First attempt got 600. Retake or quit?

Hi everyone,

I took the GMAT for the first time today and got a 600 (35Q/38V/IR8). I’m pretty devastated and unsure if I should keep going with plans for business school or rethink.

I took off the last two weeks of work to prep. I’ve actually been keeping track of the hours on my phone on the “Forest” app and have studied 90 hours on my own outside of the live Manhattan class that I took from Sept - Nov. I figured that I would use the last two weeks to review and just drill problems (which I did). I was actually super confident going into the exam, and did great on the IR (and I assume AWA) initially.

The test center had a few issues that I think caused me to absolutely bomb quant. Even on the MPrep practice CAT’s I did better on quant. First, I knew that the test would just start if I wasn’t on time to return from my break, but apparently I didn’t pad enough time for the body pat-down and faulty palm scan machine. I had to scan my palm 4x to get back in to take quant. The administrators acknowledged it was an ongoing issue. Then, the markers given were ultra-thin. One broke and the other I could barely see on the graph paper it was so faint. I was so panicked about losing more time on the test after the re-entry procedure that I didn’t ask for new markers until the break before verbal.

Should I complain about these issues? Is a 700 even within shot for me at this point? I want to conquer this test I just feel like I may be going about studying wrong. I saw Empower’s score improval program and thought it looked good, just hesitant to sink more money into this after I paid for Manhattan live.

Please let me know any thoughts! I need advice as to how to move forward. I wanted to go FT to a top program and I’m frankly questioning my intelligence at this point.

Posted from my mobile device