Got a 680 in 2017. Attempting the GMAT again; stuck at V41

Hello everyone,

I'd really appreciate some help / guidance as I am facing a very weird issue with my score.

Background:

I first gave my GMAT in 2017 (right out of university) and received a 680 on the test day (First and only attempt so far). I did really well on the verbal section compared to the quant section. I do not remember my sectional scores but I believe it was something like V40 (and my math score was in the 40th percentile).

Current situation:

I've spent 9 weeks preparing for the GMAT so far. I picked up the EGMAT course and used around 7 of my 9 weeks doing the quant course and found that to be very useful. I'm still in the process of finalizing my prep for that but should get a Q47+ (which is a big deal for me since I always struggled at math; I loved math as a kid but had really bad teachers and lost interest in the subject overtime and avoided it like the plague).

I've spent 2 weeks doing the EGMAT verbal course and then doing around 50% of the 700+ level questions on GMAT Club (GC) and my accuracy is around 80% across CR, SC, RC. I have not done the 600 level questions on GC as I had 100% accuracy on the medium level questions on EGMAT's scholaranium.

I just gave my first verbal CAT to establish a baseline before further prep and received a V41 (95th percentile). This is the free verbal CAT that is available on GMAT Club's website. A summary of my performance is shown below:



I was able to complete the questions within the time limit and did not face any sort of time pressure. I was at the last 2 questions with 6 minutes left and attempted those two questions at a slower pace so time is not an issue. I believe I saved considerable time reading the RC passages (I read alot on a daily basis).

My main problem is that out of 8 questions that I got incorrect, 6 were due to VERY stupid mistakes such as not reading the passage or answer carefully. I also feel like I get stuck on trying to find the best possible answer. I also have a tendency to decide on an answer (in my head) and then I subconciously do not pay enough attention to the remaining answer choices and this is a huge problem for me.

I would appreciate any tips on how I can improve on this as I would really like to get my Verbal performance up to V44 in the mocks, so I can comfortably score atleast a V42 under exam conditions.

My final question would be how reliable the GC Verbal CAT is? I used the official GMAT mocks in my 2017 attempt and they were 50 points off from my actual score (and this seems to be a common complaint with GMAC's mocks). How reliable are GC mocks compared to actual exam performance?