I just Beat The GMAT!

I took the GMAT for the 2nd time in just over a month and ended up with an 80pt improvement from 570 (q33/v35) to 650 (q45/v34).

I am slightly disappointed since my various most recent practice exam results were:

MGMAT (fee): 690 q44 v39
MGMAT1: 720 q44v45
MGMAT2: 680 q47 v36
800 Score: 700 q35 v51

As you can see my verbal scores were all over the place on practice exams. I probably got a bit overconfident after the 800Score test's verbal score.

During the actual GMAT I only had one permutations/combinations question and one work/rate question. There were only one or two geometry questions as well. The vast majority of the quant questions involved number properties.

I knew I wasn't doing well halfway into the verbal section when I hadn't received any boldface questions and knew a RC was upcoming. The length of all 3 RC passages and many CR arguments seemed significantly longer than most in practice exams. As a result, I began to lose time and had to hurry through the last several questions.

So now my question is: do I take the GMAT for a 3rd time in hopes of beating it and getting above 700 or do I just enjoy the fact that it's over with and proceed with my remaining applications?

Honestly, an 80 point improvement is fantastic! Before you retake the test a third time, try to find out the average GMAT scores of the schools that you're interested in applying to - if you fall right within their range, and the rest of your application is stellar, it might be worth it to focus on everything else instead of studying more for the GMAT.

That said, if you're going to retake the test, I'd recommend that you be absolutely certain you're going to score above 700 before investing the time and energy into doing so. Keep in mind that there's a +/- 30 point margin of error, which means that, all things being equal, you could very well end up with anywhere from a 620 to a 680 when you retake it.

Good luck!