Sorry to hear your test experience.

Answering your last qn first:
Looks like you're aiming for a top 10 school. If yes, then first concentrate on your GMAT. If you work on your apps parallely, you may end up losing both. I have experienced this personally and I have learnt from my mistake. There is always another year to apply and you don't need to be hasty in your apps. In the meantime, you can gain good work experience which is a helping factor for MBA.

a) What preparation materials have you used apart from OG? You may check the Se-lf-study plan in BTG. If you're confused to plan, post here. We will help you.

b) Definitely quality first. Quantity also helps because you need to do a lot of practice in order to ace the exam. But only after you are strong in concepts and strategy.

c) Not necessary. I have seen lot of people getting into top 10 schools with a meagre score of GMAT. Because, they were smart enough to focus more on other application components than just GMAT. You may find such successful stories in "Admission Success Stories" forum in BTG.


Looks like you were not comfortable with strategies for CR and SC. Have a good foundation first. Do not jump straight to questions. You mentioned that you also have timing problems. You should always practice with a stop-watch beside. But before you practice, be comfortable with content. Search for the keywords - "Content first then speed". It is definitely worth the read.

Sorry to hear about getting a lower than expected score. As you're planning to retake the GMAT, you'll have to be very judicious in managing time ,because at one end you'll have to dedicate time to prepare for the GMAT and on the other hand you'll be writing essays. However, I'd suggest that at this time you should focus more on the GMAT, because you have to ensure that you get a good enough score in the second attempt .