Horrible score

Well ... its not too bad to score 490 - for that matter any score. its definitely not the end of the world !

you are okay. think of the what positives you get get from this experience and most importantly the negatives, like -

where did you lack -
quant prep
or verbal prep
or its the practice that u missed
were u nervous - intimidated by difficult questions
were u not able to manage ur time well
did u make simple mistakes by mis-reading questions
did u miss-out on the approach u used to attack problems - in solving them
etc.,

make a list of ur weak areas and work on them with the help of study material, study aids and especially this forum and the club where there is lot of information (to be converted to knowledge by u)

I think once u identify the weak areas and work on them by spending 2-3 hours day for 3-4 weeks , should do most good to you (i dont know how much time u have).

I am almost certain that u will meet ur expections in the next attempt. Good Luck..

well..thanks alot for ur replies..i did prepare for around 2 months and since i had my college exams a week before my GMAT..i guess i lost my quants flow during that period because i didn work of quants during the last 1 week and definetely i started to panic during the exam and i wasnt able to manage time

materials used:
verbal: manhatten sc ,og11/12, kaplan 800
quants:practiced alot on gmat club and my quants score did increase

how do i tackle RC and CR??...guess there lies my problem ..please help me out..and thanks for ur posts

Best thing would be to buy MGMAT set.
With it I am sure you can increase your svore to 650,
A lot of work it is though...
Good luck in your preparation
P.S. It is bad, that you did not practice one week before your test. I was in the same situation. Because of school work almost last week, I did not do any GMAT test, thus ended up getting 610...

Sorry to hear about your experience - what were your raw (quant and verbal) scores?

Sorry to hear about your experience - what were your raw (quant and verbal) scores?

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well...i used to get above 45 in all the gamat practice tests and my lowest was 43 (tis includes MGMAT as well) Verbal was between 25 to 30 but in the main test i gt q 40 and V 18..give me some tips to increase my verbal score and i have been working on gmat club test for quants.. wat els can i do???

I hope this will make you feel better.

And some insight on MGMAT tests...

I was studying hard for gmat. My goal was to get upper 500s or cross 600.
On my MGMAT practice tests I was scoring upper 500s (570, 590, 600) and even got a highest score of 610. I took Kaplan test and got 540.

With that I felt confident that I could do well on a real thing and got the exam scheduled. In the worst case scenario, I thought, I would get lower 500s.

I was wrong. Yesterday I got a shameful score of 460 that made feel like the only thing left for me is just go and jump off the roof. The prep tests I took made my verbal look awesome (sometimes reaching 72%), but on a real thing for my verbal score I got 22 points. My math score surpassed my verbal score.

On my prep tests I tested like I was taking a real test every time.
What did go wrong???

Feel very mad and cannot find an explanation.

One thing to mention that Pearson VUE personnel screwed me on the break time with palm vein screening. It took me 2 min to sing in back before my math section as apparently the palm vein machine didn't read my palm properly. Then the lady at Pearson whispered to me "There will be 2,5 min taken off your test". What?! My heart was beating hard and the whole thing made mad and frustrated and I think I carried the frustration throughout the whole test.

At the break before the verbal section I decided to pretty much run to the restroom after my horrible experience at the previous break. To get to the restroom at the center one needs to get a key first, then walk outside the testing suite, walk 80 feet in the corridor to get to restroom, unlock the restroom. It could sound funny but when you have 8 min available to you and the break time starts ticking right after you're done with the section, it is not fun. One cannot leave the testing room once the section is complete, one should raise a hand first, wait for the test center personnel who could be signing in or out other people at the moment. Then it comes your turn and they finally come and grab you, sign you out with the machine again not reading the palm pattern and only after all that here is your time to rest. Guess what I got back from the break and the palm vein reader didn't do well this time again! Gosh, I wanted to write a complaint or something. But to who? I even don't know it anyone had a similar experience.

I try to persuade myself that I just was unlucky, taking into account my prep test results and my exam experience, but still thoughts that may be I am just not that smart don't leave me. A little bit of a background I am not a native English speaker who moved to the US 4 years ago and have big ambitions. Wanna cry now.

Please help with your advice, if any. Appreciate it in advance.

Really sorry to hear about your experience, but don,t take it too hard just shake it off and try again. thats all you can do and better luck next time.

That palm reading equipment drives me nuts as well. I had same experience. After finishing math section, I needed to go to restroom. So I had to raise my hand, it took a while, until old lady slowly walked in into the testing room. Then she had to take me out of the testing room, scan me out of the system,,,
I was so scared that time will start ticking, that I had to run to the restroom, which was at the other end of the corridor. Then when I ran back, testing lady was busy with scanning the palm of another test taker, thus even though I was ready to come in, I had to wait until she finished dealing with another test taker, and my clock was ticking...
My palm did not read well, so it took at least a minute before I was allowed to enter the testing room. Luckily, I was on time.
But their extremely short time drives me crazy... Why only 8 minutes!!! Could not they add some more minutes for break?