Thanks for all the comments, guys. Here's the debrief...
About 3 months ago, I started out by taking a free online exam from MGMAT. My quantitative score wasn't great (41), but my verbal was good (45). I was expecting I'd do well on both--the quantitative because I have a solid math background from HS and college, and the verbal because I currently work as a writer (which means that my writing mechanics are pretty sharp, and I spend all day analyzing/picking apart written arguments). So while I was happy with my verbal score, my math score was disappointing.
So given what had happened, I decided that I could wing it on the verbal and focus on the quantitative section. The issue, then, was to identify exactly what had gone wrong on the Q section and address it. In looking over my test results, it became pretty clear that a couple of different issues were hurting me:
1. While I'm extremely comfortable playing around with algebraic formulas, I had forgotten about half of what I learned in school about geometry and number properties, so I was struggling on certain questions that dealt with those topics.
2. I couldn't keep up with the pace of the test-I was taking an eternity to finish each problem, and as a result, I was left guessing on a huge chunk of questions at the end
So to address problem #1, I ordered the Geometry and Number Properties guides from MGMAT and just took about a week-and-a-half to carefully go through them, internalize all of the material, and complete all of the exercises that they contained.
Once I had done that, I felt like I had a good grasp on all of the material I'd be seeing on the test, so it was time to address problem #2. The solution, I figured, would just be to take practice tests. I knew I could do the problems, and it was just a matter of getting my repetitions in and getting faster at doing the problems I could do. So I shot for taking 1 practice test each weekend-the MGMAT guides I bought gave me access to 5 practice tests, so I figured that when I had made it through all of those, I'd be ready to take the test for real. The realities of life ended up keeping me from adhering faithfully to the one-test-per-weekend schedule, but I managed to take practice tests frequently enough to keep myself from getting rusty, and, after a hiccup on the first practice test in the series of 5, my speed (and, accordingly, my scores) progressively improved, as I had hoped. The breakdown is shown below:
Test 1: 640 (Q 35, V 45)
Test 2: 740 (Q 47, V 45)
Test 3: 760 (Q 49, V 45)
Test 4: 750 (Q 48, V 45)
Test 5: 780 (Q 51, V 45)
So with all that having been done, I felt like I was as ready as I'd ever be for the test. The night before, I worked through a handful of practice problems from the MGMAT online question banks, just to maintain a little sharpness, and then I settled into bed and eased my way through two glasses of wine to help myself unwind and sleep a little more soundly.
Day of the exam comes, and I wake up, hang out on the couch for a while with my cat and watch ESPN's weekly soccer telecast from England (while simultaneously doing a little deep breathing to calm my nerves). Once that's over, I hop on the subway and head to the testing center in Boston's Back Bay. Go through the normal processing for test takers, and then I get sent to my computer terminal to get started. Argument essay comes up, and I'm nervous to start, but as I get into it, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of deconstructing it, and so my nerves fade a bit. Issue essay comes up, and I find myself short on ideas to write about. I throw together a fairly unimpressive essay, so I'm not feeling great about that, but I'm hoping I've done enough to get by. Next is the math section. I take way too long to do the first two problems, and so my stress level is rising, but I manage to make up ground over the next 10 questions or so, and I feel confident in my answers. By the time I get halfway through, I'm feeling pretty good, and things continue to go well more or less the rest of the way (although I do end up having to make educated guesses on my last two questions). On to the verbal section, then, and I feel like I have things pretty well under control throughout. Get my scores, very happy about them, a little nervous about the AWA, but what can you do? Overall, I did what I needed to do.
