I just Beat The GMAT!

Hello everyone,

This is my first time posting on here (I just came across this community and am very glad I did). I really need some guidance right now. I just took the GMAT two days ago and scored a disappointing 670 (Q47, V35). I took a six week Princeton Review course to prepare and had the following practice scores, in order:
520, 590, 600, 620, 640, 710, 730 (the latter two taken a few days before the actual test)

For some reason during the verbal section I started panicking (I had run out of time on the math section and had to circle in some random answers -- which made me feel like I could have screwed up the math). Due to this, I was constantly looking at the clock during verbal and really could not focus and as seemingly as a result, I scored lower than I expected. I do not even know why I was so nervous but I my heart was pounding during the whole test.

My goal is a top five school but before I get into that let me add a little background on myself:

I am 23 years old currently working as a financial analyst for a large airline. I went to a respected, top 50 school in the Northeast and graduated from it May 2010 with a B.A. in economics and international relations with a mediocre GPA of 3.1 (largely due to a less-focused freshman and sophomore year). I realize that I am obviously too young to be considering business school but since the GMAT scores are good for 5 years, I wanted to get it out of the way now and start focusing on the other parts of a MBA candidate profile. Ideally, I would like to attend business school in the Fall 2012 or 2013 (I would only have about 2-3 years of work experience and be only 24-25 years old), but I realize that, given my mediocre GPA, this would be quite difficult. But I truly feel with enough dedication, anything is possible.

Back to where I am now. I am pretty disappointed with the 670 I got and need advice on steps moving forward. Given my desired entry, and low GPA, do I definitely need to raise my GMAT score to gain entry to a top 5 ? If so, when is the ideal time to take it again? How should I prepare the second time? I really needed to do well on it the first time around because now I am swamped with things to do for the next couple months. I have a trip planned to India next week for a wedding, have to move across the country because of my job in July, and am also trying to complete my private pilots license testing (It is for leisure but still very important to me and I had to put much of it on hold to focus on the GMAT). My fear is that if I wait too long to take it again I may forget a lot of things that I learned during the class I took (I would hate to have to go through that class again--Im always so pressed for time). I would also not want to "overwork" for this test because I realize that could also cause problems...I fear that thinking about the test so much gave me the anxiety that I had during the testing...

Sorry for the length, but I would really value any input or advice any of you would be willing to give me.

Thanks for your time,

Sid

Yes, I agree with you. It is better to take off from where you left off and finish the test.

You did not give the GMAT Prep tests? I would recommend that to get to know the real possible range for you.

One thing for the test, instead of looking at clock and calculating where you are each time you look at it. Create a small table that says where you should be when you are at each point in the test. Write the table down on top of your worksheet. That way you can stop looking at the time and analyzing it every question. Just look at the clock once a while and you will know whether you are ahead or behind.

Time is on your side. Give it a good prep. Get all the right books. Practice optimum. Not too much and not too less. What say?

Powerscore CR, MGMAT SC are all good additions to your book shelf. Then some hardcore practice.

All the best. You can!

Hey thanks for replying but I did provide my GMAT prep test scores:

520, 590, 600, 620, 640, 710, 730, in that order.

It was only getting better and better...

Man??? your score would sky-rocketed if your verbal score had been better.