I just Beat The GMAT!

Period: Last quarter of 2009
Study Mode: Intense self study with all MGMAT material
MGMAT CAT 1 - 430 (Q:45 V: Didn't do) 4th Dec 2009
MGMAT CAT 2 - 640 (Q:43 V:34) 24th Dec 2009
GMAT Prep - 640 (no break down) 28th Dec 2009
GMAT Prep - 690 (q40 v 44) 29th Dec 2009
Real GMAT - 650 (q42 v39) 31st Dec 2009

Period: Aug, Sept, Oct 2010
Study Mode: MGMAT Online Courses and all MGMAT Quest for 750 courses
MGMAT CAT4 - 620 (q45 v31) 5th October 2010
MGMAT CAT 3 - 710 (q48 v38) 6th October 2010
Real GMAT - 600 (q42 v31)

Period: Oct-Nov , 2010
Study Mode: Private tutoring with Ron P from MGMAT. 4 x 2 hour sessions leading up to test in Nov. Plus like maybe 10 hours in HW.
MGMAT CAT 5 - 600 (q43, v31)
MGMAT CAT 6 - 710 (q48, v38)
Actual GMAT - 740 (q49 v42)

I really don't know what to make of my GMAT experience. If you look at the numbers they're just completely random.

If you're all interested in what I did differently on the 3rd test from the other two tests
- I drank 500 mls of coke before hand (computer geeks drink that stuff all day and look how much they do!)
- ate chocolate and water break 1
- ate chocolate and water break 2
- for reading comp, i started taking notes (yes...i did it for the first time on this test, an actual test, because I figured I had nothing to lose). I always thought this was crap taking down notes, but it actually forces you to comprehend every word in the passage. On my previous attempts, I would just read once and try and answer questions.

You're all probably seeing that I had help from Ron too and that he probably caused my score to jump 140 points. To be fair, Ron is an exceptionally gifted test taker. He gave me some tips and tricks which I had known about but not necessairly practiced with any discipline. Ron definitely played a part in helping me improve my score. But let's be honest, you don't jump 140 points with <20 hours study in a month.

Overall, I think i just lucked out becuase the actual test didn't ask the topics in Quant I suck at and on Verbal, there were no long scientific passages about astronomy, quantum physics or biology. Hence why I said in the title, GMAT is 50% luck. If my scores show anything, it's just how wrong the test creators are about people not being able to jump scores significantly (which the test administrator on the day was adamant in pointing out) and how random the whole thing is!

I should also add I did MGMAT 5 and 6 back to back on the same day...

ohh my!! ).....this is really a case study on the randomness of GMAT....whew!

Are you a native (in case of low to high verbal here?)....I think what actually happened would be...that you really stopped caring about the outcome by that time...relaxed,... and just focused whacking the thing as it was throwing the 'question-balls'... maybe like a computer game where you just have to reach the ending and kill the big boss no matter how many times you reset from the last stage

my friend there is a parallelism issue - in your debrief )

ate chocolate and water break 1

it should be something like;

ate chocolate and drank water break 1

Congratulations for the great score !!!