I just Beat The GMAT!

Took the test today... got a bad grade (in my own terms). 510 q34 v26. Finished both sections in time.

I'm upset that I let anxiety get the best of me during the exam. 3 practice exams were 650 and above, and my last practice test was a 680. I do have test anxiety, and I've been trying different methods of relaxation for about a month and a half now. I'm upset that I'm not able to take this test as lightly as i'd like, not so much my abilities.

That's what i'm most upset about.

I took 6 practice exams: each exam i skipped the essay except for the GMATPREP#2.
gmatprep#1 560 q41 v26
veritas 650 q44 v36
kaplan 620 q42 v 37
manhattan 600 q41 v32
princeton review 660 q40 v42
GMATPREP#2 680 q48 v 35

Thanks to Brent, Mitch, dabral, the whole community, and everyone else helping students like me. It's not the end of the world, but i'm upset. I havent started to think about what I want to do next yet.

Anyways, here's some notes from my experience

-did not see 1 Probability or combination problem, cool.
-saw 2 CR questions where they had the underscore and question stem of "which bests complete the passage"
-4 RC passages 1 long, 2 short, 1 med/short
-a few SC questions that tested the use of "which" and semi-colons.
-Believe it or not but I saw problems that i've seen from the OG book that were almost identical. They actually probably were directly out of the GMAT -book (13th ed 2nd ed), so familiarity with the questions helped a lot.
-the computer monitor was so big and bright that i felt like i needed sunglasses. also it was really high up so i had a stiff neck from constantly looking upwards

In summary, it's not the end of the world for me, but I haven't starting thinking about what to do next. Any advice on that would help too. Thanks.

Thanks Brent, your posts are very helpful and I agree with everything you say. It is tough to find that one method for test-anxiety, especially since everyone is different.

The best advice I've gotten so far is to re-take the exam; that's what I'm going to do. I really feel it's a matter of confidence, and even though my practice tests were very good, I don't think I had the confidence a very good test taker has.

So, my plan is to study a little more, but this time study smarter. I do have all GMATPREPnow video's, and have used the 60-day study guide, but I might have rushed used them. I think this time i'll really dig deep into the concepts and learn specific gmat shortcuts and techniques. I'll keep you posted to how it goes, thanks again!
-Chris

hutch27: hang in there, man. happy to hear you're shaking it off and getting back into it; good for you! good luck!!