The first time I took the GMAT exam, I was ill prepared. I spent roughly 3 weeks of hardcore studying, with no planning whatsoever (I was under the stupid impression that the GMAT was child's play). I wasn't well versed in the whole GMAT process. I studied as if time wasn't a factor, so when I got many, if not most, of the practice questions correct, I just pushed on ahead with whatever I was doing, despite however wrong it might have been.

Less than a week before writing my exam, I went to Kaplan's office to write some sort of paper-based mock-exam. It was a eye opener!!! I was nowhere close to being prepared to write the GMAT - Nowhere!. But by this time it was too late to reschedule my appointment, so I went on with the exam. I scored 520, which I was expecting, even though by the end of the exam I thought a 600 was possible (hence the reason I foolishly clicked the "Report" button).

Needless to say, I was very mad at myself for blundering into this whole GMAT process. It motivated me to do better. I took about a week off to rest; when I started to study again, my motivation had died down a little bit. I pushed on regardless, discovering that there was so much I didn't know about every section of the GMAT. My major weaknesses in this particular order are:

1) Reading comprehension
2) Timing
3) And the whole Quant section

Read comprehension is a serious case because I think, aside from the RC section on the GMAT, it severely affects my performance on every other section on the GMAT. How am I suppose to answer a question -- whether it be verbal or math -- if I can't focus strong enough to get a grasp of what they are asking? The RC section suffers a lot; the math section suffers a lot, too, because of many stupid mistakes arising for misunderstanding the requirements. I need some strong advice on improving myself in this section.

Timing -- as I already mentioned, I initially started prepping for my GMAT with the wrong notion that timing was not a factor (in fact, it had never occurred to me that it would be a big deal). I have been studying from Kaplan's premier 2008-2009 texts, including the math and verbal books. I find that with every section, I have to guess the last 3-5 questions -- sometimes even more, particularly with the RC and Quant sections. I'm simply too slow. I need some strong advice on improving myself in this section.

The Quantitative section -- I struggle with this part not because I don't understand the material, but because I'm not good at thinking under pressure. If I get a question wrong, I understand where I went wrong in almost 100% of the time. So I have the basics down pact; it's just applying them under pressure that's the issue. I have never been a good test taker mainly because of my poor RC and my inability to properly think under pressure. I also lack consistency in my approach to answering questions -- one day I would answer a question one way, another day I would answer that same question another way, while on another day I would have no clue how to answer that same question (I would guess on it because of time constraint). As you can I see, I have some serious issues. I need some strong advice on improving myself in this section.

Finally, I need motivation. How do you people motivate yourselves? I'm somewhat motivated on somedays, while on other days (many days!) I feel downright hopeless. I took a Kaplan GMAT CAT today and it didn't go too well. I gave up after the 18th question of the Quant section, blindly guessing on the remainder. On the verbal section, I guessed on the last six or so. Needless to say, I scored 420 by the time I was through. That's how hopeless I felt.

My goal is to score 700 or higher, but at the rate things are going, this doesn't look possible.

Does anyone else find themselves in this situation? If so, your advice will be strongly appreciated.