Took the GMAT today & scored 680 ( q -44 v 38)

Hi Folks,
First of I want to thank the wonderful BTG community & Eric for running this great site. I learnt a lot from advice & experience of previous test takers. Regarding my background, I work in IT consulting & have over 10 years of work experience in CRM Consulting area working with Fortune 500 clients. I have still not decided, whether I will go for fulltime or part time MBA , but I hope my score should be enough to meet requirement of most of the part time programs.
Regarding preparation debrief, I think there have been some great debriefs on this forum, so I won't repeat the same stuff, but would like to summarize how I prepared for exam and the lessons I learnt.

Books : All Manhattan Guides , OG 12 , Verbal & Quant Review , Powerscore CR bible.

Course: I took Manhattan GMAT live online course & would gladly recommend it. It's a 9 week course & if followed religiously can really help build tempo for the preparation. Of course you will have to take it many steps further & prepare on top of it. I also want to mention the online resources available at MGMAT site , they are all very useful.

Timeline - I prepared for about 5 months with a full time job & family commitments. So my preparation was slow & steady, although I studied everyday even if it was for 30 minutes.

Preparation -
Quant : I went through all the MGMAT Math books & solved each & every problem. These books are wonderful & I really enjoyed studying with them. I didn't use any other book or resource.For practice I used OG & Quant Review.

SC: I am a not-native speaker , so SC was my weakness , especially the idioms. I studied only MGMAT SC guide. It's an invaluable resource & I would highly recommend it. I have heard good things about Powerscore SC guide, but I didn't use it myself.
CR: I really struggled with CR initially & also didn't enjoy reading the MGMAT CR guide. Finally I found the wonderful Powerscore guide and it helped me a lot .I started improving in CR with more understanding of the argument structure & its subcomponents . I can't praise this book enough. It's such an easy read & explains the concepts really well.. I didn't do LSAT CR or any other source, as I only had time to read one book & I read it well, actually 3 times cover to cover.

Test Scores : MGMAT 1 - 600 ; MGMAT 3 - 630 ; MGMAT 5 - 650
GMAT Prep 1 - 660 ( q -46 , v - 36) ; GMAT Prep 2 -670 ( q - 48 ; v -35)

Test Day - I was able to sleep well & didn't let exam anxiety get better of me. My test was at 10 AM & I reached the centre at 9 AM. I started early & AWA went smoothly. Took the break, followed the regimen suggested by many on this forum: banana, granola bar & JUMPING JACKS. I also splashed water on my face & closed my eyes for few seconds to relax.
I am not sure if I used my full break, as I was apprehensive about losing time, so came back & started the Quants section. First question was not difficult, but it took me more than 2 minutes to solve. May be it was my nervousness or the brain was just warming up. Overall it was in line with OG & I didn't see many surprises. I found that Geometry was little hard, but again it's my opinion. There was one probability question, which I think I got right.
My score in GMAT Prep tests were 46 & 48 so I am a little disappointed with 44, but I don't know where I messed up. It has to be a game of 2-3 incorrect questions.
My strategy was to not spend too much time on any question, so I guessed wherever necessary. I finished quants on time and took the break.
In the break I did the same things as break 1 , including coming before time from break.
Verbal : Verbal was in line with OG & I didn't notice anything extraordinary. There were SC questions, interspersed with CR questions & 3 RCs. I read some recent posts on this forum that SC is getting difficult but didn't encounter very tough questions.
In CR there were parallel reasoning & bold face questions, which made me believe that I was not doing terrible.
RC - 2 RCs were small & 1 was big. Thankfully none of them were biology passages, which I particularly don't like (I am from engineering background). My strategy was to read them slowly for the first time & then do a quick read second time. This way I was able to reinforce what I just read. In my opinion reading slowly & understanding the passage is really important. You may end up wasting more time by rushing to questions & then trying to check every answer against the passage.
I finished the verbal section with few seconds to spare and was very happy to get over with the exam. After seeing the score, my reaction was mixed, as I had scored my best in verbal & not so good in quant. I am not sure if I will retake the exam or not. I am going to spend next weeks in finalizing the programs I am interested in, and based on their requirement would decide a retake.

Lessons learnt:
1.Don't be obsessed with GMAT , but be obsessed with what GMAT wants to teach you. Reading, writing & speaking correctly should not be the virtue of only GMAT aspirants. Thinking critically and summarizing long passages are the qualities, which can be an asset for any professional. Number crunching is also helpful l if you don't be fooled by some mumbo jumbo figures.
2.Read, Read & Read. No guide can substitute the skills learned by good reading habits.
3.Don't be nervous on the exam day. Try to downplay the GMAT & its importance in your life. Staying calm & thinking straight can help boost the score on the test day. Nervousness & anxiety will only bring the performance down.

Thanks for reading the long debrief & let me know if you have any specific questions.

This topic has expert replies