Hello!
I just took my first GMAT after having studied for about a week. Suffered from a great depression after having taken my first GMATPrep. Thought I would be around 600 with some time to improve. I'm a tech student, so I've studied quite a lot of mathematics (although I've never seen it as my strongest subject). English is my second language (I'm swedish), so I still thought the quant part would be my best. I was, however, wrong. And they were both terrible.
GMATPrep 1 19/2 - 540 (Q33, V34 - a bit uncertain)
GMATPrep 2 23/2 - 600 (Q40, V32)
I studied for a few hours on the night of the 23rd and then did a bit of SC (was horrible in the 2nd GMATPrep) on the 24th before starting to read a bit in the GMAT Experience forum. I immediately became very uncertain of my abilities (more so than before) after reading how people with 700 in their preps scored below 600 on the actual GMAT. Went to bed. Couldn't sleep a whole lot, but woke up feeling good. It takes about 20 minutes for me to get to the test location of there isn't loads and loads of snow on the streets causing chaus - unluckily there was. It took 50 minutes. I assumed it would, though, and still was there on time, feeling VERY nervous.
AWA went well. Especially the first part. But who am I to judge, really. Didn't study for it more than the ten minutes I read the "how to get a 6.0"-thread. Was feeling quite good throughout the test and expected it to be no less than the 600 I had accomplished in tests. I had thought to myself that a score above 580 would be okay. Wouldn't get me into the school I wanted (which required something around 640), but I would at least prove to myself that I was slightly above average. Had butterflies in my whole body when I clicked to the post-test screens. The result showed up: 680. Big smile.
GMAT 25/2 - 680 (Q44, V39)
Of course its no 780, but with the time I had and how depressed I was after having scored way worse than I thought I would on the practice tests, it feels great! The 680 will hopefully give me the advantage I need to get in to my school of choice.
Final thoughts: don't worry about other peoples problems (eg. their poor performance under pressure) and try to feel good about yourself the day of the test. And it's been said over and over: don't try to cram the day/night before the test. It will do you no good.
... and thanks for a great forum! Helped me a lot eventhough I didn't take part.