GMAT Strategy

I did not do as well as I would have liked in my GMAT 2nd attempt. Here's my experience and hopefully there a few lessons to be learnt..

I took GMAT 2nd attempt last week and scored 590 (Q44, V28). I am currently doing post-mortem of my poor performance. I scored lower than any of my practice tests. This is my 2nd attempt and I had scored 570 (Q48, V21) in my 1st attempt. After my 1st attempt I realized that I needed lot of work on verbal and started working earnestly towards that.

I had gone through MGMAT SC guide probably about 4-5 times and also had studied English Grammar book (Wren & Martin). For Critical reasoning went through select chapters from Power Score LSAT Critical Reasoning Guide. For RC, I did not go through any books as such except for reading economist.com & scientificamerican.com and practicing on all the RC passages from both Verbal Review (purple book) and OG 12. Since then, I have been scoring decenly in V35-V40 range in practice tests. I had exhausted first 5 MGMAT CATs during my first attempt. Following are my practice test scores:

GMATPrep # 1: 680 (Q48, V36) - 26th November
GMATPrep # 2: 620 (Q46, V30) - 30th November
MGMAT # 6 : 670 (Q45, V36) - 13th December
MGMAT # 1A : 670 (Q43, V38) - 20th December
MGMAT # 2A : 690 (Q47, V37) - 27th December
MGMAT # 3A : 640 (Q42, V36) - 14th January
GMATPrep # 2: 660 (Q49, V31) - 17th January
GMATPrep # 1: 720 (Q49, V40) - 20th & 21st January (Did not take essay. did Quant on one day
and Quant on the other.)
GMATPrep # 2: 730 (Q50, V38) - 24th January
Actual GMAT: 590 (Q44, V28) - 29th January

I have worked pretty hard for this test but at the end of the day, I have very little to show for it Sad

I think some of the blunders that I did leading up to the exam, is to continue studying intensely right through the week before the exam date. My exam was at 5:00 PM on Jan 29th and I studied for 8 hours on the day before exam day. I revised rapidly all my notes from MGMAT SC guide and Power Score CR bible, did a few long RC passages and went through 24 gmatfocus.com questions. I think reviewing gmatfocus.com questions before the exam day was a mistake. While I was trying to solve these gmatfocus.com questions, I was feeling very nervous, as I was not able to solve many of those questions. I started to doubt whether I was under-prepared for Quant. Then, I told myself that these are tough questions, so it should be allright. Then I went through few notes on Arithmetic and Geometric progressions and with that finished my preperation by 10:00 PM. Then I had my dinner, watched TV for a while and went to sleep. I was not able to sleep at all however hard I try. I got sleep only by 5:00 AM in the morning and woke up at 8:00 AM, so I slept for only 3 hours. My exam was at 5:00 PM. So, I tried to get another couple of hours sleep but however hard I try I was not able to. I was feeling horrible and first thing that was coming on my mind was if you don't sleep well your score will drop by 100 points and this made me feel even worse. Some how, I mustered all the courage I could and went ahead for the exam.

As soon as I started on the essays, all the nervousness vanished and I felt I did well. Moved on to Quant, I was feeling good particularly about first 10-12 questions. I was also ahead of time by 4 minutes or so. Then I started getting very difficult questions. I got one Geometry DS question with very wierd shapes and I wasted lot of time on this particular question. As I looked at the time, I not only lost my 4-minute advantage and I was now 6 minutes behind the clock. I rushed through next bunch of questions few of them on number properties and a couple on Permutations and combinations and probability. I felt I nailed them. I started to see very easy questions particulary last 3 or 4, but had very little so had to guess them. Then took the break. All in all, I felt good that I may have done well in Quant. I cannot recollect verbal as vividly as Quant but only thing that I can remember is that I enjoyed RC passages and I felt I have done well on them. At the end of the verbal, I was really expecting some socre >= 640, but was very disappointed and dis-heartened to see a 590 (Q44, V28), sigh !!
I have worked so hard but so little to show for it !!

I have few questions. I am not sure why I have not been able to do as well as I would have liked. Is it only because I did not sleep well and relax well enough before the exam day? Was there something lacking in my preperation? I can understand not being able to achieve my target score of 700+ but I am not able to digest scoring as low as 590 !! Are all my practice test scores inflated? Since I had exhausted MGMAT CATs, the remaining CATs that I got had a few repeats. So, were the scores in these CATs inflated? But then, I had scored a 670 on MGMAT 6 which did not have any repeats.. So not sure....

As of now, I am thinking of taking a 2-months break and re-starting preperation for 3rd attempt. I am planning to give myself 3 months time and take exam some time in July. Any suggestions on how I should approach for my 3rd attempt?