I had given the GMAT in the test center thrice before this, so wanted to give this a shot.
With 710 as my current highest score, I was going in with the hope that even a repeat of the same would at least permit me to send scores for free to a bunch of schools.
I gave the test on the 29th of August 2021.
Thankfully had a good laptop and faced no internet issues.
Their software is
definitely a little buggy. Very often I face 'Not Responding' error messages that would disappear in a minute or two, and sometimes clicks on options would take a few seconds to register. Note: If you get a not responding error message, please do not close the window. The pop-up will disappear soon. The software looks and feels like the one in the center, so that is a small comfort.
Definitely struggled with the AWA a little more because of the 'lag', often typing 3-4 words before they showed up on the screen. I adapted on the fly, ignoring all typos and grammatical issues in my first run-through, and just typed out the whole thing. Then I went around and one by one painstakingly fixed all the issues.
w.r.t difficulty, I felt the exam was very very similar to what I had in the center, and I probably was a lot more comfortable at my own desk in my own home.
The proctor was okay, but often would take time to respond to me, (the camera and mic are on the whole time) and this got problematic as at one point, my break started and she was not available at all. Took a couple of minutes to show up, I had to repeatedly speak into the mic and wave my hands around at the camera (lol idk if that helped tho). Expected a little more professionalism, but it was fine.
Scored a 720 at the end, was okay with it. Was targeting a little higher (GEM gang wya) but this should be passable for now.
To anyone considering this, I would strongly recommend it, but ensure you do well w.r.t pace (assuming you lose a minute or so due to lags in each section)
The free score reporting is a plus my broke ass could not pass on