Hi there,

Certainly studying for the GMAT (or any standardized test for that matter) can be challenging and frustrating to say the least. It's good to see you've scored a 540 though, since that is roughly the average GMAT score for all test-takers, and hopefully you will continue to improve. Not sure what your studying timeframe is, but I will provide you with some hope in terms of letting you know I have seen people improve their scores tremendously over their study period, and to their official GMAT exam, over many years of teaching. It is often related to what your starting point is and how much you put into it, as well as factors such as your time management and managing test anxiety.

People often improve a lot on the GMAT by learning or re-learning math (without calculators) that they haven't done in ages. They improve a lot by mastering data sufficiency-- a question type that is likely brand new for everyone. Just by learning that question type and learning a step-by-step approach for every DS question, and practicing until the questions become familiar, can make a huge difference. The same is sometimes said for Critical Reasoning on verbal, since those question types show up in familiar patterns and are subject to specific methods. Improving Sentence Correction and Reading Comp is sometimes slightly more difficult, but by practicing a lot, improvements are made, and by increasing your reading in general you can improve your speed, comprehension, and grammar.

The best thing to do at this point is to determine what your areas of weakness are, and to priortize those areas and ensure you are spending your prep time wisely. Best of luck to you!