I just wanted to share my story after more than 8 months of struggling with the GMAT. Q46V42 (720)
My takeaways:
-Don't give up
-Practice makes perfect
If your strength is verbal, then get your score up to 95%+. Sentence correction is by far the easiest way to do this. This is like logic games on the LSAT-tough at first, but after 3 weeks, once you see the patterns, you shouldn't miss a single question.
I mistakenly did not study verbal on my first go, thus, I was still scoring in the 85% range on verbal. Because my quant was abysmally low, my overall score sucked. From what I have read, statistically, mid-range quant, high verbal scorers are not as common as high verbal or high quant. Therefore, if you can get any decent quant score (as a high verbal person), you can smash the GMAT.
I think the hardest part for me was struggling against my first failure. After scoring a 600, I felt like I was too stupid to get a high score. Don't fall into a cycle of negative thinking. Power through any anxiety. Even if it takes you a couple times, you can beat the test. Practice is the key.
Hope this helps and thank you everyone for posting so much useful information. I read through all of these blogs, postings, and formulas a million times. Towards the end, I stopped simply because I felt like it was causing me more anxiety.
Make it happen!