From 720 to 690

I've just came back from the test center and I have some i,pressions I want to share with you guys (and girls, of course).

Feeling neither disappointed nor satisfied, I don't want to talk about the reasons I decided to retake after 720 but rather to compare actual level of GMAT compared to the difficulty level in spring 2008 since there are some rummors that verbal is becomming harder.
Well, this maybe is true, especially for Sentence Correction. In my previous attempt I scored 720(Q48, V41), you can find my detailed debrief here: 8-t62656 This time score was 690 (Q47, V37), difference is particularly visible in the verbal part.

First of all, I can say that RC and CR are very, very similar to those I experienced in April, which again is very similar to those in GMATPrep software. If you have troubles with these areas, probably you'll have in the future, too; if not, there's no reason to worry. I really can't say I saw ANYTHING overhere I didn't see in the OG and GPrep.

Now for the SC... This area of GMAT is turning into a nightmare. I firmly believe that all 4 points I lost between my two attemts are attributable to Sentence Correction. No, MGMAT SC is certainly not enough any more, and OG is not a Bible any more. Of course, these two books are inevitable for any serious GMAT test taker, but certainly not enough. In this moment I really don't know what could help, the most serious tool I saw in this forum is the list of SC questions extracted from GPrep. I know that there is somewhere little software based on these same questions. Try to find it overhere: 8-t68657
I think that guy named Sterny put together these questions so try to find his posts (if it wasn't Sterny, my apologies to the author ).

Math difficulty level was exactly the same as it was in April. Although I've come across some weird questions I really can't say that anything was new. Of course, emphasis was on exponents, exponents and some more exponents... Damn! Also, there was pretty large portion of percentage increase/decrease questions and questions regarding interest. Again, not a single one probability/combinatorics question! Anyway, if you pass through OG and MGMAT study books, you'll see nothing new.

In conclusion, Verbal has become slightly more difficult due to increased difficulty level of SC. I can say that in April SC looked more like SCs from GMATPrep1 and now it looks more like SCs from GMATprep2. Any experienced Gprep user will know what I'm talking about. But there's no much reason to worry about, we are talking here about 4-5 points drop, anyone who scored 44-45 has nothing to worry about. I saw some really low scores in the forum last couple of weeks (20-22) and I can say that these results are not caused by increased difficulty level of Verbal.

I wish you all best luck, especially 700+ retakers. Who dares wins. I didn't but maybe you would, who knows...