I just Beat The GMAT!

I took my GMAT today after 2.5 months of preparation and the score fell a little short of what I was aiming for to say the least. I ideally wanted to get a 700 and my practice test scores were generally in the range. Basically what happened in verbal is that I started off too slow (double checking all the answers before I hit submit) and ran out of time in the end. In all my practice exams (MGMAT, GMAT prep) I've never scored a 31 in V. Towards the end of the exam today everything was a blur and I think I was panicking way too much. Anyway, since my score is balanced towards one side and I generally feel a little more comfortable with Math, what do you think I should do about my verbal?

I rescheduled the test for a month from now. I honestly think that will be enough time. I think the lesson learned today is to pace myself in verbal. Does anyone else here have a similar story where they ran out of time in verbal as well? I'm thinking that for the month I really should just focus on taking as many verbal sections timed as possible. At the same time I'm a little worried that I'm going to "forget" the math or something. So any suggestions on what to do? Maybe not double/triple checking my answers in the beginning of verbal would be a start. Seriously, any suggestions on how to improve verbal in a month (while keeping the math score the way it is) would be much appreciated.

my practice scores in verbal in MGMAT have been 38-40. In Gmat prep I was usually 38-44 (repeats towards the end). I'm pretty comfortable with sentence corrections and they take me the least amount of time. With critical reasonings I usually get it but they take me a little longer since I know there's a way the GMAT asks the question to get a particular type of answer. I'm even okay with the essays generally but I guess after you start off slow and you are trying to catch up it doesn't matter how you are with the material towards the end. You just end up panicking and filling in whatever you think.

Okay so to summarize, is there anyone out there who also freaked out in verbal and brought down their entire score? And what do you recommend for improving and making sure this never happens again?

Thanks
lyp206

A story resembling mine... always thought that verbal was my strongpoint..until the G-day.... came down with a thud, when I saw V28.

Well coming to think of it now, I wasted too much time in SC, leaving less time for CR ....

How am I trying to rectify?

Well, I have gone over the different strategies, picked up my speed...

now plan to do a mgmat test every weekend till july-end...and the AIM is to finish verbal in 70 minutes, so that no matter what is thrown on you on G-day, I m going to finish w/o guessing at the end....

And just remembered....

If you don't double check your answers during mock tests, then don't start doing that on G-day...

I did exactly that :oops:

My test experience was exactly the same. I managed to get a 36 V, but I should have been closer to the 40 range. I started out double checking every answer and around question 10 I realized I had wasted WAY too much time. I agree that becoming too worried about the beginning of the section truly hurts your score. Just practice timed tests and you should be fine in a month. I'm sure the experience of the first test has taught you a lot. Good luck!