GMAT Strategy

Hi,

I am planning to appear for GMAT sometime in Apr 08 (3rd week may be).
Here is my background. I am an Indian engineer with good skills in math section. I have taught math for Indian MBA entrance exam for 6 months & the if you compare the level of difficulty between that exam's math & GMAT math, its like chalk & cheese. So i am ok with the math section of GMAT.

I am working on the Verbal section of GMAT. I am ok-good in RC, Ok-good in CR as well. My biggest problem seems to be SC. I am a dud in that. Its 50% correct & 50& incorrect. I have gone through the Manhatten SC guide. Its really good but the problem is, If I apply all the fundas given there on 1 single problem, it leaves very little time & gets very confusing at the same time. I dont know how much I will be able to improve on SC part of my GMAT preparation.

I gave GMATprep CAT1 2 weeks back w/o much of preparation & scored 720 in that. To my surprize, I scored about only 44 or 47(i expected more) in math (To my horror, 9 questions were wrong. I am targetting 3 errors at the most here) & about 39 in english. (OK i would say, if only i can improve on my SC huhhh...)

Also, i have not done anything on my AWA section as yet. does it really require a lot of practice?
Also, how much important this part is in my overall GMAT (i know it doesnt affect my score out of 800 but my overall personality to a B school is how much dependent on my AWA score?)

Any pointers to improve on following will be greatly appreciated..
1. SC (a must i would say)
2. a little bit of weaken the conclusion in CR
3. in RC, i tried the MGMAT's diagram approach, but i am honestly bad at that. Either I do not pay any attention to the later part of the paragraphs other than title paragraph (which causes me to miss the key words, the main advantage of the diagram approach) OR i pay too much attention to the paras, thereby taking lot of time.

this is the status of my preparation as of now. Your comments & suggestions will be appreciated.

thanks
Ritz