of sharing my GMAT experience because it could maybe help others (I guess that's what everyone wants to believe).

First, I started revising around the 10th of August for a test scheduled on the 21st of September. I felt like 5 or 6 weeks would be enough time to reach a decent level. In fact, the first gmat prep test I took after a few days of studies gave me a score of 770. I felt quite confident, even though the maths gmatclub questions scared me so much haha. Verbal seemed okay, I had done my lsat before so nothing really knew except sentence correction, for which I struggled quite a bit at the start, as English isn't my first language. Anyway, I only worked on OG questions, did most of them, practised AWA two days before the real test.

The truth is, while my gmat prep scores were good (770,760,750,760), I felt so stressed out about the real test. I had been studying every day for weeks, my goal was to get above 750, I put a lot of pressure on myself. BAD IDEA! The night before the test, I couldn't sleep much, I would always wake up thinking I was late (test scheduled at 9am). Trying to convince myself I would do as well as for my gmat prep tests, I went to the test centre super early = too early, the invigilator (or whatever his title is) was late too.

Test started, AWA felt like it went okay (I got 6 for it) as it was on commerce stuff (my background) with an argument on profit. I didn't think too much about IR, I thought I would get 8 like all the previous times and I didn't really care (got a 5 lol). Then Quant started. And I literally panicked. First question took me 5 mins, and I got it wrong (I realised that after thinking about the answers, and also realising the next question was so easy ie calculating the median of 5 figures). Then I went faster, so fast that I decided to solve one probability question on painted cubes, which took me 8 mins. BAD IDEA AGAIN. I think I got it right, but I rushed the last 5 questions, guessed. (48 for quant). I thought it was bad, I wasn't reassured at all, and even though verbal usually brings my score up, I just shook on my seat. I went to the bathroom during the break, put water on my face etc, but I just felt jittery and stressed, coffee was also a bad idea. Finally I did verbal, sentence correction was hard, there were idioms I had never seen before, no obvious split like in practice questions. I just struggled. Got 37.
700 appeared on the screen after a few personal details to fill. I was so shattered. I posted a post on the forum asking whether I should retake it. I think someone said I shouldn't, but I just didn't feel like keeping a 700 (some ego thing I guess).

Anyway, I scheduled the test to be a month later. I wanted to try taking it in the afternoon, but it wasn't possible (I mean test centres in France aren't really flexible, gmat isn't really a thing here). I didn't study at all in between the two tests. I wanted to relax, I even bought some pill to stop stressing out (it did wonders).

I took the test yesterday, just revised my AWA template the day before, and did gmat prep 2 again (which is supposed to be the most accurate predictor of the score? at least for me haha), for which I got 760 50q42v.
I slept better, decided not to try the gatorade red bull coffee package everyone seems to use. I brought my nutella jar to the test centre so I felt like at home. While relaxed, everything gets so much easier. Maths went fine, I was close to making mistakes at almost each question, but then I would see the trap (sneaky sneaky) and change my answers. Verbal was hard too, but I think reading comprehension went well.
Score appeared: 760. Same breakdown as my gmat prep 2. PHEWWW. I didn't really realise for a few seconds, then I stood up, said F**K YEAH, with a fist pump, and threw my earplugs into the bin. The two other French dudes in the room looked at me, confused. Oh well

ALL THAT TO SAY: RELAX pressure is a terrible thing. Don't try stupid competition drinks or whatever you may think of. Stick to what you like, what you know, what keeps you calm. The GMAT isn't hard by itself, but the way people see it makes it hard. Questions are easy, beware traps. There isn't much content to know, it's more like a way of thinking. For example, I didn't know much about probabilities, or any of the formulas on the quant gmatclub guide (well the very important ones I did, but that's it).

BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!

This website is great, it will be weird not to do any gmat stuff. I might come back at times to solve one or two maths questions, and maybe to do sentence correction (I swear I've become really picky with grammar now - one of the side-effects of this test).


PS: I only used official material = OG books + gmat prep test (the package with the 4 tests) + the official AWA essay rater