I just Beat The GMAT!

Ok, so I did not beat the GMAT, and it did not beat me either. 680 - meh, nothing to write home about, merely "average" for the top schools. I suppose it won't help me or hurt me in the apps. Regardless, I was very angry at my performance, which I will detail below.

The stats:

Sept 2007:
V 41 93%
Q 42 66%
T 680 88%
AWA 6.0 89%

Sept 2004:
V 33 68%
Q 40 61%
T 600 68%
AWA 6.0 89%

The annoyance
680 by itself doesn't sound that bad, if I did equally well on both Q and V. But I ended up doing much better than I expected on the V and worse than I expected on the Q. This was after doing hundreds of practice questions, and 8 practice tests. I spent a decent amount of money on a prep course (the course itself was very good), and did every single problem, timed, from the 3 official books. After all that effort, my Q score goes up by just 2 points! Can you see the frustration? Even worse, I'm an Electrical Engineer! I muddled through freshman English classes and never paid attention to proper English grammer ever again, until studying for the GMAT. And yet I'm somehow better than 93% of test takers in this regard.

I'm worried that schools will wonder about my quant abilities.

The experience
AWA

I followed the advice in the Princeton Review book for the AWA. It worked both times. The e-rater is most likely some form of grammer checker that can also check paragraph structure, structure of your overall essay, and your use of the right kinds of words in the right places. I doubt it can make sense of the ideas or arguments in the essay. And since the human reader and the e-rater agree in a large percentage of cases, I'd say they both look for the same things in your essay.

This was my approach. I practiced the essays when I took my practice tests. I also made sure I understood the instructions beforehand. On the issue essay, you should not have a hard time picking sides if you like to read newspapers and keep current on things. Once presented with the question, I did a 2-minute brainstorm. The objective is to come up with 3 good points, but 2 is fine, you might think of another while writing. After the brainstorm, I composed the intro, started writing the 3 paragraphs for the 3 points, and then the conclusion. Have a general outline in your head before taking the test. Use words that indicate the flow of your essay (first, second, finally, to conclude). Acknowledge the other side (although some would say X, Y is likely to succeed because...). For the argument essay, make sure you know what they're looking for. You want to mention the flaws in the argument, and why you think they are flaws.

I must've been wired because I finished writing in about 25 minutes, leaving the last 5 for review, on both essays. On practice tests, I could barely finish writing in 29 minutes.

Quant

I didn't like the procedures for break time. At the end of a section, you raise your hand and are allowed to leave the room. You cannot wear a watch, and there were no clocks on the walls at the test center. So I didn't really know how much time I was using up for my break. I wanted to use the whole ten minutes, but when you come back to the room, the proctor logs you back in and the next section starts. I probably only used 3 or 4 of the 10 minutes allowed.

The math was your typical math section...some easy, some difficult, some oddball. There were very few of the word problem types I prepared for (rates, work, ratios, etc.). Mostly number property type questions. Most likely I made careless errors (which I tend to do on timed tests), which dragged my score down. Unlike the first time, I completed the section this time.

Verbal
The verbal section was unusually easy. Much easier than GMATprep. I was breezing through this section and had over 20 minutes left at the 35th question. I took my time answering the remaining questions. During practice tests, I would always have a mental fog midway through the Verbal section. I would read something and it just wouldn't register in my brain. I was afraid this would happen on the real test, but it didn't. I was totally alert and aware. I'm pretty sure I got 5 RC passages, instead of the usual four. 3 were medium sized, one was the long science passage, and one was just a paragraph. Perhaps the GMAT gods gave me a few extra points for having to deal with an extra RC passage.

By question 38 or 39 I was just tired and wanted to finish the exam. I should've paid more attention to the last 2 or 3. I certainly had the time, and I might've gotten a little bump in my score.

Unlike the first time, I completed the section this time, and did not really have to guess much.

Conclusion
This experience has left me doubting how well the GMAT can really assess a person's abilities, or the consistency of the test itself. I did not expect to breeze through the verbal section. On practice tests, I was scoring around 680 - 700, but doing a bit better on the M and worse on the V. Perhaps it's the large number of non-native english speakers, or quantitatively inclined people, taking the tests and dragging down the averages for V and AWA.

At this point I'm totally burnt out from the GMAT. I'm wondering whether I should take it again and attempt a higher Q score. But there's no guarantee I'll do as well on the V again. And it's unlikely that I can bump my score by more than 30 points. So it may not even make much of a difference in applications. Plus I just do not want to see another GMAT question for a long time. What are your thoughts?