GMAT Strategy

Hello,

I just finished taking my first gmat, and I am disappointed with my score, a 600, 43Q, 30V. When I first started studying, I scored a 510, 31 Q 31 V, and had steadily been working on improving my score. I used all the MGMAT books and then the OG 12 guide and the two supplemental guides as my primary study tools.

I took 5 of the MGMAT Cats
1. 520 30Q 32V
2. 560 35Q 32V
3. 580 39Q 31V
4. 600 42Q 32V
5. 710 42Q 44V

I also took 4 Practice Tests
1. 510 31Q 31V
2. 530 35Q 28V
3. 680 44Q 39V-This and the 710 were taken one week from the actual test
4. 620 39Q 32V-Took this the day before the actual test and it shook my confidence

Things really started to come together when I started to score in the high 6's and low 7's and it just seemed like it was clicking. I now realize that I just assumed because I am a native speaker verbal would be easy. I also almost focused entirely on quant during my studying period, but that was because I was in the getting 90% of RC and CR questions correct in OG because I had taken the LSAT before. I had worked through all the problem solving questions and about 100 of the data sufficiency problems till I got them all right.

But during the test, I felt really confident on quant for the most part, but verbal rattled me, mostly because there were a lot of SC questions and I was weak there.

I think with a retake, I would want to focus on Sentence Correction, the Equations, and VICs guide and the Advanced Quant section. Additionally, I am planning on buying OG 13 for the new questions, and I already have Sackmann's math set. Hopefully that will be enough to increase my quant by a few points, and then I really ned to work on verbal. I am targeting a 720, do you think a retake in 6 weeks makes sense before the integrated reasoning section is introduced or should I wait longer, and what I outlined make sense?

I took the test on Tuesday and had the same experience. I was really confident going into the test, thought the quant went well, thought verbal was particularly tough, but never expected a 580...

I'm taking again before the format changes in June. Good luck!